The Season of Unanswered Riddles

Elena sat in the aluminum bleachers, the May sun cutting through her cardigan as she watched twelve-year-old Leo swing at another baseball he'd never hit. The ball arced into the glove of a boy whose father had shown up with a cooler of orange slices and genuine enthusiasm.

Three empty seats beside her marked Daniel's absence. He'd been bearing up under something for months now—a weight he refused to name, a silence that had settled between them like heavy snow. Last night she'd asked what was wrong, and he'd looked at her with eyes that contained whole seasons of retreat.

"I'm just tired, El."

The sphinx had offered more explanation.

Leo struck out again, slamming his bat into the dirt. He looked up at the stands, and she offered the thumbs-up she knew he hated. Her phone buzzed—Daniel, texting from work again: *Late again. Don't wait up.*

The words landed like a fourth rejection that day. First the job she hadn't gotten, then the credit card bill, then Leo's teacher suggesting maybe tutoring for the math he couldn't grasp, and now this—this marriage that had become a series of riddles without answers.

What are we? What happened to the version of us that talked until 3 AM about nothing and everything?

A bear of a cub scout leader had told them at the last meeting that every boy needs his father, and she'd wanted to scream that sometimes fathers disappeared into themselves, that the sphinx's riddle wasn't about walking on four legs then two then three, but about how to love someone who was becoming a stranger in slow motion.

Leo walked toward the bleachers, cleats clicking against the pavement. He sat beside her without speaking, leaning into her shoulder.

"Dad coming?"

"Working, honey."

He nodded, accepting this new truth with the pragmatism of children who grew up too fast. On the field, the next batter stepped up, and for a moment she wanted to scream at the sky, at the unfairness of love that eroded like cliffs, at the silence that had become its own language.

Instead, she put her arm around her son and watched the baseball arc through the April sky, knowing some riddles weren't meant to be solved—only borne.