The Riddle of Empty Rooms

The morning light hit Marcus's bedside table at precisely 6:47 AM, illuminating the amber bottle of **vitamin** D supplements he'd started taking three months ago—around the same time he began **running** before dawn, when the apartment was still dark and I was asleep, or pretending to be.

"You're up," he said, appearing in the doorway, sweat staining his gray t-shirt, his breathing quick but controlled.

I held up the bottle. "Since when do you take vitamins?"

He paused, just for a second. "Since my physical. Doctor said I was low."

The lie landed between us like a cat jumping onto a made bed—graceful, silent, leaving indentations. Marcus had never mentioned a doctor's appointment. He'd never mentioned feeling tired, or weak, or any of the things that might prompt someone to start taking care of themselves for the first time in fifteen years of marriage.

Later that afternoon, I found myself at the museum where I worked as a curator, standing before the Egyptian **sphinx** statue we'd acquired last fall. The inscription beneath its carved paws read: "I am the guardian of secrets, the keeper of what cannot be spoken." I'd read it a thousand times, but today it felt less like ancient history and more like a warning.

Marcus's phone buzzed on the kitchen counter when I returned home. A message: "Can't wait for tomorrow." Unknown number.

That night, as he slept beside me, his breathing even and deep, I imagined his morning runs in a new light—not exercise, but escape. Not movement toward health, but movement away from something. Or someone.

The vitamin bottle sat on his bedside table, half-full. I picked it up, reading the label: "Take one daily for optimal health."

Some riddles have answers that arrive like blows. Others simply unfold, slowly, like a story you've been reading all along without understanding the words.

I set the bottle back down, careful not to make a sound. In the morning, I would wait until he left for his run. Then I would check his phone. Then I would decide whether this was a story worth continuing, or one that needed to end—before it destroyed us both.