The Riddle of the Sphinx

The spinach between his teeth had been there for three courses. Eleanor watched it—a green fleck, stubborn as a secret—and said nothing. It was easier than confronting the other things she'd noticed: the lipstick on his collar that matched her shade, not hers. The way he'd started checking his phone during sex. The fact that she hadn't been jealous, only relieved.

They were at the Egyptian Museum fundraiser, surrounded by Sphinx replicas and gilded artifacts. Marcus was droning on about his new architectural project—something modern, with clean lines and no ornaments. 'No more riddles,' he said. 'No more ancient mysteries. Just function.'

Eleanor thought about the goldfish bowl they'd kept in their first apartment, how the fish had circled its tiny kingdom, forgetting its own past every three seconds. Sometimes she envied that. Sometimes she wanted to ask the Sphinx here in the museum: What's the point of remembering?

'Marcus,' she said, cutting him off mid-sentence. 'Are you sleeping with Sarah?'

He froze. The spinach between his teeth seemed to grow larger, a witness to his silence. Around them, the fundraiser continued—laughter, champagne flutes, the clinking of expensive jewelry.

'That's—that's a complicated question,' he said.

The Sphinx had asked riddles too. But at least her riddles had answers. This was different. This was the slow erosion of two decades, the way affection calcifies into habit, how love becomes something you maintain rather than feel.

'No,' Eleanor said, surprising herself. 'It's actually quite simple.'

She thought of her mother's warning, years ago: 'There's a fox in every hen house, Ellie. Sometimes he wears a suit. Sometimes he speaks French.'

Marcus reached for her hand, his fingers cold. 'Eleanor, please. Not here.'

'Where, then? At home? With the goldfish watching?' She laughed, a sharp sound. 'Oh wait, he died three years ago. You were at a conference.'

'You're being unfair.'

'I'm being honest.' She set her napkin on the table, careful not to wrinkle the fabric. 'The answer to the riddle is: we both stopped asking questions years ago.'

He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time in months. 'And now?'

'Now I'm done pretending I don't see what's right in front of me.' She gestured vaguely at his face. 'Including the spinach, Marcus. Really. It's been there all evening.'

Later, she would remember walking out into the cold air, the museum's Sphinx watching from its pedestal, its stone smile both knowing and inscrutable. Some riddles, she realized, resolve themselves not in answers, but in the courage to walk away.