The Riddle of Us

The dog, a golden retriever named Buster, had been Margaret's idea. Something to fill the silence after Mark moved out. Now Buster sat by the door, waiting for footsteps that would never return, his tail thumping a slow, desperate rhythm against the hardwood.

Elena's iPhone buzzed on the nightstand—Mark again. His messages had been coming with clockwork regularity since the divorce papers were signed: small apologies masquerading as administrative details. Did you want the coffee maker? What about the cat?

Luna, their sphinx cat with her wrinkled skin and oversized ears, regarded Elena from the top of the dresser. Luna had always loved Mark more, curling into the hollow of his chest like she belonged there. Now she stared at Elena with ancient, judgmental eyes, as if Elena were the one who'd stopped coming home.

"You're not helping," Elena told the cat.

Luna blinked.

The sphinx had asked its riddle, and Elena had failed. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening? The answer was man, but nobody talked about the in-between parts—the limping stages, the years spent crawling toward something you couldn't name, the times when you needed four legs just to stay upright.

Her phone lit up again. Not Mark this time. A dating app notification. Someone named David, 38, architect, loved dogs and philosophical conversations. The photograph showed him holding someone else's golden retriever.

Elena's thumb hovered over the screen. Buster whined at the door, still waiting. Luna stretched, yawning to reveal pink gums and sharp white teeth.

The riddle wasn't about legs or time of day. The riddle was how you kept loving, how you kept opening doors when you knew exactly what might—or might not—walk through them.

Elena deleted the notification. She patted the spot beside her on the bed, and after a long moment, Luna jumped down and curled into the curve of Elena's body. Outside, a neighbor's dog barked at nothing at all.

Buster gave up on the door and padded into the bedroom, circling three times before settling at the foot of the bed. Elena lay there in the dark, surrounded by the warmth of two creatures who couldn't leave, and finally, for the first time in months, she slept.