What the Sphinx Knew

The restaurant was called The Sphinx, though Elena had never understood why. Nothing about it seemed riddling or ancient—just overpriced Italian food and candles that burned too bright. Tonight, across from David, she felt like Oedipus, except she wasn't interested in solving anything anymore.

"I'm just saying," David said, gesturing with his fork, "maybe we need space."

Space. That word again. She'd been hearing it for months, layered between his late nights at the firm and the way he'd started sleeping with his back to her.

"Space," she repeated, pushing spinach around her plate. "Is that what you call her apartment?"

David's fork paused. "Who?"

Elena almost laughed. That was the thing about David—he thought he was clever, thought his lies were so carefully constructed. But a lie was like a house of cards in a hurricane. All it took was one question.

"The dog knows," she said instead.

"What?"

"Barnaby. He can smell her on your clothes. He won't even sleep in our bed anymore."

David set down his fork. His face did that thing she'd grown to hate— that careful rearranging of features, like he was preparing for a deposition. "You're being paranoid."

"Am I?" Elena reached for her wine. "I found the receipt, David. Two dinners at La Cave in three weeks. You never take me there anymore."

Silence stretched between them, taut as wire. The table next to them laughed, drunk and easy, and Elena felt something sharp and lonely in her chest.

"I can't bear this," David said finally, not meeting her eyes. "This suspicion. This questioning."

"You can't bear being caught."

He looked up then, and she saw it: fear, resentment, something like relief. Like he'd been waiting for her to say it, to call his bluff, to burn everything down so he wouldn't have to be the one to strike the match.

"Maybe," he said quietly. "Maybe that's true."

Elena nodded. She'd known, really. She'd known since the first night he'd come home smelling like someone else's perfume. Known since Barnaby had started barking at his own shadow, sensing the change in the air, the seismic shift beneath their floorboards.

She signaled for the check. They'd split it. That was fair. That was what you did when you'd built something together and watched it collapse, stone by stone, into sand.

The sphinx remained silent. Some riddles answered themselves.