The Riddle of the Bath

Margot stood before her bathroom mirror, the morning light catching the silver threads in her hair. She pulled the vitamin D supplement from its bottle—her doctor's orders for another gray London winter. The pills sat next to her late husband's hair gel, still there after eight months. Some days she felt ready to move on. Other days, the apartment was a museum she couldn't bring herself to close.

Her cat, Bast, wound through her legs, demanding breakfast. The creature had been Arthur's gift—a 'emotional support animal' he'd joked, though Margot knew he'd wanted something alive in their childless home. Now Bast was hers alone, a warm weight against the insomnia that still found her at 3 AM.

She'd started swimming again at the community center. The water embraced her like nothing else could—silent, weightless, suspending time in the blue-lit quiet. There was a man there, same Tuesday and Thursday slots. David. His stroke was imperfect, his left arm trailing slightly. A stroke survivor, she'd learned between laps. He made terrible jokes about his 'vampire' pallor.

Last Thursday, they'd sat in the cafe afterward. He'd told her about his wife leaving two years ago—couldn't handle the caregiver role. The honesty had startled her. People usually offered platitudes. David offered the rawness of his still-bleeding wound, and Margot had found herself telling him about Arthur's heart attack, the sudden silence of her life.

Now, she smoothed her swimsuit into her bag. Bast meowed from the kitchen, impatient. Outside, London rain streaked the window. She thought of David's invitation—coffee Saturday, not at the pool. A proper date, he'd called it, making it sound both ridiculous and brave.

On her way out, she passed the Egyptian museum near her flat. The granite sphinx crouched in its glass case, its weathered face posing the same riddle it had for three thousand years. Margot had always found it oppressive—the weight of all that unanswered questioning. Today, though, she paused. The sphinx's chipped lips seemed almost to smile, like it knew something she didn't.

What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?

She'd spent decades answering to others' schedules—her mother's expectations, Arthur's quiet needs, the firm's impossible deadlines. Now, suddenly, there was only the water, the cat, and the possibility of coffee with a man who made terrible jokes and swam with a crooked stroke.

The vitamin bottle sat on her entry table. She took two—why follow rules?

Margot stepped out into the rain. She wasn't solving any riddles today. She was just going swimming.