Our Wives Under the Sea

by Julia Armfield

“What you have to understand,” she says, “is that things can thrive in unimaginable conditions. All they need is the right sort of skin.” We are sitting on

Very often, people argue as a way of expressing the fears and frustrations they cannot say aloud.

Looking out across the water and feeling my feet connected to something more solid than the plunging uncertainty beyond, I have always felt weighted, literal, a tangible creature connected to the earth.

I feel better in places where there aren’t any churches.

My favorite part of the story, she told me, was that she fasted. She was in that much pain, bits of her skin coming away, pieces of her body, and she was still so devout that she fasted for God. I was a bloodthirsty little bitch when you think about it. I loved that so much. I read this book once that said that all she ate were apples and dates and all she drank was salt water.

Grief is selfish: we cry for ourselves without the person we have lost

far more than we cry for the person—but more than that, we cry because it helps. The grief process is also the coping process and if the grief is frozen by ambiguity, by the constant possibility of reversal, then so is the ability to cope.

I used to hope, I typed once, that I’d die before my partner, even though I knew that was selfish. I used to think that I hoped I’d die before she died and before the planet died and really just generally before things got any worse.

I just don’t think it’s that complicated, honestly—if you’re with the wrong person, it’s hard. It’s just another way of thinking you’re special, the way everyone does when they’re a teenager. You think you aren’t able to love, except that of course you are. You think you aren’t able to love correctly or the same as everyone else, except that of course you are, you just haven’t had a chance to do it yet. You’re not special, you’re just waiting. Toby nodded, poured wine into plastic cups. In fairness, babe, I don’t think Poppy was saying she’s unable to love. Just that she hates the way Dan eats with his mouth open.

you can never learn enough to protect yourself, not really.