The Palm Reader's Last Riddle

Maya hadn't spoken to Elena in three years, not since the night at the warehouse party when Elena had leaned in too close, her palm pressed against Maya's cheek, and whispered that she'd been sleeping with Maya's husband. The betrayal had burned like acid, searing through their fifteen-year friendship until nothing remained but scar tissue.

Now Maya stood before the sphinx of riddles at the Egyptian exhibit, her breath catching at how much the carved limestone face resembled Elena—the same unreadable eyes, the same slight curl of the lip suggesting secrets. The sphinx had guarded its mysteries for four thousand years. Elena had guarded hers for fifteen months.

The gallery was nearly empty. Maya had come on a Tuesday afternoon, needing the quiet. She'd started seeing a therapist who kept talking about 'closure' as if it were something you could purchase at the pharmacy.

'Excuse me.'

Maya turned. Elena stood there, wearing that cream coat she'd always loved, palm raised in hesitant greeting. The coincidence felt orchestrated, fated, the kind of thing that happened in movies but not in life.

'I heard you and David divorced,' Elena said.

'May sixteenth.'

Elena nodded. She looked at the sphinx. 'She asks a riddle, doesn't she? The sphinx. What walks on four legs, then two, then—'

'Your riddle was worse,' Maya cut in. 'What kind of friend—'

'He told me he'd already left you.' Elena's voice cracked. 'That you were staying together for appearances. That the marriage had been dead for years.' She touched her palm to her forehead. 'I believed him because I wanted to. Because I'd been in love with him since college, and he finally noticed me. Maya—' She stepped closer. 'I lost everything. You, him, the baby I miscarried at eight weeks. I didn't tell anyone. I just—I've been walking on three legs, I think. Crawling.'

The sphinx watched them both, its riddle unanswered.

Maya remembered reading about Oedipus, how he'd solved the sphinx's puzzle through arrogance, how the creature had destroyed herself rather than surrender her secrets. Some riddles, once answered, left only wreckage behind.

'The answer is man,' Maya said softly. 'That's the riddle's answer. What we all are, regardless of how many legs we're standing on.' She reached out, palm open. 'I don't know if I can forgive you. But I don't want to be alone with the sphinx anymore.'

Elena took her hand. Their palms pressed together, sweat and warmth and the echo of fifteen years before everything broke. Maybe some riddles had no solution. Maybe you just kept asking them anyway.