Silence at the Sphinx

The sphinx had been watching him for three days now. Its limestone face, eroded by decades of desert winds before someone had the bright idea to install it by the pool at the Mirage Resort, seemed to know exactly what he'd lost.

David sat on the lanai with his third gin and tonic, watching the pool lights refract through the water. Children screamed somewhere. A couple argued in hushed tones two rooms over. This was supposed to be a celebration—twenty years at the firm, and what did he have to show for it? An ex-wife who'd taken everything but his dignity, and a daughter who hadn't spoken to him since he missed her college graduation for a client meeting.

He thought about baseball. Specifically, he thought about the last game he'd taken Emma to when she was twelve. He'd spent the entire seventh inning on his phone, closing some deal that probably didn't matter anymore. She'd stopped asking after that.

"Dad?"

The voice was so vivid he almost turned around. But there was no one. Just the sphinx, inscrutable as ever, and his own hollow reflection in the sliding glass door.

Lightning cracked across the desert sky, sudden and violent. The storm had been brewing for hours, the air thick with that charged stillness that makes your hair stand on end. Rain began to fall—hard, warm drops that hissed against the pool deck.

He should go inside. He should finish his drink and call it a night. Instead, he walked out into the storm, letting the rain soak through his shirt, washing away the chlorine smell and the stale scent of his own regret.

The sphinx seemed to smile in the flash of another lightning strike. Or maybe that was just the gin talking.

David pulled his phone from his pocket, water running down the screen, and dialed Emma's number.

It rang. Once. Twice.

"Dad?" Her voice was cautious. "Is everything okay?"

"No," he said, and the honesty of it surprised him. "But I'm working on it."

Rain poured down around him, and for the first time in years, he felt something like hope.