The Riddle in Room 304

The gallery was silent except for the hum of climate control and their breathing. Maya stood before the glass case, wondering how she'd ended up here—at thirty-five, divorced, arguing with her ex-husband about Egyptian artifacts like it was just another Tuesday.

"It's a sphinx, Maya. Not a metaphor for your emotional unavailability." David's voice had that familiar edge—the tone that used to make her want to scream, now just made her tired.

She'd been Sphinx-like, yes. Guarding her secrets, her fears, her slowly unraveling sense of self. But wasn't that what marriage did? Turned you into something half-human, half-monster, trapped in your own riddle.

"The bull market's been good to you, though." She gestured at the bronze statue across the room—charging, powerful, unmistakably phallic. Just like his aggressive new personality. Post-divorce David: risk-taker, cryptocurrency enthusiast, suddenly interesting to women who'd never looked twice at him when he was a careful architect who preferred watercolors to whiskey.

"Some of us are thriving, Maya."

The words hit like bullets. Some of them. Not her.

She thought of the fox fur coat she'd sold last year—the last remnant of her twenties, when she'd believed that softness could protect you. When she'd thought loving someone was enough to save them from themselves.

"Is that why we're here? To gloat?" She turned from the sphinx's limestone face, its carved eyes infinitely patient. "You invited me to see your pyramid scheme?"

David laughed, but it was strained. "It's NFTs, Maya. Not a scheme. And I wanted you to see—" He stopped. "I wanted you to see what you missed."

What she'd missed: the adrenaline, the gambling dressed up as innovation, the thousand-dollar dinners and hollow victories. The pyramid they were both climbing—different faces, same sharp edges cutting into their palms as they scrambled toward something they couldn't name.

"I see it," she said softly. "I see all of it."

Outside, rain streaked the gallery windows like tears on a face trying to hide its crying. The sphinx watched them both, riddle unanswered. Some stories didn't have neat solutions. Some marriages didn't have happy endings. Some nights, you just stood in a room full of dead things and pretended you weren't one of them.