The Riddle at Midnight

The pool was empty except for us and the reflection of the moon, fractured across the surface like something that had been dropped and poorly repaired. Elena sat on the edge, her legs submerged, the water ruining the expensive blowout she'd gotten before the gala. Her hair, usually so precise, now floated around her shoulders like seaweed.

"It's been three years," she said, not looking at me. "Since the miscarriage. Since we stopped talking about it."

I stood behind her, holding two glasses of wine I'd brought from the reception. The noise of the party faded to nothing here, just the distant hum of music and laughter from the ballroom above.

"I thought we agreed not to—"

"Not to what? Not to feel?" She turned then, and I saw her eyes were red-rimmed, her makeup smudging at the corners. "We play padel every Tuesday. We go to work. We maintain appearances. But inside, I feel like a goldfish in a bowl, swimming in circles, forgetting everything every seven seconds. Maybe that's a mercy."

I set the glasses down on the concrete and sat beside her. The heat radiating from her body was familiar, but the distance between us felt oceanic.

"The riddle of the sphinx," I said quietly. "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening. The answer is man. But nobody talks about what happens when the third leg breaks."

She looked at me then, really looked at me, for the first time in months. "Then you crawl," she said. "Or you don't. But you can't stay at sunset forever."

I reached for her hand, found it cold beneath the poolside air. "I'm sorry," I said. "For the silences. For the padel games I treated like therapy. For thinking if we moved forward fast enough, the past wouldn't catch up."

Elena squeezed my fingers, her grip tight enough to hurt. "The past doesn't chase us," she said. "It waits." She stood up, water streaming from her legs, and pulled me up with her. "Come inside. The sun's coming up."

I followed her toward the hotel, leaving the glasses half-full on the edge of the pool, the water still and dark behind us, holding our reflections for just a moment longer before the light changed everything.