The Riddle of the Afternoon

The papaya sat untouched on her breakfast plate, its flesh the color of a mistake she'd made three years ago. Elena stared at it while his iPhone buzzed against the hotel nightstand for the third time that morning.

"Are you going to get that?" she asked, not really caring either way.

"Work," Richard said, already dressed in the linen suit he'd worn to their rehearsal dinner. "It's the acquisition. I have to take this."

He stepped onto the balcony, closing the glass doors softly. The silence that followed felt heavier than the tropical heat pressing against the windows.

Elena walked to the pool alone, her hair still wet from the shower she'd taken after he'd told her he was leaving. Not leaving the resort—leaving her. Somewhere between check-in and the complementary champagne, he'd decided their seven-year relationship had run its course. He'd delivered the news with the same mild efficiency he used to cancel a subscription service.

The resort pool was deserted at 11 AM. She slid into the water, letting it erase the sweat already prickling on her skin. Floating on her back, she looked up at the replica of the Great Sphinx that loomed over the resort's Egyptian-themed wing. A strange choice for a Caribbean resort, but then, everything about this trip had been strange. The last-minute booking. The sudden urgency. The way he'd packed two separate suitcases.

Her phone buzzed on the lounge chair. Probably her mother checking in, or her sister wanting to know if the vacation was "fixing things." Elena ignored it.

The sphinx stared back at her with its broken nose and eternal riddle. What was the question again? Something about walking on four legs, then two, then three. The stages of life. The slow progression toward needing help.

She thought about her hairdresser asking last week if she wanted to cover the silver threads appearing at her temples. "Embrace it," Elena had said. But now she wondered if Richard had noticed. If that was part of it—if he'd fallen out of love with the woman who was slowly, undeniably becoming her mother.

The papaya from breakfast, the incessant iPhone, the ridiculous sphinx, the empty pool. Pieces of a puzzle that didn't fit together. That was marriage, wasn't it? Making sense of the nonsensical.

Richard was still on the balcony. She could see his gestures through the glass, the animated way he talked about mergers and margins. He looked alive in a way he hadn't when he'd told her he was leaving. That was the worst part—that he seemed more relieved than heartbroken.

Elena closed her eyes and floated, letting the water hold her up. Somewhere in the distance, a steel drum band began to play. The papaya would rot on the nightstand. The iPhone would keep ringing. The sphinx would keep its secret. And she would have to decide whether to swim to the other side, or just stay floating in the middle, waiting for something—anything—to push her toward shore.