The Riddle of the Sphinx

The neon sign above the motel flickered between blue and orange, casting Margaret's face in alternating wavelengths of cold and warm. She sat across from David at the sticky laminate table, their separate checks lying between them like battle lines.

Outside, rain sheeted against the window, water running down the glass like the tears Margaret refused to cry. Three years of marriage reduced to two pieces of paper and a half-eaten plate of french fries.

"You're like the sphinx," she said, not looking at him. "Always so damn composed. Never letting anyone see what you're thinking."

David stirred his coffee, the spoon clinking against the ceramic. "Maybe I just don't have anything to say."

"Bullshit." Margaret's voice cracked. "You've got plenty to say. You just save it for her."

The waitress approached, her polyester uniform the same orange as the sunset they'd watched together on their first anniversary. Three years ago, wrapped in each other's arms on a beach in Mexico, promising forever while the sky burned orange above them. Now the only burning was the acid in Margaret's stomach.

"More coffee, hon?" The waitress's sympathy was genuine, which made it worse.

"No thanks," they said in unison, then startled at the synchronized response, an involuntary echo of shared habit.

Margaret stood up, her chair scraping the floor. The motion sent a ripple through her water glass, concentric circles disrupting the surface tension—like their marriage, she thought. One small movement and everything distorted.

"The riddle," she said, hovering over the table. "The one Oedipus solved. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening."

"Man," David said quietly.

"Right. Man. But here's the thing—they never tell you what happens at night. When the sun goes down and you're alone in the dark and the cane doesn't help anymore because the loneliness is worse than the limp." She threw a twenty on the table. "That's the part they leave out."

She walked out into the rain, not caring that she was getting wet. Behind her, through the orange-lit window, she could see David's reflection—motionless, unreadable, still solving riddles she'd stopped asking years ago.