Riddles in the Infield

The baseball field had that particular quality of empty places at dusk — melancholy and vast. Sarah sat in the bleachers alone, her iPhone lighting her face with that sick blue glow that's become the color of waiting.

David should have been here twenty minutes ago. He'd promised. Promised he'd leave work early, promised they'd watch the stars come out over the outfield fence the way they used to, back when they were twenty-two and the world felt configurable.

Her phone screen showed his last message: *Running late. Sphinx of a client. Can't talk.*

The sphinx. That's what David called clients who asked impossible questions without context, who sat on their metaphorical pedestals and demanded answers while offering nothing in return. *Eat the wrong person,* he'd say, *and the whole kingdom falls to ruins.*

Sarah found herself thinking about Oedipus, how he'd answered the riddle and thought he'd won, but the real tragedy was just beginning. The sphinx's silence after the answer was more devastating than the question.

A baseball rolled slowly across the infield, abandoned by some practice hours ago. She remembered how David had explained the game to her once — the geometry of it, the way the infield formed a perfect diamond of possibility, everything collapsing toward home. *That's where we're all headed,* he'd said, *back to the beginning, hoping we're safe.*

Her iPhone buzzed. Not a text. A calendar notification: *Couples Counseling - 7pm tomorrow.*

She'd scheduled it three weeks ago. He'd never acknowledged the invite.

The sphinx's riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?

David's version: What walks into marriage hopeful, stands in the middle alone, and leaves carrying everything they own?

The baseball came to rest against second base. Someone's kid would be looking for it tomorrow. Something would be lost, something would be found, and the field would still be here, patient and enormous, holding all the stories that never quite finished the way you thought they would.

Sarah typed a message, deleted it. Typed another: *The sphinx ate another one.*

Sent it.

Then she turned off her phone and watched the actual stars come out, the ones that didn't need anyone's permission to shine.