What We Don't Say

The papaya sat between us like a foreign object, its sunset flesh glistening in the overhead light. Marcus hadn't touched his spinach either. The cable box blinked—12:00, 12:00, 12:00—like some desperate Morse code for a conversation we refused to have.

"Baseball season starts next week," he said, not meeting my eyes. "Thought maybe we could go."

I wanted to laugh. Last year, he'd left me at the stadium when his ex-wife called. Now he wanted to pretend that papaya and baseball and silence could fix what three years of therapy couldn't.

"Like the Great Sphinx," I said instead. "You're a riddle without an answer."

He looked up then, startled. The cable guy was supposed to come between noon and three. It was nearly five, and the silence between us had grown louder than any television.

"I ordered the papaya because you used to love it," he said quietly. "In Honduras, remember?"

I remembered. I also remembered he'd spent that trip flirting with our tour guide while I pretended not to notice. The papaya had tasted like betrayal then too.

"Spinach is good for you," I said, pushing the wilted greens around my plate. "But sometimes you need more than what's healthy."

The cable finally flickered to life—a baseball game, of course. Two outs, bottom of the ninth. The kind of moment that makes people hold their breath, makes them believe in impossible things.

Marcus reached across the table. His hand hovered over mine, uncertain as a question.

"I don't want to be a sphinx anymore," he whispered.

The papaya between us had grown warm, its sweet scent cloying in the thick silence. I looked at his hand, then at the television where a player hit a home run that changed everything. Some games, you have to know when to walk away.

"Then start answering the riddles," I said, standing up. "But Marcus? Some answers aren't worth hearing anymore."

The cable kept flickering, the game kept playing, and I finally understood what the Great Sphinx must have felt like—watching everyone search for meaning in stone that would never speak.