“I hate it here, I d-d-don’t belong here, Arthur.” Miranda noticed the martini glass was spilling and she righted it only to take another deep sip. Swig, was the better word. “I’m like – a – a rose you planted in one of those states where it never gets warm. You want me to be beautiful here but I can’t. I’m wilting.”

And then she began to cry, which scared me more than anything. I hadn’t seen my wife cry since our wedding day and even then it had been only a single tear running down her cheek, probably because that was the most glamorous way to cry, and with Miranda there was always someone watching her, there was always a spotlight as though her life was a silver screen and the rest of us just blurry figures in the audience.