Riddles in the Kitchen

The radio droned with the bottom of the ninth, some baseball game Elias didn't care about, but he kept it on anyway. Background noise. Something to fill the silence that had grown between him and Sarah like a tumor—benign at first, then slowly, inexorably malignant.

He chopped spinach with methodical precision, the knife's rhythm matching the announcer's cadence. Green leaves collapsed under the blade. Sarah used to call him her sphinx, inscrutable and mysterious, back when mystery was romantic. Now she just called him distant.

"You're always running," she'd said that morning, her voice cracking like thin ice. "Running from what?"

From yourself, he hadn't answered. From the realization that thirty years had passed and he still didn't know who he was supposed to be. The spinach went into the pan, wilting instantly—a lifetime of hope reduced to greens in seconds.

The radio crowd roared. Someone hit a home run. Elias felt nothing.

He remembered their wedding day, how she'd laughed when he'd managed to say "I do" without stuttering. How they'd danced poorly, joyfully, how she'd whispered, "You're my riddle I'll never solve."

Now she'd stopped trying to solve him.

The front door clicked. Sarah's key in the lock. His heart hammered—he was running again, even standing still. But tonight, he decided, he would stop. He would stand still and let whatever came next happen.

The sphinx would finally speak.

"Elias?" Her voice from the hallway.

He turned off the stove. Turned toward her voice. "In here."

The spinach was ready. The game had ended. And for the first time in years, he wasn't running anywhere.