The Riddle in the Rain

Maya stood at the kitchen sink, swallowing her evening vitamin with a glass of water, while outside lightning fractured the sky again. The storm had been raging for hours, much like the silence between her and Daniel since he'd moved his things out three days ago.

Her tabby cat, Cleo, wound through her legs, purring insistently. Maya had rescued Cleo from a shelter five years ago—the same year she and Daniel bought this apartment, the same year she stopped painting to become his "support system." Now she looked at the blank canvas in the corner, gathering dust like an unanswered question.

You know what the Egyptians believed about the sphinx? Daniel had asked her once, in that tone he used when he was about to mansplain something obvious. It wasn't a guardian at all. It was a question without an answer, designed to keep people from places they weren't ready to go.

She'd wanted to scream: I'm not ready for what? For a life that's mine? For paint under my fingernails instead of your approval?

Instead she'd poured him more wine, and another year dissolved into making his doctor appointments, organizing his schedule, being the water that shaped itself to whatever container he needed.

Now rain leaked through the window frame, puddling on the floorboards. She should fix it. She should call the landlord. Instead she opened her paints, old tubes hardened at the edges, and squeezed something raw and crimson onto her palette.

Cleo jumped onto the counter, knocking the vitamin bottle into the sink. A clatter, then silence. Maya watched the little orange pills swirl down the drain with the dishwater, useless as the time she'd spent making herself smaller for someone who'd never really seen her.

She picked up her brush. Lightning flashed, illuminating everything she'd been too afraid to say. The sphinx's riddle wasn't about adaptation. It was about becoming the monster that ate you.

She began to paint.