The Sphinx at Seventh Inning

The vitamin bottle rattled in my pocket—D3, with calcium, the doctor's recommendation for bones that already felt ancient at forty-two. I stood in the driveway of my childhood home, watching my father's golden retriever chase imaginary baseballs across a lawn now more weeds than grass.

"He's got arthritis," Dad said from the porch, not looking up from the glass aquarium in his lap. "Same age as when we used to go to games."

The dog collapsed near the fence, panting. Seven years since Mom's funeral. Seven years since I'd visited. Baseball had been our thing—Sunday afternoon games, cheap beer, the comfortable silence between men who'd forgotten how to speak without a scoreboard.

Inside the house, the aquarium hummed. A single goldfish swam in lazy circles, its orange scales dull in the filtered light.

"Won another trivia night," Dad said, his voice thin. "Category: Ancient Egypt. You know what the Sphinx asked those travelers?"

"Truth," I said. "Or they died."

He laughed, a dry rattling sound. "Exactly. No room for nuance. No room for 'I'm sorry' or 'I miss you' or 'I was scared.' Just truth or death."

The goldfish surfaced, gulping air. I remembered the way Mom used to buy vitamin gummies, the way she'd slip them into our cereal on baseball mornings, the conspiracy of love in small things.

"She knew," Dad said suddenly. "About Sphinx. The riddle isn't 'what walks on four legs then two then three.' The riddle is why we keep playing games where someone has to lose."

His hand trembled as he dropped a fish pellet into the tank. The goldfish darted upward, breaking the surface.

"Your mother's goldfish," he said. "Six years now. They're supposed to live two."

Outside, the dog lifted his head and let out a soft whine, chasing something we couldn't see. I swallowed two vitamins with spit and the taste of regret. The sphinx sat silent in our throats, its riddle dissolving in the space between what we meant and what we said.