The Riddle of Leaving

Elena adjusted her wool hat, pulling it low against the November wind. The funeral had ended three hours ago, but she kept walking, her boots hitting the pavement in a rhythm that felt like running without actually breaking into a sprint.

She'd started taking vitamin D supplements the week Jonathan told her he was leaving someone else. A small act of self-care that felt pathetic in its inadequacy. As if calcium absorption could compensate for the sudden hollow space in their apartment.

Barnaby—their cat, now just hers—waited by the window when she finally returned. His amber eyes watched her with something like judgment, or maybe sphinx-like wisdom. The ancient Egyptians had worshipped cats. Maybe they knew something about grief that modern therapy hadn't figured out yet.

"You could've left with him," she told the cat, setting down her keys. Jonathan had offered. Had suggested Barnaby would be happier in a house with a yard. But something in Elena had refused.

The apartment was too quiet. She should be running—figuratively, literally—to escape the stillness. Instead, she sat on the sofa where Jonathan used to read his medical journals, where his imprint still seemed pressed into the cushions.

On the coffee table, the vitamin bottle stood like a small monument to her attempt at resilience. One pill daily with food. She'd forgotten yesterday.

She thought about the riddle of the sphinx: what walks on four legs, then two, then three? The answer was man. But no one talked about the part where you learned to walk alone again after years of leaning on someone.

Barnaby jumped onto her lap, purring like a small engine. His warmth seeped through her dress. In that moment, she understood: riddles weren't meant to be solved immediately. Some answers revealed themselves slowly, like dawn breaking over a city you'd stopped noticing.

She took a vitamin from the bottle. Tomorrow she'd run, properly, in the park. Tonight, she would sit here with the cat and let herself feel the shape of what came next.