We Build Our Own Riddles

The **lightning** illuminated everything in jagged flashes—the dust on the windowsill, the whiskey rings on the coasters, the half-forgotten years of our marriage.

"The **cable** company is coming tomorrow," Sarah said, not looking up from her book. "We should decide what we're keeping."

I watched her face—composed, unreadable. A sphinx in our living room, guarding whatever she'd become while I was busy building a life that no longer fit either of us.

"Remember when we talked about everything?" I asked.

She turned a page, deliberately. "We talked about things that mattered."

The thunder rolled through the floorboards. Outside, the storm was tearing through something, and I wanted it to be us. I wanted the clean violence of it.

"Your father's **baseball** glove is still in the attic," she said. "You said you'd throw it out three years ago."

It wasn't about the glove. It was about how we'd become people who hoarded useless things because throwing them away meant admitting they'd never become what we'd hoped.

"What are we doing, Sarah?" I asked. "What's the riddle here?"

She closed her book. For the first time in months, she looked at me—really looked at me. Her eyes were tired.

"The answer isn't the point," she said quietly. "The question is whether you still want to solve it."

The lightning flashed again, and in that split second of brilliance, I saw it: we weren't drowning. We were waiting.

I stood up, crossed the room, and sat beside her. The distance between us had been measured in inches for years, but somehow, tonight, it felt crossable.

"I do," I said.

The sphinx shifted. Something in her posture softened.

"Then start by throwing out the glove," she said.

The storm outside would pass. We'd wake to a morning that needed mending, but for now, there was this—two people building a new riddle, one answer at a time.