The Riddle of Us

The sphinx statue in the hotel lobby stared at us with dead eyes, its stone face frozen in that eternal riddle-smile. We were in Cairo for what Marcus called a 'relationship salvage mission'—his corporate terminology for our fifth anniversary trip, booked during the month we'd both felt like zombies moving through the motions of a life that no longer fit.

I watched him from across the marble floor, my iPhone clutched in my hand like a lifeline. Three unread messages from my boss. Two from my mother. One from Marcus, sent from the other side of the room: *We need to talk.*

Outside, lightning fractured the sky, illuminating the sphinx's weathered face in stark relief. The storm had been brewing for days, much like the silence between us.

'So,' Marcus said, finally meeting my gaze. 'The riddle.'

'What riddle?'

'What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening.' He gestured vaguely at the stone creature behind us. 'The sphinx's question. About time.'

I looked at my phone again, at the notifications piling up like debts. 'Man,' I said. 'The answer is man.'

'Wrong.' He stepped closer, and I smelled the whiskey on his breath. 'The answer is marriage.'

The lightning struck closer this time, shaking the glass walls of the atrium. A hotel clerk glanced our way, then quickly looked away.

'Four legs when you're young and crawl into each other,' Marcus continued, his voice cracking. 'Two legs when you're standing together. And three legs when—' He stopped, unable to finish.

'When you need a cane to walk away,' I whispered.

'Or when you're leaning on someone you no longer know.' His phone buzzed on the marble table. Work, probably. Always work. 'I'm tired of being a zombie, Sarah. I'm tired of us being zombies.'

Outside, the sky tore open. Lightning silvered everything—the sphinx, the empty glasses on our table, the desperate hope still somehow alive between us.

'What if,' I said, my phone vibrating in my hand, 'we started over? Not the marriage. Just—us.'

Marcus looked at the sphinx, then at me, and for the first time in months, something other than exhaustion crossed his face. 'That's not a riddle with an answer,' he said. 'That's a question with consequences.'

'I'm done with safe answers,' I said, and pushed the iPhone across the marble table toward him.