Riddles by the Pool

The hotel pool glittered like liquid sapphire at midnight. Elena sat on the edge, legs submerged, watching Tom pace the deck with the contained energy of a storm about to break.

"You're like a sphinx," he said finally. "Impossible to read. I ask you a simple question and you give me riddles."

"The question wasn't simple." She trailed her fingers through the water. "Neither is the answer."

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Lightning flashed—a sudden, violent illumination of Tom's face, all sharp angles and quiet desperation.

They'd come to this Mexican resort to save their marriage. Somewhere between spinach salads at lunch and poolside margaritas at sunset, they'd managed to avoid talking about the elephant in the room: Tom's affair with his junior associate, the one he swore meant nothing, the one that had hollowed Elena out like a termite-ridden beam.

"I'm ending it," Tom said now. "The job, the—everything. I want to start over."

Elena laughed, a short, sharp sound. "You want to be the man who makes the grand gesture. The hero of your own redemption story."

"I'm trying." His voice cracked. "Isn't that worth something?"

She pulled her legs from the pool and stood, water dripping from her skin like tears. "The problem with sphinxes, Tom, is that their riddles have answers. You're still asking the wrong questions."

The storm broke. Rain sheeted down, sudden and warm. They stood motionless as the pool's smooth surface fractured into chaotic ripples, their reflections distorting beyond recognition.

"What should I be asking?" Tom shouted over the thunder.

Elena walked toward their room, not looking back. "Not whether I can forgive you. Whether I should still love you enough to bother trying."

The sphinx remained silent. Some riddles, she realized, answered themselves.