Sphinx in the Orange Seats

The orange sky bruised purple above the stadium as Marcos reached for Elena's hand. She pulled away, her attention fixed on the field where the pitcher wound up, threw a strike that the batter didn't even acknowledge. Another meaningless moment in a meaningless game.

"You're like a sphinx," Marcos said, not looking at her. "Silent. Impossible to read. I ask you what's wrong, and you give me nothing but riddles or silence."

Elena turned to him then, and in the dying light, her face was composed, mysterious as any ancient statue. "Some questions don't have answers, Marcos. Not ones you'd want to hear."

The baseball cracked against bat — a clean hit that sent the runner sprinting toward first. The crowd roared, but the sound seemed distant, swallowed by the vast emptiness growing between them on the orange plastic seat.

He'd brought her here because this was where they'd first met, three years ago. A coworker had extra tickets. Elena had spent seven innings explaining the game to him, her hands painting complicated arcs in the air as she described the geometry of base-running. She'd been vibrant then, passionate, her orange scarf bright against the drab stadium gray.

Now she sat beside him like a stranger wearing his wife's skin.

"Is it someone else?" The question tasted like copper.

"No." She stood up, gathering her purse. "It's not someone else. It's that I don't recognize myself when I'm with you anymore. I used to be interesting. I used to have thoughts that weren't about your schedule, your moods, your needs."

The baseball game continued behind her, inconsequential and eternal.

"I'm going home," Elena said. "To figure out who the sphinx really is — you or me."

She walked up the aisle, her figure silhouetted against the orange glow of the concession stands, and Marcos understood suddenly that some riddles answer themselves, but only after you've stopped asking.