What the Sphinx Knew

The papaya sat on the counter, its yellow-orange skin mottling with brown spots—just like their relationship had been, Mara thought, beautiful in moments but rotting from the inside out. She sliced into it anyway, the knife sliding through flesh that was too soft, too far gone. The sweet scent filled the kitchen, cloying and sad.

"You're doing it again," Julian said from the doorway. He hadn't shaved. The goldfish lamp they'd bought in Prague that first dizzy month cast wavering light across his face, making him look underwater, distorted. "Finding metaphors in fruit."

"I'm cutting breakfast, Julian. That's all."

But he was right, of course. He always was. That was the problem.

The sphinx pendant he'd given her three years ago lay cold against her chest, its enigmatic grin pressing into her sternum. She'd worn it every day since—that terrible night he'd asked what she wanted from him, really wanted, and she'd answered with silence. Some questions you don't answer. Some answers you don't speak aloud.

"I'm moving out," he said.

Mara's knife faltered. A slice of papaya fell to the floor. The goldfish in the actual bowl on the windowsink darted through its water, oblivious, stupidly alive. She'd been feeding it too much lately. It was getting fat.

"When?"

"Friday." He stepped closer, and she could smell the coffee on his breath, the laundry detergent on his shirt—the intimate, terrible scents of shared life. "I found a place in Wicker Park."

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The sphinx seemed to whisper against her skin: *What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?* The answer was man, but the real answer was this: love, with its transformations. How you start on your knees with wonder, stand tall in its noon power, and end up leaning on something—anything—to keep from falling.

"The fish," she said. "You bought it."

"You wanted it."

"It was your turn to feed it."

"Mara." His voice cracked, just once. She didn't turn. If she turned, she'd see the softness in his eyes that had undone her three years ago in a crowded bar when he'd asked about her favorite book and she'd lied and said something sophisticated instead of admitting she loved trashy romance novels.

"Take it," she said. "Take the fish."

"You love that stupid fish."

"Take the damn fish, Julian."

He didn't move. She could feel him behind her, the heat of his body three feet away, the space between them charged with everything unsaid, everything that had accumulated like silt in a riverbed, layer upon layer until the water ran slow and deep and you couldn't see the bottom anymore.

The papaya was too ripe now, bruised where she'd squeezed it. She scraped it into the sink. The goldfish surfaced, gaping, waiting.

"Fine," he said.

She listened to him pack for hours. The sphinx grinned against her skin. *I know the answer,* it seemed to say. *The answer is that you never really know anything until it's gone.*