What the Sphinx Knows

The pool at the Luxor Resort was empty at 4 AM, which was exactly what Sarah needed. She'd taken to swimming when the insomnia became unbearable, slicing through the water while her husband slept in room 312, possibly dreaming of the woman he'd been texting for months.

The artificial sphinx at the pool's edge stared at her with painted eyes, its chipped gold leaf catching moonlight. She'd laughed when they checked in—*how camp*, she'd said, *how gloriously on-the-nose.* Now it felt like judgment. The sphinx knew. The sphinx had watched her cry by the edge on their honeymoon night, eighteen-year-old Sarah convinced she'd never be happy again. The sphinx had watched her fall in love, watched her believe in forever. Now it watched her unravel.

She floated on her back, staring at the orange glow of the security lights reflecting on the ceiling. The water buoyed her, held her in a way that David hadn't in years. She thought about the text she'd found—*I miss you too*—and how she'd thrown her phone into the ocean in Cancún last week, a spectacularly childish gesture that had cost them eight hundred dollars.

"Nice form," a voice said.

Sarah treaded water, heart hammering. A woman sat at the edge, legs in the pool, smoking. The concierge. Elena. The one David smiled too long at when checking in.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Elena asked.

Sarah swam to the edge, water streaming from her hair. "My husband snores."

Elena exhaled smoke, and for a moment Sarah wanted to ask—*did you know? did he tell you?*—but what was the point. The water felt too heavy around her suddenly. She pulled herself up, sitting beside the sphinx, its stone flank warm against her back.

"You know," Elena said, "the real sphinx ate people who couldn't answer its riddle."

"What's the riddle?" Sarah asked, though she already knew. The answer was always the same: something about walking on four legs, then two, then three. About crawling, then standing, then leaning.

About how you start whole and end broken.

Elena stubbed out her cigarette. "The riddle is: what happens when you stop being who you were supposed to be?"

The orange security light flickered. Sarah thought about divorce attorneys and apartment hunting and how she'd never learned to swim until last year, when the panic attacks started. How the water had become the only place she could breathe.

"You survive," Sarah said.

The sphinx said nothing. But behind its painted eyes, something shifted. Perhaps approval. Perhaps the beginning of forgiveness.