What the Sphinx Knows

Elena picked at the spinach wilting on her plate, its dark leaves suddenly seeming like the most fascinating thing in the room. Around her, the dinner party laughter swelled and receded in waves she couldn't quite catch.

Marcus stood across the room, animated, his hand gesturing as he talked to Sophie — that sphinx of a woman who'd appeared in their social circle three months ago, inscrutable and ancient-eyed despite her thirty-odd years. Sophie never seemed to answer questions directly. She only asked more, smiling mysteriously, like she knew something the rest of them didn't.

"You're not eating," said Tom, beside her. He was Marcus's college roommate, a man whose idea of conversation was recounting the same three anecdotes from his twenties.

"Not hungry," Elena said, though her stomach gnawed at her. She'd forgotten to take her vitamin earlier — the prenatal ones Marcus still bought each month, a hopeful ritual neither of them could abandon, though they hadn't spoken of trying in six months. Not since the third time.

Sophie caught her eye from across the room. That sphinx smile. That weighing, measuring look that made Elena feel exposed, like Sophie could read the history of disappointments written in the set of her shoulders, the way she held her wineglass too tight.

Later, in the bathroom mirror, Elena picked a piece of spinach from between her teeth. Her reflection showed someone she barely recognized — thirty-eight and tired of pretending, tired of the way Marcus still looked at her sometimes with that careful, careful disappointment, like a vase he'd dropped and glued back together but never quite trusted not to shatter again.

She flushed the spinach down the toilet and washed her hands.

When she returned, Sophie stood alone on the balcony, smoking a cigarette Elena didn't know she smoked.

"He thinks you don't want it anymore," Sophie said, without turning around. "The baby. He thinks you've given up."

Elena's breath caught. "I don't know what I think."

"That's the problem." Sophie exhaled smoke into the night air. "You have to decide what you're willing to lose."

Inside, Marcus was laughing at something Tom said. He looked younger than he'd looked in years. Happy, in a way that had nothing to do with her anymore.

Elena went back in and took her husband's hand. He squeezed back, automatically, the way he always did. And for the first time, she wondered if that was enough anymore — if it had ever been.