The Riddle at Dinner

The cat wound through Elena's legs as she stood at the counter, chopping spinach with mechanical precision. The window reflected her tired face back at her—thirty-eight, and this dinner with Marcus felt like a final exam she hadn't studied for.

Marcus was already at the table, nursing his second glass of wine. He'd spent the last three months like a **bull** in a china shop, charging through their marriage with accusations about work hours, missed calls, the distance between them that neither could name. Tonight was meant to fix it. Or confirm what Elena already knew.

"Your mother's recipe," he said, not looking up. "Nice touch."

"It's just spinach, Marcus."

"Everything's just something with you lately." His voice was flat, the anger worn down to something worse—indifference.

She brought the bowls to the table. Outside, their neighbor's **palm** tree cast long shadows across the patio, fronds like skeletal fingers against the glass. They'd bought this house together four years ago, when they still believed love was something you could build like furniture, following instructions, ending up with something sturdy.

"I saw your therapist's name on the credit card statement," he said.

Elena's stomach tightened. "I was going to tell you."

"When? After you figured out the answers?" He gestured at her with his fork. "You treat this marriage like it's a **sphinx** with some riddle I'm supposed to solve, but you won't even tell me what the question is."

"The question is whether we're happy, Marcus. Whether either of us is happy."

"Oh, we're answering that tonight? That's the plan?"

The cat jumped onto the table, sniffing at Elena's untouched bowl. She didn't shoo it away.

"No," she said quietly. "The plan was dinner. The answer has been here for months. You just don't want to see it."

Marcus set down his fork. For a moment, the silence between them felt heavy, almost physical—the weight of unsaid things, of disappointments that had calcified into expectations. Finally, he nodded, once.

"Yeah," he said. "I suppose it has."

Outside, the wind moved through the palm tree. Somewhere distant, a car passed. Neither of them moved to touch their food.