The Riddle After Dark

The CAT scan results lay on the kitchen table like a dead thing. Sarah stared at them while Micah made dinner, the rhythmic chopping of onions and spinach the only sound in their apartment. The coaxial cable from the wall dangled loose where Micah had pulled it free three days ago—no more news, no more outside world creeping in.

"Your hair is getting long," Micah said, setting down a plate of steaming pasta. His hand hovered near her head, then retreated. He hadn't touched her since the diagnosis.

"It'll fall out soon anyway," Sarah said, not looking at him. "The chemo starts Monday."

The silence stretched until it became something physical between them. Sarah remembered the riddle of the sphinx—what walks on four legs, then two, then three? The answer was man. But nobody talked about what came after the third leg, when you needed four again and couldn't remember how to use them.

She watched Micah push spinach around his plate. He used to make jokes about her hair, how it caught the light, how it smelled like coconut and vanilla. Now he couldn't look at her.

"Are you going to leave?" she asked, the question hanging like the loose cable, disconnected and dangerous.

Micah's fork clattered against his plate. "I thought about it," he said, his voice raw. "I Googled survival rates. I read about how marriages fall apart after diagnosis. I got drunk last Tuesday and almost didn't come home."

Sarah's throat tightened. She'd suspected. She'd waited.

"But then I remembered you stealing my spinach at that restaurant in Chicago," Micah said, a weak smile surfacing. "And how you laughed when I pretended to be mad. And I thought—if I'm going to lose you, I'd rather it be because the disease takes you, not because I was too chickenshit to stay."

He reached across the table and took her hand. His palm was warm, solid. Real.

"I'm scared," Sarah whispered.

"Me too," Micah said. "But we figure out the riddle together. That's the point."

Outside, the city hummed against their windows. The cable would remain disconnected. The spinach would grow cold. But for the first time in days, Sarah didn't feel like she was walking alone into the dark.