The Riddle of Afternoons

Marcus found himself standing before the porcelain sphinx his mother had kept on the mantel—kitschy really, its painted-on smile more knowing than any artifact had a right to be. He'd come home to clear the house, three weeks after the funeral, still taking his daily vitamin with the same grim dedication she'd instilled in him. Health as moral imperative. Prevention as penance.

In the backyard, the old dog—Ella, sixteen and blind as a bat—stumbled toward the sound of his voice. She'd been his father's companion through the slow decline, those last years when baseball on television became the only clock they kept by. Marcus remembered sitting here with his dad, watching meaningless games in September, teams already eliminated playing out the string. His father had loved the futility of it. The grace of giving your all when nothing's at stake.

"You're running out of time," the sphinx seemed to say, though Marcus knew he was projecting. He was always projecting these days—transferring his own existential dread onto inanimate objects. Onto his patients. He was a therapist now, which was either beautifully ironic or just sad, depending on the day.

Ella reached him, nudging his hand with that ancient, gray-muzzled persistence. He knelt in the grass, stained his good trousers. The vitamin stuck in his throat, a small hardness he couldn't quite swallow.

His father had told him once, near the end, that the worst thing about dying wasn't the ceasing. It was the leaving undone. The stories half-written. The apologies unspoken. The sphinx had watched them both from the mantel that day, smiling its terrible patient smile.

Marcus stood up, knees popping. The day was beautiful in that cruel way perfect days have when you're grieving. He went inside, found a baseball in his father's desk—signed by some minor leaguer, probably worthless. He threw it toward the backyard fence. Ella watched, thumping her tail, somehow understanding this was something holy.

He would call Sarah tonight. He would tell her he was sorry, finally, for running away from everything that mattered. The vitamin dissolved. The sphinx smiled on. Some riddles answer themselves, if you live long enough to let them.