The Riddle at the Door

The sphinx in theMET's Egyptian wing watched Eleanor with enameled eyes as her phone buzzed again. Mark's name on the iPhone screen, a third missed call in an hour. She silenced it, sliding the device back into her clutch like a guilty secret.

They'd fought that morning—again—over something trivial that wasn't trivial at all. She'd made creamed spinach for breakfast, the way his mother used to make it, and he'd pushed the bowl away without meeting her eyes. "You're trying too hard, El." The spinach had congealed into an unappealing mound, much like their marriage lately: nourishing intentions curdling into resentment.

Now she stood before the stone creature, half-lion, half-woman, its pose eternally patient, eternally demanding. The placard said sphinxes were guardians of sacred knowledge, keepers of riddles. What riddle would she pose? What answer did Eleanor seek?

Her phone lit up with a text: *Can we talk?*

She touched the brim of the hat she'd bought on impulse—a wide-brimmed black thing that made her feel like someone else, someone mysterious and self-possessed. Someone who wouldn't tolerate being made to feel like too much. Someone who knew her worth wasn't measured by how well she anticipated another's needs.

The sphinx's smile seemed to widen, knowing and cruel.

Eleanor typed: *The museum. Egyptian wing. Come find me.*

When Mark appeared twenty minutes later, looking rumpled and anxious, she didn't move. She stood beside the ancient statue, hands clasped, watching him approach. He looked so familiar—his stride, the way he ran a hand through his hair when nervous. But he also looked like a stranger.

"The sphinx asks travelers a riddle," Eleanor said when he reached her. "Answer wrong, and she devours you."

"El, please—"

"What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?"

"Man. It's man, Eleanor. You know that. What are you—"

"Wrong." She placed her hat on her head, tilting it at a deliberate angle. "The answer is: the woman who finally stops waiting for you to see her."

She walked past him toward the exit, her heels clicking on the marble floor, leaving him standing beside the sphinx, who watched them both with painted eyes that knew everything about hunger, and nothing about being satisfied with scraps.