The Riddle of What Remains

Margot organized the vitamins on her nightstand in neat rows—D for bones, B12 for energy, prenatal because they still held hope even after three years of trying. The pill organizer was her sphinx, presenting riddles she couldn't solve: Why them? Why now? What had they done wrong?

A cat appeared at their kitchen window that morning, tabby and one-eyed, watching her through the glass with ancient knowing. It reminded her of the fertility clinic's waiting room—all those women with their own silent riddles, their own vitamins and hopes, gathering like worshippers before an inscrutable god.

"We should stop trying," David had said the previous night, turning away from her in bed. "It's consuming us."

She'd pretended to sleep, tears soaking her pillow, while the cat outside purred against the windowpane. Their marriage had become a series of unasked questions, a collection of sphinx-like mysteries they both feared to answer.

The vitamin bottle was empty when she reached for it that morning. She stood in the pharmacy aisle, surrounded by promises in plastic containers, when she noticed the older woman beside her studying prenatal vitamins with trembling hands.

"My daughter," the woman said softly, as if explaining herself. "She can't have children. I buy them for her anyway. Just in case."

Margot's throat tightened. "Just in case," she repeated.

"Hope is a terrible thing," the woman said. "But necessary. Like breathing."

That evening, Margot found the tabby cat sitting on their back porch step. She set out a bowl of milk. David came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"We could foster," he said against her hair. "Kids, or this cat. Both."

She turned to face him, seeing for the first time that his riddles matched hers—not answers, but companionship in the not-knowing. The sphinx had been them both, asking questions without solutions.

"Yes," she said, and the cat purred as it lapped milk, a small warm thing alive in their kitchen. "We could do that."

The vitamins remained on her nightstand, unused but not discarded—artifacts of a hope that had shifted shape, not died. Some riddles, she realized, aren't meant to be solved, only lived with.