The Riddle of Fruit

The papaya sat on the counter, its skin mottled with yellow like a bruise that refused to heal. Three days since Elena left, and the fruit she'd bought—optimistic, domestic—had ripened into something I couldn't bring myself to eat alone.

"You're brooding again," Marcus said from the doorway. He adjusted his hat—a ridiculous tweed thing he'd started wearing after his divorce, as if costume change could remake a man.

"I'm contemplating tropical fruit."

"Right. Fruit." Marcus leaned against the doorframe. "HR wants to know about the Cairo project. The client's asking questions."

The sphinx. That's what we called her—Nadia from compliance, with her painted eyes and impossible questions. She'd appeared at the worst moment: the merger collapsing, Elena packing her things, me standing in the kitchen watching papaya soften like a wound. Nadia had asked something about risk assessment, I'd said something reckless about emotional exposure, and now the sphinx waited for an answer that wouldn't destroy everything.

"What did you tell them?"

"That you were handling personal matters." Marcus's voice softened. "Look, Elena's not coming back. The project's falling apart. But Nadia—she's not actually riddling you, she's doing her job."

I picked up the papaya. Its skin gave beneath my thumb, yielding.

"You know what the sphinx asked?" I said. "'What's the cost of holding on to something that's already gone?'"

Marcus stared at me. "That's... not a standard HR question."

"No." I cut the papaya open. Inside, seeds clustered like black thoughts in orange flesh. "But it's the one that matters."

I scooped out a bite. Sweet, faintly musky, tasting of things said too late and things never said at all. Somewhere, Elena was probably eating papaya with someone who knew how to be happy. Somewhere, the sphinx waited for an answer I wasn't ready to give.

"Tell Nadia I'll be in tomorrow," I said. "And tell her the answer is: everything."