Riddles in the Padel Court

The divorce papers sat on the kitchen counter for three weeks before Marcus finally signed them. In that time, I started playing padel at the club downtown — something to fill the silence of our too-empty house. The game became a strange comfort: the enclosed court, the rhythmic thwack of ball against wall, the enforced partnerships with strangers who asked no questions.

Then came the night I found him at our usual spot. Not Marcus. The new guy, Rafael — dark-eyed, watchful, like a sphinx guarding some ancient tomb of secrets. We were matched for mixed doubles, his movements fluid and precise, mine stuttering and anxious. Afterward, he bought me a drink and asked about the faded baseball cap I still wore, Marcus's old Yankees hat pulled low over my eyes whenever it rained.

"My husband's," I'd said, even though the papers were signed, even though Marcus had moved to Seattle.

"Ex-husband?" Rafael's eyebrows rose slightly.

"It's complicated."

Isn't everything?

We started seeing each other — padel matches that turned into dinners, dinners that turned into nights at his apartment. Rafael remained sphinx-like, revealing little about himself. He loved enigmas, he said. He loved women who carried their ghosts like perfume.

The stray cat appeared three months later — a scrawny calico with one ear missing, who made her home on Rafael's balcony and watched us through the sliding glass doors while we made love or argued or lay sleepless in the dark. Rafael named her Mystery, which made me laugh until I realized he wasn't joking.

Then came the baseball game. Rafael surprised me with tickets — Giants vs. Dodgers, box seats. The seventh inning stretch found me crying into my beer, overwhelmed by the sudden crushing memory of Marcus and me at Fenway, ten years earlier, the way he'd looked at me like I was the only thing worth knowing in this whole enormous world.

Rafael's hand found mine in the dark. His face, usually unreadable, cracked open. "You're still in love with him."

"I don't know what I am."

"That," he said, "is the only honest thing you've said to me."

The cat was gone when we returned to his apartment. The balcony empty. I left too, walking home alone under streetlights that made everything look like a photograph overexposed, all hard shadows and washed-out color.

Marcus called the next morning. Seattle hadn't worked out. He was coming back. Did I want to get coffee?

I put on the Yankees hat and went to the padel court alone, hitting ball after ball against the wall until my arm ached, until the rhythm of it was the only thing I could feel. The sphinx had no answers for me this time. Some riddles you solve by walking away. Some, you solve by walking back toward whatever nearly broke you.

The cat reappeared on my balcony two days later. She looked at me like she'd been waiting. I let her in.