What the Cat Knows

The coaxial cable lay coiled like a dead snake on the floor, its final act of rebellion after the technician said it couldn't be repaired. Mara sat cross-legged on the couch, her iPhone clutched in her hand like a rosary, scrolling through texts that stopped coming three weeks ago.

Her cat, Sphinx—named for the inscrutable expression she'd worn since kittenhood—jumped onto the coffee table and batted at a loose strand of cable. Sphinx had been David's idea, a joke about riddles and unanswered questions. Now the cat was the only living thing who witnessed Mara's Wednesday night routine: takeout containers, wine that turned to vinegar on her tongue, the glow of screens that promised connection but delivered only the ghost of it.

"At least you don't judge me," she said, scratching behind Sphinx's ears. The cat purred, a small engine of unconditional demand.

Mara stood and walked to the kitchen. A bag of spinach wilted in the crisper drawer, purchased during a brief week of attempting to be someone who meal-prepped and practiced self-care. Someone who didn't let a marriage dissolve through silence, through the accumulated weight of unspoken grievances. She remembered David saying, "You're always waiting for something to happen," and her response: "And you're always afraid it won't."

They'd both been right.

The iPhone buzzed—a work email. She ignored it. Some days she felt like the sphinx herself, guarding a riddle she couldn't remember: what had they been building toward? What did all those years amount to?

Sphinx wound around her ankles, purring louder. The cat would be fed. The spinach would be thrown out. Tomorrow the cable would be repaired or replaced. She would watch whatever everyone was talking about. She would keep going.

But tonight, in the kitchen's fluorescent light, Mara closed her eyes and let herself stand in the space between what she'd lost and what she hadn't yet figured out how to want instead. The riddle wasn't the answer. The riddle was learning to live with not knowing.