The Riddle We Never Answered

The sphinx moth battering itself against the porch light was the only movement in the house. Sarah watched it from the kitchen doorway, her wine glass sweating against her palm. Inside, David sat with his back to her, hunched over his laptop like someone guarding a secret.

"Dinner's ready," she said, but he didn't turn.

The HDMI cable snaked across the floor between them, a black umbilical cord that should have connected them to something shared — a movie, a conversation, a life — but instead just waited, dormant and coiled like a question neither of them would ask.

Sarah had found the receipt three days ago: dinner at Le Bernardin, wine she couldn't pronounce, a date night she wasn't invited to. When she'd confronted him, David had looked at her with that sphinx-like silence she'd come to dread — inscrutable, ancient, withholding.

"Working late," he'd said. "You know howstartup culture is."

She set down his plate. Salmon, roasted potatoes, spinach sautéed with garlic — his favorite. The spinach clung to her teeth, a reminder of how well she still knew him, how thoroughly she'd memorized the landscape of his preferences even as he'd become someone she no longer recognized.

"David?"

"Just one more email," he said, but the screen reflected in his glasses showed only a blank inbox.

The sphinx moth finally gave up and disappeared into the night. Sarah realized she was asking the wrong riddle. The question wasn't what he was hiding. The question was how long she'd keep pretending she didn't already know the answer.

She touched the cable with her foot. It was still warm from the television they'd watched together three nights ago, the last time they'd sat on the same couch without an entire galaxy of unsaid words between them.

"I'm going to my mother's," she said.

David's fingers stilled over the keyboard. For a moment, she thought he might finally turn around. Instead, he typed a single word — a response to someone who wasn't her.

Sarah walked out, leaving the spinach to grow cold on both their plates.