The Weight of Unanswered Riddles

Maya moved through her apartment like a zombie, each step heavy with the accumulated exhaustion of three years of unanswered messages. The insomnia had started six months after Tomas left, or maybe it had always been there, lurking beneath the surface of their marriage like something waiting to surface.

A cat meowed from the fire escape. It was Tomas's cat, technically — a sleek black creature named Sphinx because of her inscrutable yellow eyes and habit of staring at walls as though receiving transmissions from another dimension. Maya had kept Sphinx after the divorce, partly out of spite, partly because she couldn't bear to be the one who finally took something else from him.

"You're still here," Maya said, opening the window. Sphinx darted in, tail held high, demanding. Tomas had always said the cat was a test — if you could love something that refused to love you back, you were ready for marriage. The joke was that he'd failed.

Thunder cracked overhead, closer than Maya had expected. She crossed to the kitchen, stepping over the box of Tomas's things she'd finally packed after eighteen months of pretending she might return them. The last time they'd spoken, he'd asked why she'd never fought for him. The question had hung in the air like a sphinx's riddle, impossible and cruel. She still didn't have an answer.

Lightning fractured the sky, sudden and violent, illuminating the apartment in stark white. For a second, Maya saw herself in the darkened window — gaunt, hollow-eyed, a creature of routine and regret. The woman she'd become while waiting for something to change.

Sphinx rubbed against her leg, purring like a small engine. Maya scooped her up, buried her face in soft black fur. "We're both just waiting," she whispered. "But at least you know how to ask for what you need."

She set the cat down and picked up her phone. Tomas's number was still there, stored under "Do Not Answer" but present nonetheless. Outside, rain began to fall, washing over the city like something finally breaking. Maya's thumb hovered over the screen. She didn't know what she would say. But for the first time in three years, she thought maybe she was ready to figure it out.