Our Wives Under the Sea

Miri has a tendency toward anxiety and self-centered thinking. She has missed Leah terribly while she was away, but she has little empathy about what Leah experienced—at least at first—and barely contains her frustration over Leah’s withdrawn silences and physical travails. For example, when Leah suffers from constant nosebleeds, Miri becomes exasperated: “Some mornings, I’d want to accuse her of doing it on purpose and then I’d look away, set my mouth into another shape, and pour the coffee, think about going for a run” (7). The silence between them is not entirely of Leah’s making, and Miri often refuses to speak her mind about her worries, fears, and frustrations. Simultaneously, Miri is initially horrified by these side effects and wants to take Leah to the hospital; Leah insists that she is fine, even when it becomes increasingly clear that she is not. There is also the simple matter that Miri has had to remake her life, however shoddily, in Leah’s absence: “I can’t decide whether to register her presence as relief or invasion” (11). It is difficult to resume normal relations after so much time apart. In short, Miri’s frustration is hard-earned. This period of time captures Liminality as Integral to Change, portraying the fraught emotions of two people caught between two points: before and after a transformation.

The reader also learns that Miri’s attitude stems in part from her dependence on Leah; Miri’s character arc in this regard sheds light on Transformation’s Role in Achieving Autonomy. Miri has become accustomed to Leah’s steadying presence, and in its absence, she experiences intense bouts of anxiety. She remembers how Leah used to soothe her: “[Leah] discovered it was easy to calm me down by repeating words whose shapes I found appealing” (74). Miri also worries if Leah will always maintain such patience with Miri’s anxiety and hypochondria—especially should it turn out that Miri has inherited her mother’s condition. These tendencies can also make Miri self-centered at times. She imagines herself as Leah’s teenaged girlfriend, meeting the octopus Pamela before the creature dies: She tells herself that Pamela “had intended to meet me, that for any other girlfriend she would have died but that for me she had waited” (64). This self-centeredness slides into arrogance on occasion. Miri freely admits that she considers herself superior to her friend, Carmen, and she keeps Leah’s old friends at a distance, criticizing their behavior.

Nonetheless, as Leah continues to deteriorate, and Miri continues to remember their time together, a more tender portrait of Miri emerges. The Value of Relationships Ending becomes evident as Miri’s character develops, in large part thanks to her time with Leah. Miri clearly wants to honor the Leah that she knew and loved: “I want to explain her in a way that would make you love her” (48). Later, before she releases Leah into the ocean, she lists several positive qualities about Leah that she simply cannot bear to leave out, including that “Leah was kind by nature” (218). Miri’s obsession with death—including the gut belief that she herself is the only one who could possibly succumb to it—also explains her possessiveness of Leah: “Are you just now realizing that people die, Leah had said to me when I voiced this thought [...]. Not people, I had said, just you” (85). However, when faced with the inevitability of Leah’s dissolution, Miri chooses to save her, allowing her to swim away, rather than striving to keep her.

Miri is defined heavily by her character’s opposition to Leah. Miri is earthbound, sometimes selfish, often anxious, and barely curious, while Leah is much the opposite. Miri’s journey toward self-discovery takes place as she cares for Leah, remembers her mother, and prepares to move forward alone. She is, until the end, a largely passive protagonist who only takes action once she is prepared to let her wife go.