The Riddle of Us

The sphinx had been stolen. Not the great one in Giza—this was a miniature, limestone, maybe three inches tall, but it had sat on Mara's desk for six years. A gift from Tom, back when they were something more than colleagues, back when he'd returned from Egypt with stories that made her laugh and eyes that made her forget herself.

Now it was gone, and Tom stood in her doorway wearing that carefully curated expression of concern she'd learned meant he wanted something.

"They're restructuring again," he said, leaning against the frame. His hair was thinner than she remembered, graying at the temples. Time had a way of making everyone look like their parents. "Your team's being folded under mine. We're building a new reporting hierarchy—some kind of corporate pyramid."

Mara waited for the punchline. It didn't come.

"You're my boss now," she said flatly.

"I tried to fight it."

"Sure you did."

She remembered him telling her once, in a hotel bar in Chicago, that friendship was the sphinx's riddle: everyone knew the answer, but everyone got it wrong. She'd asked what the answer was. He'd kissed her instead. They'd spent three months pretending it meant something, then two years pretending it didn't.

Tom stepped into her office, closing the door behind him. The late afternoon light caught the dust motes floating between them, turning the air orange and thick. It reminded her of the photograph he'd brought back from Luxor—sunset over the Nile, everything burnished and brief.

"I found something when I was packing," he said. "That sphinx I gave you. You still had it."

"It was stolen, Tom."

"I know." His voice dropped. "I took it."

Mara stared at him. The sphinx had been missing for three weeks. She'd assumed it was the cleaning crew, or some enterprising coworker with eclectic taste. Not Tom.

"Why?"

"Because I'm leaving, and I needed an excuse to see you alone." He reached into his pocket and placed it on her desk. "I'm starting over. New city, new job. I wanted to ask if—"

"No."

"I haven't even asked."

"You have." She picked up the sphinx, its worn surface warm from his pocket. "You're asking if the riddle's changed. It hasn't."

He nodded, once, and left.

Mara placed the sphinx back on her desk. She'd hated it for years—its blank stare, its silent judgment. Now, watching the last light fade across her office, she found she didn't mind it so much. Some riddles didn't need answers. Some stories didn't need endings.