Sphinx in the Garden

The iPhone pinged at 2:47 AM — her third consecutive night of checking his location, knowing it would show him at the padel club where they'd first met, seven years and two broken promises ago. Elena stared at the blue dot pulsing on the screen, then at the sphinx statue in their garden, its stone face eroded by three winters of neglect, much like her marriage.

"She's just a friend," Julian had said three months ago, squeezing an orange so hard its juice ran down his wrist, staining his white cufflinks. "We play padel together. That's all."

Their golden retriever, Max, pressed his warm weight against her leg — the only living thing that still touched her without hesitation. The dog had been a wedding gift from Julian's mother, who'd warned her about men who played padel with women named Sofia.

The sphinx had been Julian's addition to the garden. "Riddles, Elena — life is just riddles we're too scared to answer," he'd said while pouring the concrete base, drunk on expensive gin and the arrogance of a man who'd never known real loss.

Now, at 3 AM, the iPhone lit up again. Not a location check this time. A message.

*I'm not coming back.*

Elena stood up, Max following silently. She walked to the sphinx, trailing her fingers across its limestone surface, feeling where rain had worn away the riddle carved into its base. The answer hadn't mattered anyway. The riddle was just another way of postponing the truth.

Behind her, the iPhone's screen dimmed to black. In the kitchen, she found the orange she'd bought three days ago, its skin already beginning to wrinkle. She peeled it slowly, each strip of zest falling like the last pieces of something she'd been carrying far too long.

Max watched, tail thumping softly against the cabinet. Outside, the sphinx kept its eternal silence, its erosion complete. The orange tasted bitter and sweet all at once, and for the first time in months, Elena didn't reach for her phone to document the moment. Some riddles, she finally understood, were meant to remain unanswered.