The Riddle of Us
The baseball card sat on her nightstand, a ghost from his college days. Derek had kept it all these years—a rookie card worth thousands, he'd told her once, back when they still talked about dreams instead of logistics. Now it gathered dust alongside hisiPhone, which had been blinking with unanswered texts for three days.
Sarah stood at the kitchen counter, forcing herself to chew the spinach salad she'd meal-prepped like some poster child for a life that was falling apart. The leaves tasted like resignation. In the background, the Great Sphinx documentary played on low volume—Derek had been obsessed with ancient riddles lately, as if solving someone else's mysteries might help him explain why he'd been coming home late smelling like vanilla and someone else's perfume.
"I'm going for a drive," he'd announced that morning, already halfway out the door.
"Again?"
"Just need to think, Sarah. You wouldn't understand."
She'd understood perfectly. She'd seen the fox in the garden yesterday—a sleek rust-colored thing that moved like a secret, eyes glowing with that particular wildness that knows exactly what it wants and takes it without apology. Just like the woman whose Instagram she'd found open on his laptop, the one who posted photos of Egyptian artifacts and vintage baseball cards.
The sphinx had asked its travelers: "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?" Sarah thought marriage might have its own riddle: What lies beside you every night, grows distant by afternoon, and disappears by evening?
She dropped her fork. The spinach lay uneaten. Outside, the fox was still there, watching from the edge of the yard. Sarah picked up her phone, opened a new message, and typed: "I know about the sphinx. I know about the cards. I know about her."
Then she deleted it, deleted his contact, deleted everything that had made her feel small. The fox flicked its tail once and disappeared into the woods, moving like the answer to a question she'd finally stopped asking herself.