The Sphinx by the Pool

The water was the only place Mara could still breathe. She swam laps at the hotel pool at midnight, her arms cutting through the chlorinated silence while her marriage disintegrated three floors above.

Tonight, her iPhone sat on the poolside chair like a guilty witness, its screen illuminating periodically with messages she refused to read. David's texts had been coming all evening — explanations, apologies, accusations. She'd stopped distinguishing between them hours ago.

She surfaced near the deep end, gasping. That's when she saw it: a concrete sphinx, nearly life-sized, perched inexplicably beside the hot tub. Its wings were partially eroded, its human face weathered by rain and neglect. Some long-ago hotel manager's idea of exotic ambiance, now relegated to the corner where guests discarded their towels and empty cocktail glasses.

Mara treaded water, studying the creature. The sphinx had asked its riddles of Oedipus, destroying those who couldn't answer. What riddle was life asking her now? Not "what walks on four legs then two then four" — something worse. Something about how you could know someone for seven years, share a bed and a mortgage and Sunday morning rituals, and still not know them at all. Or worse: how you could know them perfectly, and that knowledge would still destroy you.

Her iPhone chimed again. She backstroked away from it.

She'd come home early from the conference yesterday. Hadn't called ahead. Had wanted to surprise David with dinner, maybe rekindle something that had been flickering out for months. The surprise had been hers: the sound of unfamiliar laughter in their home, the pair of wine glasses by the sink that weren't theirs, the way David's face had crumpled when he saw her standing in the doorway.

Now she swam, trying to wash away the image of his face. The sphinx watched, inscrutable as ever.

"Answer me," she whispered to it. "What's the riddle?"

The sphinx said nothing. But somewhere in its weathered features, Mara thought she saw something almost like compassion. The thing about riddles was that eventually you had to stop solving them and start choosing. And the thing about swimming was that eventually you had to come up for air.

She pulled herself from the pool, dripping, and picked up her iPhone. One new notification. Not from David.

From Elena, her sister: *Called Mom. She's flying in tomorrow. I told her everything. We're going to get through this.*

Mara stood naked and shivering beside the sphinx, thumb hovering over the screen. Then she typed back: *I know. Can you pick me up? I'm done swimming.*