The Riddle of June

The cat belonged to June, which meant it now belonged to David in the way grief does — quietly, persistently, and with confusing demands. A sphinx of an animal, Bastet sat on the balcony railing, hairless and wrinkled, staring at him with amber eyes that seemed to hold all the unanswerable questions June had left behind.

"You're hungry again," David said, pouring food into the ceramic bowl. June had found the creature at a shelter, fallen in love with its peculiar ugliness. "She's got character," she'd said, the way she said everything about things she loved — as if character were something you could hold in your hands, something substantial.

It had been three months since the accident. Three months of moving through rooms that still felt like her, of reaching for phones that didn't ring, of sleeping on his side of the bed because the middle felt too vast to cross alone. His friends said he should get out more. His sister suggested dating apps. But David found himself instead at the community pool on Tuesday evenings, swimming laps until his arms burned and his thoughts finally quieted.

The pool was empty at 8 PM, chlorine thick in the humid air, lifeguards gone. The water held him. It asked nothing, offered only the rhythmic comfort of stroke, breathe, stroke. Sometimes he imagined June watching from the deck, the way she used to when they were dating, calling out that his form was improving. He'd surface, grinning, water streaming from his hair. She'd be smiling that slightly crooked smile, the one that said she saw through everything he pretended to be.

Tonight, though, someone else was there. A woman in the lane beside him, cutting through the water with efficient grace. They surfaced at the same time, gasping, and she pushed her goggles up.

"You're here every Tuesday," she said. Not a question.

David nodded, water dripping from his eyelashes. "You too."

"My therapist says I need to process my emotions more productively." She offered a wry smile. "I find swimming laps while thinking about my ex-husband's new wife counts."

David laughed, startled. "I swim because my wife died."

The words hung between them, terrible and true. He never said it aloud anymore. People looked at you differently when you said "died" instead of "passed" or "is gone." It was too raw, too final.

She didn't look away. "I'm Elena. I'm sorry about your wife."

"David. I'm sorry about your... ex-husband's new wife."

They treaded water in companionable silence. Then: "Do you want to get coffee after?" Elena asked. "Not a date. Just... two people who process things better wet than dry."

David thought about June, about the way she'd wanted him to live even when it felt impossible. She'd hated seeing him stuck.

"Yes," he said. "But I need to get home to my cat. She's judgmental about punctility."

"A cat?" Elena grinned. "What's her name?"

"Bastet," David said. "She's a sphinx. Hairless, wrinkled, magnificent. My wife chose her."

"Then she must be perfect," Elena said, and something in David's chest loosened, just a little, like a muscle he hadn't realized he'd been clenching for three months.

He would always miss June. That grief was a pool he'd swim in forever. But maybe, just maybe, he could learn to appreciate the water instead of fighting it.

"She is," David said. "And I think she'd like you."

Later that night, Bastet sphinx-like on her pedestal of windowsill, watched David enter with coffee stains on his shirt and something like hope in his eyes for the first time in months. She blinked slowly, once, and went back to her eternal riddle: what happens when the person who taught you how to love is gone, but love itself remains?

Some questions answer themselves, in time.