Riddles in the Water

The fertility specialist's office had an aquarium in the waiting room—three goldfish swimming in endless circles around a plastic castle. Sarah watched them while David paced, his baseball cap pulled low. Three years of trying. Three years of vitamins, injections, carefully timed ovulation kits.

"What did the sphinx ask again?" David said suddenly, stopping his pacing.

"'What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening.'" Sarah didn't look away from the fish. "The answer is man. We crawl, we walk, we lean on canes."

"The riddle's wrong," he said. "Some people never make it to the third part."

She turned then. David's father had died at forty-two. Same age they were now. The genetic counselor had mentioned it casually, like commenting on the weather.

That night, they went to the pool where they'd met—college swimmers, both of them, back when their bodies did what they were supposed to. The water was cold. Sarah floated on her back, watching the moon blur and sharpen above her. When had they become a riddle without an answer?

David dove in, surfacing beside her. "I'm done, Sarah. The shots, the waiting, the—"

"The hoping?"

"The hoping. It's eating us alive."

She treaded water, watching the ripples spread outward like rings in a tree trunk. "So that's it? We just stop?"

"We start living again. Remember living?"

She thought about their twenties—swimming meets turned into drinking dates, David's baseball cap collection on the dresser, the way he'd looked at her across the locker room that first day. They'd been so sure of the shape their lives would take.

"And if we regret it?" she asked. "When we're old, leaning on our canes—"

"Then we'll regret it together." He reached for her hand underwater. "Better than regretting it alone."

She took his hand. The sphinx's riddle had another answer: some things don't change at all. We're always swimming, always asking, always reaching for something just beyond our fingers.

They climbed out of the pool, dripping wet, shivering in the night air. Somewhere, goldfish were swimming their circles. Somewhere, a sphinx kept its secrets. They drove home in silence, holding hands across the center console, not knowing what came next, but knowing, at least, they'd find out together.