The Last Cocktail at the Oasis

The pyramid scheme had collapsed six months ago, taking with it Maya's savings, her dignity, and almost her marriage. Now she sat by the pool at this overpriced Egyptian resort, watching the water lap against the tiles while Marcus pretended to read on the chaise beside her. They'd come here on what the travel agent called a 'rediscovery package' — code for relationships hovering on the edge of dissolution.

'I'm going to get another drink,' Marcus said, not looking up from his book.

Maya watched him walk toward the bar, where that redheaded woman — some corporate fox from London who'd been making eyes at him since check-in — was already perched on a stool. The woman laughed, tossing her hair. Marcus smiled back.

The fertility pills sat in Maya's purse like a accusation. Three years of injections, vitamins, timing, prayer. Her doctor had said stress reduction was essential now. 'Take this time,' she'd suggested, as if time were something Maya could afford.

The Great Sphinx rose from the desert beyond the pool, half-buried in sand, its face eroded by millennia of wind and indifference. Maya thought about riddles and answers, about how the ancient Egyptians had built pyramids to achieve immortality, and now they were just backdrops for cocktails and mid-life crises.

She touched her stomach. The thought had been taking shape for weeks, unspoken between them like the third person in the room. They were thirty-eight and forty-one. The window was closing, or already closed.

Marcus returned with two drinks, the redhead still watching from the bar.

'Maya,' he said, setting down the glasses. 'We need to talk.'

'About the vitamins?' she asked, surprising herself. 'Because I think I'm done.'

He sat beside her, his hand finding hers in the blinding Egyptian sun. 'I was going to say I cancelled the return flight.'

She looked at him, really looked, and saw for the first time that he wasn't leaving her for the fox or anything else. He was offering something else entirely. Not a child, but a future.

'The sphinx lost its nose,' she said finally. 'But it's still here.'

'Then we'll be here too,' Marcus said.

They sat together as the sun began to set over the pyramids, and for the first time in three years, Maya felt something like peace.