The Riddle of Us

The dinner party had been Elena's idea—her way of forcing us back together after the affair, after the separation, after three months of separate apartments and separate lives. Now I stood by the **pool** in her backyard, watching the water catch the light from the patio lanterns, shimmering like something alive and breathing.

Marcus found me there. He'd cut his **hair**—the curls I'd spent ten years running my fingers through, gone. Buzzed close to the skull. He looked like a stranger wearing my husband's face.

"Are we still **friends**?" he asked, not looking at me but at the water, where Elena's children were bobbing on inflatable flamingos, laughing.

The question hung there—a **sphinx** posing its riddle in the dark. Answer right, and we pass through to whatever came next. Answer wrong, and everything between us crumbled to sand.

"I don't know," I said. "Are we?"

He turned then. His eyes were wet. "I loved her. For three months, I loved her. But I never stopped—"

"Don't."

"—loving you."

Inside, Elena's **goldfish** lamp cast wavering orange light across the sliding glass door. She'd bought it at a flea market the weekend we all met, back when our lives seemed like they could fit together neatly, like pieces in a puzzle no one had finished yet. Back when friendship felt like something simple, something you could trust.

I thought about the goldfish in its bowl, swimming endless circles in water it couldn't possibly understand. Some creatures live their whole lives in spaces smaller than their capacity to dream.

"You chose," I said finally. "That's the riddle, Marcus. The answer you already gave."

"Can I answer again?"

The pool light flickered out. The children screamed delightedly, as if darkness itself were a game. I wanted to say yes. I wanted what we had before, before everything hardened into something that could break. But some questions, once answered, can never be asked again.

"No," I said. "Some endings don't get to be beginnings."