The Riddle We Never Answered

She found him in the bathroom again, the fluorescent light harsh on his thirty-five-year-old face. He was measuring out his morning **vitamin** supplements—D for bones, zinc for fertility, CoQ10 for whatever hope remained between them. The bottles clattered like thin bones.

"You're **running** late," she said, leaning against the doorframe. Her still-wet **hair** from the shower left dark circles on her robe.

"Just a minute." He didn't look up.

She watched him swallow the handful of capsules with **water** from a plastic cup, his throat working against something he wouldn't say. Three years of treatments, of calendars marked with fertile windows, of increasingly clinical intimacy. Their love had become a series of medical appointments and temperature charts.

That afternoon, she sat alone on a bench near the museum's Egyptian wing, eating her lunch among tourists. The Great **Sphinx** of Hatshepsut stared back from across the room—a lion's body, a human face, riddles carved into limestone. The placard said it represented wisdom and mystery, the guardian of secrets.

What riddle were they trying to answer? The one about whether their marriage could survive without children? The one about whether love was enough when biology refused them?

She thought about leaving him. Not because she didn't love him, but because staying felt like waiting for a train that had already left the station. But then she remembered him measuring vitamins in the harsh morning light, performing rituals of hope she'd abandoned months ago. His faith embarrassed her, but it also anchored her.

That evening, she found him asleep on the couch, a fertility journal open on his chest. She gently removed it and covered him with a blanket. His breathing was steady, peaceful. Whatever happened, they would face it. Some riddles had no answers—only companionship in the asking.