Sphinx at the Empty Pool

The hotel pool was closed, its blue surface still and chlorinated. Elena sat on the edge, legs dangling in the water, while Marcus stood nearby running a hand through his thinning hair. They'd both survived another brutal quarter at the firm.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Marcus said, sitting beside her.

"I've been thinking about Linda. Remember how she called herself the sphinx of the trading floor? Always smiling, never revealing what she knew?" Elena's voice cracked. "She killed herself two weeks ago."

Marcus went silent. Linda had been their friend, the one who made everyone laugh during eighteen-hour days. She'd wrapped her car around a tree, leaving behind a note the company buried faster than the bad press.

"The bull market's been running for twelve years," Marcus said finally. "We've all pretended it would never end. Like we're immortal."

"I'm pregnant."

The words hung between them like smoke. Elena was thirty-eight, single, married to the job. Her hair was starting to gray at the temples from three years of stress-induced insomnia.

"Does Tom know?" Tom was the department head, twice-divorced, currently sleeping with a junior analyst.

"I haven't decided anything yet." She traced patterns in the water. "But I realized something tonight. Linda asked me once: 'What would you do if money didn't matter?' And I couldn't answer her."

Marcus laughed softly. "The sphinx's riddle. She asked me the same thing, back when she got promoted over me. I told her I'd open a bookstore. She said she wanted to paint."

"And instead we both stayed, competing to be the biggest bull in the pen." Elena pulled her legs from the water. "I don't want my child to grow up watching a mother who can't answer that question."

The pool lights flickered off, leaving them in darkness from the city beyond.

"So what now?" Marcus asked.

"Now I answer the riddle." She stood up. "I'm leaving, Marcus. Not tomorrow—my equity vests in six months. But I'm leaving. I need you to promise me something."

"Anything."

"Don't wait until you're forty to figure out what you'd do if money didn't matter."

Marcus watched her walk away, her silhouette framed against the skyline, and realized she was right. He pulled out his phone and booked a flight to see his sister for the first time in three years. The sphinx's riddle had claimed another victim, but this time, someone had actually solved it.