The Last Good Pyramid

Margot stared at the plastic pyramid of vitamins on her kitchen counter—supplements she'd promised herself she'd start taking after forty, after the diagnosis, after she finally decided to give a damn about living well. Her phone buzzed. Richard's name illuminated the screen.

"Did you book the flights?" he asked, skipping hello. They were discussing this Egypt trip like it might save what twenty-two years of marriage had slowly eroded.

"Working on it."

"Work's been a bear this week. I can't think about anything else."

She looked at Cleo, their aging cat, who'd taken to sleeping on Richard's pillow since he moved into the guest room. The cat knew something Margot had resisted admitting: they were roommates now, not lovers. The sphinx had been Richard's joke nickname for her in the early years—mysterious, inscrutable, withholding answers he'd never learned to ask properly. Now the silence between them felt less like enigma and more like surrender.

"My mother called," she said instead of answering about the flights. "She asked if we're happy."

Richard's pause stretched thin. "That's—that's not a question you can really answer."

"Isn't it?"

She thought about the vitamins again—B12 for energy, D for mood, omega-3s for a heart that still felt bruised from the miscarriage they'd never properly mourned. Each capsule a tiny promise to keep going, even when going felt like dragging yourself uphill through sand.

"The Great Sphinx," she said suddenly. "It's been staring at the same desert for 4,500 years. You think it's happy?"

"Jesus, Margot. Not this existential shit again."

"No, really. It watches everyone come and go. Dynasties rise and fall around it, and it just... bears witness. Is that enough?"

"I have a meeting."

"Richard."

"What."

"I'm not taking the vitamins anymore."

The silence that followed was different—heavier, like something had finally dropped between them that had been suspended in the air for years.

"Okay," he said softly. "Okay."

She booked one ticket to Cairo that afternoon. Cleo purred against her ankle as she packed, and Margot realized she'd been sphinx-like for too long—holding answers inside her heart while waiting for someone to care enough to ask the right questions. Some riddles you solve yourself. Some pyramids you enter alone.