The Riddle We Never Answered

Maya stood before the glass case, the Egyptian sphinx figurine staring back with limestone eyes that seemed to know everything she'd been hiding. Behind her, thunder cracked like a warning.

"Did you hear me?" David's voice was tight. "I asked what you're thinking."

She turned to find him holding his iPhone like a weapon, its screen illuminating his exhausted face. The blue light made him look ghost-like, distant. Outside, lightning fractured the sky, momentarily whitening the gallery windows. They were alone in this wing of the museum — just them, three thousand years of dead civilizations, and the phone that had been eating their marriage alive for months.

"I'm thinking about riddles," she said quietly. "The sphinx asked Oedipus: what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?"

"Man," David recited automatically. "A human life." He tapped his phone screen. "Maya, please. My mother's waiting for an update. She's worried about us."

"Is she? Or are you?" Another flash of lightning, closer this time. The storm inside matched the one outside. She'd been carrying this weight for weeks — the late-night texting, the way he smiled at his screen more than her face, the emotional intimacy he'd outsourced to everyone but her. Like Oedipus, she'd been walking through their marriage half-blind, solving everyone else's problems but her own.

"We used to be the people who solved riddles together," she said, gesturing to the sphinx behind her. "Now we can't even answer the simplest ones. When did you stop looking at me like I'm the only person in the room? When did your family become my responsibility to manage? When did we become strangers who share a bed?"

David's phone buzzed in his hand. He looked down, instinct taking over, then stopped. For the first time in months, he didn't swipe.

The sphinx watched in its eternal silence. Lightning struck somewhere nearby, and the gallery lights flickered. In that moment of darkness, Maya felt the truth settle in her bones: some riddles don't have answers. Some monuments belong in museums.

"Answer the phone, David," she said softly. "But know that when you look up, I won't be here waiting to be solved."

She walked out into the rain, leaving him with his ghosts and his glowing screen, finally understanding that the only riddle she needed to solve was herself.