The Riddle of Summer's End

Martha peeled the orange with practiced hands, the citrus scent summoning fifty-year-old memories like an old friend knocking at the door. She was eight again, sitting on her father's porch swing, watching him peel oranges the same way — one long, unbroken strip of zest, like releasing something essential from within.

"You know, Martha," her father had said, his baseball glove beside him, worn soft as second skin, "life's a lot like this sphinx riddle I read about. Everyone thinks it's about knowing yourself, but I figured out something different."

He'd tossed her a section of orange. "The sphinx asks what walks on four legs, then two, then three. But the real question isn't what you ARE. It's who CARRIES you when those three legs get shaky."

Now, at seventy-three, Martha understood. She touched the baseball trophy on her mantle — her father's, from his semi-pro days. He'd never made the majors, but he'd taught her that the best innings aren't about hitting home runs. They're about showing up, even when your knees creak and your fastballs aren't so fast anymore.

Her grandson Jimmy would visit tomorrow. She'd teach him to peel an orange in one strip. She'd show him her father's glove. She'd tell him the sphinx's real lesson: the strongest thing you can do with three legs is stand for someone else.

Martha smiled, the orange sweet on her tongue. Some riddles take a lifetime to solve. The answer, she'd learned, isn't in the standing alone. It's in who steadies you when the ground feels uncertain — and who you steady in return.