Sphinx by the Pool

Frank watched his daughter cut through the water, her stroke perfect, relentless. She was seventeen now, and this was her last swimming competition before college. The pool sat at the center of an Egyptian-themed resort — his ex-wife's idea, somewhere she'd always wanted to stay. A concrete sphinx guarded the shallow end, its limestone face cracked, its riddle long forgotten.

Frank had thinning hair now. He ran his hand through it, feeling the scalp beneath, remembering when it had been thick enough for women to run their fingers through. Now the only woman who touched it was his barber, and she never complimented it anymore.

"She's got your lungs," a voice said beside him.

Frank turned. It was Brian, his ex-wife's boyfriend. Former baseball player, minor leagues, Frank recalled. A man whose body had been his livelihood, now softening around the middle, though his shoulders still suggested power.

"She's got her mother's drive," Frank said. "That's what matters."

The sphinx seemed to stare at them both. Frank wondered what riddle it would ask them. What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening? Man. But what about the creature who watches his daughter grow from a distance, who pays for swimming lessons and never sees her practice, who loves her from the cheap seats?

"You know," Brian said, "I played baseball for twelve years. Thought I'd be in the majors by twenty-five. Life hits you different than a fastball, though."

Frank nodded. His daughter touched the wall, first place. She didn't look for him in the crowd.

"She knows you're here," Brian said softly. "That's why she swims faster."

The sphinx remained silent. Some riddles answer themselves, Frank realized. Not with words, but with the way a daughter surfaces from the water, gasping, triumphant, and finally looks up to meet her father's eyes across all that distance, all that time, acknowledging finally that he never left.