The Sphinx Moths

Mara stood at the edge of the pool, the water black as ink under the moonless sky. She hadn't been swimming in three years—not since the night everything changed. The storm clouds gathered like bruises on the horizon, and she could taste ozone on her tongue, that particular electricity that precedes a deluge. Lightning flickered in the distance, a photographer's flashbulb going off again and again, illuminating the yard in stroboscopic bursts.

Her dog, Buster, pressed against her leg, sensing something in the air. He'd been a puppy then, all clumsy enthusiasm and unconditional affection. Now he was old, his muzzle gray, his joints stiff. He remembered what she couldn't forget.

The screen door creaked open. Elena.

"You came," Mara said, not turning around.

"You asked me to."

Elena walked to the pool's edge, her bare feet soundless on the concrete. Once, they had been friends—the kind who finished each other's sentences, who shared clothes and secrets and beds, who believed their connection was elemental, unbreakable. Then came the accident. Then came the silence.

"The sphinx moths are back," Elena said softly.

Mara followed her gaze. Large moths with undersides the color of dried blood hovered over the gardenias, their long tongues uncurling to drink from the white flowers. Sphinx moths—hummingbird moths, some called them—creatures of the dusk, neither one thing nor another.

"Do you remember," Elena continued, "what you said that night? About how some questions don't have answers?"

"I remember everything," Mara said.

"Then you know why I did it."

"No," Mara said. "I know what you did. I'll never know why."

Lightning split the sky, closer now, and for a moment, everything was washed in harsh white light. Elena's face, beautiful and unfamiliar. The pool, still and waiting. Buster, trembling against her leg.

"I loved him," Elena said.

"I know. That was the problem."

The rain began then, a sudden downpour that turned the pool surface into something alive. They stood there as the water flattened their hair, ran down their faces like tears they couldn't cry anymore. Buster barked once, a sharp sound.

"We can't go back," Elena said, her voice nearly lost to the storm.

"No," Mara agreed. "But maybe we can go forward."

She extended her hand. Elena took it, palm cool against palm, fingers interlacing like they used to, before everything broke. They stood in the rain as the lightning flashed again, neither speaking, as the sphinx moths continued their slow dance over the gardenias, drinking from flowers that would open only at night, only for them.