What the Sphinx Knows

She found the bottle of prenatal vitamins in the back of the medicine cabinet, behind three nearly-empty bottles of wine. The irony wasn't lost on her—that she'd been preparing for something he'd already decided against. Lightning cracked the bathroom mirror, sending spiderweb fissures through her reflection.

On the floor, their cat—weaving between her ankles—seemed to sense the atmospheric pressure drop. Sphinx, they'd named her, because she'd always watched them with those inscrutable golden eyes, as if holding answers to questions they hadn't yet thought to ask. Now the cat pressed her flank against Mara's calf, purring through the tension that had become their apartment's permanent climate.

Her iPhone illuminated the counter: another missed call from her mother, asking about wedding venues. Her thumb hovered over the screen, then dropped to her side. She didn't have the heart to explain that the guest list had just been halved.

David was in the living room, packing his books into cardboard boxes. Each thud of hardcover against cardboard was a countdown she hadn't agreed to. They'd had this fight twice already—the circular argument about his career, her desire for stability, the baby they couldn't afford on his artist's income and her nonprofit salary. The third time, he'd simply stopped arguing.

"You could have told me," she said from the doorway. Sphinx wound around her legs again, then trotted to David and rubbed against his shin. The traitor.

He looked up, holding a copy of "The Myth of Sisyphus." "Told you what?"

"That you'd already decided." The vitamins burned in her pocket. "That you were leaving."

"I thought you knew." He sounded genuinely surprised, which was worse.

"When? When you stopped coming to bed? When you started taking calls in the shower?" She could hear the bitterness in her own voice, sharp and unfamiliar. "Or when you let me believe we were still trying for something you'd already written off?"

He set the book down carefully. "Mara."

"No, don't." She pulled the vitamin bottle from her pocket and set it on the counter between them. "I found these this morning. I've been taking them for three weeks. While you were making up your mind, I was—" She stopped, the words catching in her throat.

His face cracked. Something like regret, or maybe just the realization of what he was choosing.

The storm outside had reached its peak. Lightning flooded the room in harsh white, freezing them both in place—her with her hand half-raised, him with his shoulders bowed under the weight of her silence. Sphinx sat between them, tail curled around her paws, watching with that ancient, knowing gaze.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I never wanted—"

"What did you want?" The question hung there, heavier than the storm. She realized she didn't know anymore. Perhaps she never had.

Sphinx stood, stretched, and walked to the door. Some bonds were easier to break than others.

Mara's iPhone chimed again—her mother, probably wondering why she wasn't answering. She looked at David one last time, really looked at him, and saw that he was already gone in all the ways that mattered.

"Take the cat," she said. "She likes you better anyway."

He didn't deny it.

Later, alone in the bathroom with its fractured mirror, she swallowed two vitamins with lukewarm tap water. Outside, the storm had passed. The lightning was miles away now, a memory flashing at the horizon. She called her mother back and said yes, she'd look at venues next weekend. Some lies were kinder than the truth.