The Last Riddle

The sphinx statue on the mantle watched us eat, its stone eyes catching the last light of our seventh anniversary dinner. Marcus had bought it in Egypt three years ago—during the months I now thought of as his Great Absence, though he called it a 'spiritual pilgrimage.' The statue's broken wing seemed to mock the fractures in our marriage.

"How's the spinach?" he asked, gesturing with his wine glass.

"Fine." It wasn't fine. The cream sauce had separated, just like we had. But I swallowed it anyway, the way I'd swallowed everything for years: his missed calls, his business trips that always seemed to extend by days, his increasingly frequent mentions of Her capitalization—Sophia, his business partner, whose name now lived in our mouth like something sacred.

Outside, lightning cracked the sky open, illuminating the dust on the wine bottles we'd never finished. The storm had been building all afternoon, the air thick with that particular pressure before something breaks.

"I saw her today," I said, setting down my fork. "At the grocery store. She was buying spinach."

Marcus went still. The sphinx seemed to lean forward.

"She asked about you," I continued. "Asked if you still liked that creamed spinach recipe. The one I make, I mean. She seemed to think it was her recipe."

The lightning struck closer now, thunder shaking the windows. I waited for him to deny it, to laugh, to accuse me of paranoia—the usual defenses. Instead, he reached for the wine bottle, his hand trembling slightly.

"Elena—"

"Don't." I stood up, my chair scraping against the hardwood. "The sphinx asked its riddle, Marcus. And you chose wrong."

He looked at me then, really looked at me, for the first time in months. But it was too late. The answer to the riddle had been standing in front of him all along, and he'd already solved it—by choosing someone else's mystery instead.

I walked out into the storm, letting the rain wash away the taste of spinach and seven years of secrets. Behind me, through the window, I saw him still sitting at the table, alone with the stone sphinx and its eternal, knowing smile.