The Riddle in the Rain

The rain sheeted against the windshield, each drop a microscopic lightning strike illuminating nothing but my own exhausted reflection. Forty-two years old and sitting in a parking garage at 2 AM, scrolling through notifications on an iPhone that had become less a tool than a lifeline I was afraid to cut.

A baseball rolled across the concrete, stopping against my tire. Some kid's lost treasure, now orphaned in the dark. I picked it up, feeling the stitched leather—something about the craftsmanship reminded me of the way things used to be made, before everything became temporary and replaceable. Including me, apparently.

The divorce papers sat on the passenger seat, final and absolute. Sarah had left three months ago, and I was still haunting the spaces we'd shared like a ghost who didn't know it had died. Tonight I'd finally sign—the notary would be here at eight. That was the plan.

My phone buzzed again. Work email. Some crisis that could wait until morning, or until someone else solved it. I'd given them twenty years of my nights and weekends, and what did I have to show for it? A corner office, a heart that skipped in ways it shouldn't, and a sphinx's worth of riddles I'd never bothered to answer because I was too busy being the person everyone expected me to be.

The sphinx had always seemed cruel—demanding answers under threat of death—but tonight, something shifted. Maybe the riddle wasn't the problem. Maybe the problem was that I'd been answering the wrong questions my entire life. Who are you? What do you want? Why aren't you happy? Simple questions, really. Impossible answers.

I looked at the baseball in my hand, at the phone lighting up with another notification, at the papers that would end my marriage in the morning. Then I made a call—not to the notary, but to my brother. He'd been asking me to come visit his new place in Montana for months. Said the stars actually showed up there.

"I'm coming," I said when he answered. "This weekend. Maybe longer."

The lightning flashed again, and for the first time in years, I didn't flinch.