The Riddle in the Pool

The water was cold enough to shock the breath out of her lungs, exactly what Mara needed. She'd been swimming laps for forty-five minutes at the university pool, her iphone sitting abandoned in her locker along with the text messages she couldn't bring herself to answer.

Her marriage to David had been eroding for months, quiet and gradual as limestone worn down by a persistent drip. But the sphinx-like silence from him lately—that was new. He'd come home from work, drink two fingers of scotch, and retreat to his study without a word. Some ancient riddle she couldn't solve, and she was beginning to suspect she no longer wanted to.

Mara flipped at the wall, pushing off into another lap. Her body knew the rhythm intimately: the pull through water, the kick, the rhythmic breathing. Swimming had been her sanctuary since graduate school, the one place where her mind could unspool without consequence.

"You're always in that pool," David had said last night, not looking up from his book. "Sometimes I think you love the water more than you love me."

She hadn't responded. What was there to say? That he wasn't entirely wrong? That the water demanded nothing from her except presence, while their marriage now felt like a performance she couldn't remember rehearsing for?

The lifeguard whistle blew—closing time in ten minutes. Mara finished her lap and coasted to the wall, hanging there for a moment, her fingertips pruning in the chlorinated water. She thought of the mythological sphinx, devouring those who couldn't answer its riddles. Maybe marriage was like that. Maybe she'd failed to solve something essential, and now she was being slowly consumed.

In the locker room, she turned on her iphone. Three new messages from David, all sent while she'd been swimming.

*Can we talk?*

*I'm sorry about last night.*

*I don't want to lose us.*

Mara stared at the screen, water still slick on her skin. For the first time in months, she felt something other than numb resignation. Not hope—she wasn't ready for that—but perhaps the beginning of clarity. Some sphinxes could be reasoned with. Some riddles had answers after all.

She typed back: *Come over for dinner tomorrow. We'll talk.*

Then she deleted it and wrote: *I'm still at the pool. Meet me at the Greek place on 5th in an hour.*

Her finger hovered over send. The water had washed away the paralysis, at least for now. Whatever happened next, she would meet it awake.