Riddles on the Tongue

Maya sat alone at the corner table, nursing her third martini, watching the door. The restaurant's centerpiece—a bronze sphinx sculpture—seemed to mock her with its enigmatic smile. Three years of marriage, reduced to waiting like a character in some Greek tragedy. The riddle wasn't what he'd done. The riddle was why she was still here.

Her salad arrived. Spinach leaves glistened with vinaigrette, dark as secrets. She'd stopped at his office earlier, unannounced, and found him in what she'd thought was their special place—a tiny papaya-colored room above the bookstore where they'd first kissed. But he hadn't been alone. The memory burned like acid.

"You look like you're plotting murder," said a voice.

Marcus. Finally. He smelled of whiskey and expensive cologne, the scent that used to make her weak in the knees. Now it just made her tired. He sat, signaled the waiter for another round.

"I'm not plotting anything," Maya said. "I'm done plotting. I'm done chasing. I'm done with the bull, Marcus."

He laughed, that charming, boyish laugh that had captured her heart at twenty-two. "Always so dramatic. It's not what you think—"

"Then tell me what it is," she said, her voice steady. "Tell me why you were in our room with her. Tell me why you lied about where you were last Tuesday. And Wednesday. And—God, this whole month." She pushed her spinach away, appetite gone. "Be straight with me for once. No more riddles."

The sphinx watched from its pedestal. The restaurant noise faded to a hum. Somewhere, glass shattered.

Marcus's face changed. The charm fell away, leaving something raw and frightened. "I'm leaving," he said. "After the gallery opening next week. I accepted the position in Berlin."

The air left the room. Maya's fingers gripped the stem of her glass until her knuckles turned white. All this time, she'd been preparing herself to forgive an affair. But this—this was something else. This was her husband, five years gone, planning his exit without a word.

"The papaya trees bloom differently there," he added, absurdly, as if geographic trivia could mend this. "We could start fresh—"

"We?" Maya whispered. Then louder: "There is no we. There hasn't been for months. Maybe years."

She stood up, knees trembling. She could feel the room's eyes on her. Let them look. Let the sphinx mock her. She'd been trapped in someone else's narrative long enough.

"Goodbye, Marcus. Have a wonderful life in Berlin."

She walked out into the cold night air, spinning toward whatever came next, finally asking her own questions for once.