What the Sphinx Forgot to Ask

The glass of water sat between us, sweating onto the coaster, collecting our silence like condensation. Elena hadn't touched hers. The spinach stuck in her teeth—she'd ordered the salad, always the salad, as if greens could somehow compensate for what we'd become.

"You're such a bull," she said, not looking at me. "Charging through things without thinking. That's why we're here."

Here was the Sphinx, a dive bar on the edge of the city where the neon sign flickered in rhythm with my failing heartbeat. We came here to discuss divorce, though neither of us would say the word. The Sphinx seemed appropriate—riddles without answers, mysteries wrapped in cheap vinyl booths.

"I didn't mean to—" I started.

"You never do." Her smile was sharp, beautiful, cruel. "Remember that fox we saw in Tuscany? The one that stole our breakfast? That's you. Sly and hungry and taking what isn't yours."

The fox. Of course she'd bring up Tuscany. That trip where everything had still felt possible, where we'd laughed watching the animal make off with her croissant, where we'd made love on hotel sheets that felt like forgiveness. Now the memory was just another weapon.

The bartender poured another round. The water in my glass had developed a skin, stagnant like us. I thought about Oedipus at the crossroads, riddles that destroyed you when you solved them wrong. Our riddle wasn't what we'd become—but what we never were.

"I hired the lawyer," I said finally. "The bull charges. The fox steals. The spinach dies in the teeth of things that used to be alive."

Elena's eyes glistened. She reached across the table, her fingers hovering over mine, like she wanted to touch me or maybe strangle me. She did neither. Instead she picked up her glass of water and drank it all in one swallow, like she was drowning herself on dry land.

"I know," she said. "I hired mine yesterday."

The Sphinx's riddle had been: What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening? Ours was simpler: What do you call two people who loved each other until they didn't, who sit in a bar named after monsters, who cannot remember the last time they meant it when they said I love you?

Answer: Divorce.

Answer: Us.

Answer: Nothing worth remembering.