The Riddle of Us

Margot stood in the doorway of the apartment she'd shared with David for seven years, watching the way the afternoon light caught dust motes in the air like suspended time. Their cat, Bast, wound through her legs, purring with that relentless optimism only animals can sustain in the face of human catastrophe.

On the counter sat a bag of spinach, leaves already wilting in the heat of the unresolved argument from two nights ago. They'd been cooking together—something simple, something normal—when David had said the words that unraveled everything: I don't think I know who you are anymore.

She'd gone to her sister's place instead of finishing dinner. Now the spinach sat there like a botanical clock, measuring time in decay.

The sphinx magnet on their refrigerator—purchased during that ill-fated trip to Egypt, where David had gotten food poisoning and Margot had met someone who made her question everything—seemed to mock her with its enigmatic smile. What riddles had she been asking herself? What answers had she been afraid to hear?

Her phone buzzed. Elena.

You okay?

Elena had been her friend since college, the one person who knew about the emails, the late-night conversations, the way Margot had been quietly, incrementally checking out of her marriage for months. Maybe years.

Margot typed back: I'm coming back for the rest of my things tomorrow.

Bast meowed, indignant about the delay in dinner service. Margot scooped her up, burying her face in soft fur that smelled of home and continuity and all the things she was about to lose.

"We're both going to need new lives," she whispered to the cat, who simply purred, inscrutable as any sphinx, knowing only that she was loved, and that love, like spinach, like everything else eventually, would somehow sustain her through what came next.