The Final Set

The padel ball cracked against the glass wall, that sharp sound that had become the soundtrack to our unraveling. Elena wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, avoiding my eyes. We'd been playing together for three years, just like we'd been married for seven, and somewhere around game four, I realized she was letting me win.

'Shit shot,' she muttered, though we both knew it wasn't.

The sphinx of the situation was this: I could ask her what was wrong, or I could keep taking the easy victories. Some riddles you solve by walking away from them.

After the match, we sat on the bench outside the club. Our golden retriever, Buster, lay panting at our feet—faithful, uncomplicated, unable to comprehend that his owners were two strangers who happened to share a mortgage. I rested my hand on his head, the solid warmth of him, the simple comfort of a creature who would never look at you like you were the wrong answer to a question he'd stopped asking years ago.

'I can't bear the silence anymore,' Elena said, staring at her worn padel racket. 'Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever again.'

The bartender at the club's terrace brought us two gin and tonics. He asked if we were celebrating something—a victory, maybe. An anniversary.

'No,' Elena said. 'Just finishing what we started.'

I watched the dog chase a butterfly near the fence, his tail wagging with a joy that had nothing to do with outcomes. He didn't care who won the match. He only cared that we were both there, that we would both go home together, that the pack remained intact.

The real sphinx, I understood then, wasn't whether to ask the question. It was whether I could bear the answer.

'Your move,' I told her, and meant so much more than the game.

She took my hand across the small table. Her palm was calloused from the racket, familiar and terrifying. 'I don't want to play anymore.'

The dog curled between our feet, nose on paws, ready to follow either of us anywhere, or both of us nowhere at all. Some loves, I realized, were like that—unconditional, enduring, but unable to save you from yourself.