The Riddle of Breakfast

Maya stood on the balcony of the Cairo hotel, her gray hair catching the morning sun like silver wire. At forty-five, she'd stopped coloring it months ago—partially from exhaustion, mostly from the quiet defiance that had taken root since David left.

Below, the Sphinx lounged against the desert backdrop, that inscrutable limestone face staring at nothing and everything at once. David had called her that once—'my little sphinx'—when she wouldn't tell him why she'd come home late smelling like someone else's cologne. The riddle, of course, was that she hadn't. She'd just sat in her car outside their house, unable to bear the weight of being needed anymore.

The breakfast tray sat on the small table: sliced papaya, surprisingly sweet and alien against the Egyptian morning. She'd never eaten it before. David had hated tropical fruit, called it 'unnecessarily enthusiastic.' God, she'd spent so many years accommodating that man's picky appetites.

She touched the papaya's orange flesh with her fork, remembering the day she found his texts. Not sexting—worse, really. He'd been planning their life without her: weekend trips he'd book for himself, dinners he'd attend alone, a gradual, methodical erasure of her from his own future. The cowardice of it still amazed her.

A toupee-wearing man at the next table caught her eye. His hair was too dark, too perfect—desperation in a dye job. She almost laughed. Her hair wasn't the problem anymore. That wasn't what made David leave.

'Excuse me,' a woman's voice broke her thoughts. 'Could I take your photo?' A tourist, smiling. 'You against that view.'

Maya nodded, surprised by her own willingness to be seen.

Later, she would check her phone to find David's message: 'Thinking of you. Egypt was always our dream.' She would delete it without responding, finishing her papaya as the Sphinx watched, indifferent and eternal.

The fruit was delicious.