Teeth and Riddles

The spinach leaf lodged between Marcus's front tooth and gum had become, in Elena's mind, a metaphor for their entire marriage.

She watched him across the candlelit table of their anniversary dinner, that green fragment waving like a tiny flag with every forkful of his risotto. He hadn't noticed. Of course he hadn't. Marcus moved through life with the confidence of a man who never checked mirrors, never wondered how he appeared to others. He chewed enthusiastically, told a story about his workplace merger, laughed — that spinach flapping like a trapped moth.

"You know," Elena said, interrupting him. The orange sunset through the restaurant windows cast everything in a sickly amber light. "I asked you a question three weeks ago."

Marcus paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. "What question?"

"Whether you still wanted children. Whether you still wanted *us* to want children."

He set down the fork. The spinach remained, grotesque and steadfast. "Elena, we discussed this. We agreed to wait until my promotion came through."

"That was two years ago, Marcus. The promotion came. The goalposts moved. They always move."

He sighed, that familiar sound — part resignation, part condescension. "You're overthinking again. We're happy. Look at us. Eight years, beautiful dinner, good wine—"

"Are we?" She leaned forward. "Or are we just comfortable?"

The waiter appeared to refill their wine glasses, mercifully breaking the moment. When he left, Elena said quietly, "You know what the Great Sphinx asked Oedipus? 'What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?' A riddle with one answer. But us, Marcus — we're not a riddle with one answer. We're not a riddle at all. We're just two people who forgot how to ask questions."

He stared at her, and for the first time that evening, he looked in the mirror she was holding up. His hand went to his mouth. He pulled out the spinach.

"I had no idea," he said, but they both knew he meant more than the spinach.

"Neither did I," she said. "Neither did I."

The orange light deepened to red. In the silence that followed, Elena realized she wasn't angry anymore. She was just tired, and that was worse. She picked up her wine glass, swirled the deep liquid, and wondered what came after the sphinx's answer — after the riddle was solved and nothing changed at all.