The Riddle at the Top

The hat was the first thing Richard noticed when she walked into his office — a wide-brimmed black thing that looked like it belonged on a widow in a French film, not on the woman who'd been sleeping with his husband for three months.

"Sit," Richard said, gesturing to the chair across from his desk. He'd always hated this office, perched at the apex of the company's glass pyramid like some corporate deity, dispensing judgment on ants below.

Elena sat, adjusting the hat's brim. "I assume you know."

"That Tom's been transfer assigns you to your apartment? Yes." Richard leaned forward. "What I don't understand is why."

She laughed, sharp and surprised. "You're asking me like I'm a sphinx with some bloody riddle to solve. Like there's a clever answer that makes it all make sense."

"Isn't there?"

"No." Elena's fingers traced the hat's crown. "He told me he loved you. Said he'd never leave. Said he needed —" her voice cracked "— something else. Something that wasn't your shared history or your dead daughter or the way you look at him like he's the only liferaft on the Titanic."

Richard felt something crack open in his chest. "And you were just what, a convenient hole?"

"I was someone who didn't know him when he was twenty-two and full of dreams. Someone who didn't look at him and see what he'd lost." She stood up. "I'm leaving the city, Richard. Starting over. The hat's ridiculous, I know, but I needed something to hide behind while I figured out who I was without him."

Richard watched her go, her silhouette against the floor-to-ceiling glass, tiny and inevitable. From up here, he could see the entire city grid laid out like some ancient civilization. He'd spent thirty years climbing this pyramid, accumulating titles and stock options, convinced the view from the top would justify everything.

Now he saw the truth: he'd built a monument to nothing.

He picked up the phone to call Tom, then set it down. Tomorrow he'd clear out his office. Tomorrow he'd find something that mattered. But tonight, Richard sat alone at the apex of everything he'd achieved, and finally understood the riddle he'd spent a lifetime answering wrong.