The Riddle of Us

The coaxial cable lay severed on the floor between us, a dead gray snake that had stopped transmitting signals three days ago. Or maybe three months. The timeline blurred, like so much else since the diagnosis.

"You should take your vitamin D," Mara said, not looking up from her phone. Her voice was flat, the kind of flat that comes after you've said something so many times it loses meaning.

"I took it."

"You didn't. I saw the bottle."

"I'm taking it now." I dry-swallowed the pill, feeling it scrape down my throat like a tiny stone accusation.

We'd stopped being us somewhere between the first specialist and the third MRI. Now we were just two people occupying the same rooms, tethered together by obligation and fear and a mortgage that neither of us could afford alone.

Mara stood up, finally looking at me. "I saw the brochure. For that place. The one with the Egyptian theme."

"The Sphinx Rehabilitation Center?"

"They have good reviews."

"It's hospice, Mara."

"It's ALSO rehabilitation. For people who want to get better."

The sphinx had always been my favorite myth—because it asked the right question. What walks on four legs, then two, then three? The answer was man: crawling in infancy, walking in prime strength, leaning on a cane in age. But the real question wasn't about legs. It was about what you become when you can't walk at all.

I looked at the cable again, then at her hands, then at the calendar on the wall where my next appointment was circled in red.

"I don't want to get better," I said. "I want to know what happens next."

Mara's eyes widened. For the first time in months, she really saw me.

"That's," she whispered, "the stupidest thing you've ever said."

"The sphinx would disagree."

"The sphinx ate people who got it wrong."

"Exactly."

She started crying, quietly, the way she did when something was finally real. I crawled across the floor—not because my legs couldn't work, but because I needed her to know that I would. I reached for her hand, and for the first time in three months, she didn't pull away.

"Cancel the appointment," I said. "Call the cable company. Let's start somewhere."