The Riddle at the Deep End

The hotel pool glittered like a misplaced jewel in the desert heat, its blue water calling to Elena as she stood on the balcony, nursing her third drink. Inside, David was already asleep, the television flickering silently against the darkened room. She'd told herself this vacation would save them—that a week away from the mortgage payments and the silent dinners would somehow repair what had broken between them, but three days in, they'd barely spoken a hundred words to each other.

She descended to the pool deck, where a concrete sphinx stared impassively at the empty lounge chairs, its riddle apparently intended for the disappointed guests who'd arrived during the renovation. Elena dipped her feet into the water, thinking about how she and David had become like that sphinx—stoic, enigmatic, guarding secrets they no longer bothered to share.

A loose cable snaked across the tiles from the outdoor television, a tripping hazard in the dim light. She nearly stepped on it before noticing how it disappeared into the darkness near the pool equipment shed, like her marriage—a connection frayed at the edges, sparking occasionally with old electricity, but mostly just dangerous to navigate around.

She wasn't swimming, not really. She was just wading in the shallow end, watching the underwater lights cast weird shadows on the bottom, when she heard David's voice behind her.

"I thought you'd be asleep," she said without turning.

"I woke up and you were gone." He sounded tired. "Come back to bed."

"I'm thinking about leaving, David. Not the room. Us."

The silence stretched between them, longer than the desert shadows. Then he said, "I know. I've been thinking the same thing."

She turned to face him. He was shirtless, pale against the darkness, looking suddenly older than his thirty-eight years.

"So why are you here?" she asked.

He walked to the edge of the pool, sat down, and let his legs slide into the water beside hers. "Because I couldn't figure out how to say it. Because I thought maybe if we just kept swimming, we'd somehow reach the other shore."

"There is no other shore," she said softly.

"I know." He reached for her hand underwater, and for the first time in months, she didn't pull away. "So what's our riddle?"

The sphinx watched them from its concrete pedestal, offering no answers. Elena thought about all the marriages that ended in hotel rooms, all the conversations that happened too late or not at all, and she squeezed David's hand.

"Our riddle," she said, "is how we keep forgetting that some things end before they're over."

"And the answer?"

"The answer is knowing when to climb out of the water."