Everything Here Is Beautiful

by Mira T. Lee

Stefan rarely raised his voice, but he raised it now. And later, much later, when she could view this part of their lives through her husband’s lens, Miranda would invariably cringe—because this is what he knew: that the hospitals, Ecuador, these episodes destroyed her every time. That she would not eat or sleep; that the stomach pains would wake her at all hours of the night; that she would become angry, irritable, and any opinion he offered, regardless of how gentle or solicitous, would be wrong, dismissed, and she would snap or yell or burst into tears, and they would say things they each regretted later. That gash on her forehead—she didn’t think he knew, but he did. He was not unsympathetic to the others, but in Stefan’s reality, there was only one person whose well-being stood at stake: his wife. Miranda, who was good. Miranda, who tried so hard to do what was right. And if this put her in opposition to him, he hated it. Yes, he was selfish, too. Her turmoil was his. Her unhappiness, his anguish. No, he could not tell her to go to Ecuador now. But he also could not demand that she stay. It tore him up, that he loved her—he tried so hard to love her—yet how best to love her still eluded him. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” he said.