The Longest Inning

Mara sat on the balcony, her palm slick with condensation from the sweating glass of orange juice she'd been nursing for an hour. Below, the **baseball** game flickered on the television set Daniel had rigged up with a coaxial **cable** that snaked through the sliding door. He'd fixed it three months ago, during that brief window when they were still trying.

The sphinx moth battering against the glass seemed like some kind of omen. **Sphinx**, she thought. Greek mythology was full of them—creatures who asked riddles you couldn't answer, who devoured you when you failed.

"You're doing it again," Daniel said from the doorway. His voice was flat, tired. "That thing where you disappear inside your head."

She set down the juice. "I'm thinking about Egypt."

"Egypt." He didn't ask why. They'd had this conversation too many times—the trip they'd never taken, the marriage they'd postponed until the timing was better, until the promotion came through, until they were ready. Some things, you were never ready for.

"The Great Sphinx," she said. "It's been sitting there for four thousand years, watching empires rise and fall. It doesn't care about our problems."

Daniel leaned against the doorframe, the outfield floodlights from the television painting his face in washes of blue. "What if we stopped waiting? What if I quit the firm? We could go next week."

Mara's heart did something complicated—hope and fear tangled together. This was what she'd wanted, wasn't it? But wanting it and having it were different things. The future was abstract. A plane ticket was real.

"You hate uncertainty," she said softly.

"I hate waking up at forty wondering what happened more." The orange sun was rising now, painting everything in that strange, suspended color between night and day. He moved closer, took her hand. His palm was warm, calloused from years of holding things he wouldn't talk about.

"The riddle's not about the answer," Daniel said. "It's about asking the question."

Mara watched the sphinx moth finally find the crack in the glass and slip outside into the dawn. Some creatures survived by adapting. Others by staying exactly what they were.

"Book the tickets," she said.

Below them, the baseball game went into extra innings. Behind them, the first true light of morning broke over the city. For the first time in three years, they were exactly where they were.