Miri (Chapter 20): Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with Miri describing her morning routine: she runs beside the canal and then stops at a café near the municipal leisure center, where she drinks two coffees. A man at the café has repeatedly written his phone number on her receipt, and he does so again this morning. Miri, annoyed and alarmed, tells him to stop and leaves without the receipt. This prompts a memory of an early date with Leah, when a man at a bar asked if they were sisters; Leah said yes and kissed Miri.

Back home, Leah is locked in the bathroom with the sound machine playing. Miri is dealing with a bad toothache and a water bill that is twelve times the average, which she doesn't know how to pay. She goes through papers from Leah's transfer to the Centre, trying to understand when Leah's job became obscure to her. She recalls the going-away party, particularly a man Leah jokingly called “The Boss,” who ate twelve cocktail sausages, wore a ring with an eye-like insignia, and left without ceremony. Miri remembers him in excessive detail, noting how memory often retains unimportant things while losing important ones.

Miri then reflects on her mother, whose face was rigid from years of suppressing expressions to avoid wrinkles. When her mother became ill, that control was lost, and she suffered involuntary spasms and uncontrolled movements. Miri describes her mother's death during the two-minute silence in November, and lists a series of vivid, fragmented memories of her mother—her habits, her contradictions, and the way she asked about Leah only twice.

That night, the phone rings late from a private number, and no one speaks. This has happened before. The next morning, Miri calls Carmen, who denies calling and says she was watching a pottery show. Carmen expresses concern for Miri, saying she sounds “a bit Joan Crawford,” but Miri insists she's fine.

Leah, sitting on the sofa, suddenly remarks that seabirds eat more plastic relative to their size than any other ocean animal. Miri sits beside her and, wanting to measure her, fetches a tape measure. She recalls doing the same before their wedding, measuring Leah's body and writing down the numbers, joking that she could reconstruct a perfect Leah if she lost her. She lost that paper long ago. Now she measures Leah again—her wrists, throat, forehead, collarbone, and face—but without the original measurements, she can't tell if Leah has changed.

The chapter ends with a therapist agreeing to a Skype session, though Leah remains locked in the bathroom. Miri tells the therapist that Leah has been in there since the previous evening, and the therapist insists that therapy can't work with only one person present.

Key Events

Miri confronts the café man who keeps writing his number on her receipt.
She recalls an early date when Leah kissed her in response to a stranger's assumption.
Leah is locked in the bathroom; Miri struggles with financial strain and a toothache.
Miri reviews Leah's transfer papers and remembers the going-away party and “The Boss.”
Miri reflects on her mother's facial rigidity, illness, and death.
A late-night anonymous phone call occurs; Carmen denies making it.
Leah makes a cryptic comment about seabirds and plastic.
Miri measures Leah with a tape measure, recalling she did the same before their wedding but lost the measurements.
A therapist agrees to a Skype session, but Leah remains in the bathroom.

Character Development

Miri is increasingly overwhelmed by the practical and emotional weight of Leah's condition. Her confrontation with the café man shows a new assertiveness, but also a weariness—she has to explicitly ask him to stop. Her memory of the early date with Leah highlights the intimacy they once shared, contrasting with the current distance. Miri's reflections on her mother reveal a deep, unresolved grief and a fear of becoming like her—rigid, controlling, and ultimately undone by illness. Her attempt to measure Leah is a desperate act to hold onto something concrete, but she lacks the baseline to know if anything has changed, underscoring her helplessness.

Leah is mostly absent, locked in the bathroom. When she does appear, she speaks in disconnected, factual statements (about seabirds) that suggest a mind drifting away from shared reality. Her physical deterioration is implied by her complaints of numbness and her swaddled, hunched posture.

Carmen serves as a grounding presence, but her denial of the phone call adds to Miri's sense of isolation.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Unreliable memory: Miri's inability to recall the original measurements, and her detailed but useless memory of “The Boss,” highlight how memory fails to provide the certainty she needs.
Bodily mutability: Leah's changing body—measured but unverifiable—mirrors her broader transformation. Miri's mother's loss of control over her face also speaks to the body's betrayal.
Isolation and disconnection: Leah is physically locked away; Miri is emotionally locked out. The anonymous phone calls and the therapist's insistence on seeing both partners emphasize the breakdown of communication.
Corporate secrecy: The Centre's vague, triumphant language and the mysterious “Boss” suggest hidden dangers and unspoken truths about Leah's work.
Anticipatory grief: Miri's measuring of Leah, her memories of her mother's death, and her sense of losing Leah even while she's present all point to grief that precedes an ending.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter deepens the novel's exploration of how we know—or fail to know—the people we love. Miri's attempt to measure Leah is a poignant metaphor for her struggle to track changes she can't quantify. The chapter also connects Leah's current state to Miri's past losses, particularly her mother, suggesting a pattern of watching loved ones deteriorate. The anonymous phone calls and the therapist's refusal to proceed without Leah raise the stakes, making clear that the couple's isolation is both external and internal. It sets up the possibility of intervention while also showing how far apart they've grown.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Miri measure Leah, and what does the act reveal about her state of mind?

Miri measures Leah because she wants to hold onto something tangible about her wife, to see if Leah has changed. But because she lost the original measurements, she can't tell if anything is different. This reveals Miri's desperation and her inability to track Leah's decline, reflecting her broader helplessness and the way memory fails to provide a baseline for understanding loss.

2. How does Miri's memory of her mother shape her reaction to Leah's condition?

Miri's mother was rigid and controlled her face to avoid wrinkles, but illness stripped that control away, leaving her body to betray her. Miri sees her mother in herself and fears the same loss of control. This memory makes Leah's physical and mental changes more frightening, as Miri is already primed to watch a loved one deteriorate and feel sickened by it.

3. What is the significance of the anonymous phone calls and Carmen's denial?

The calls create an atmosphere of unease and paranoia, suggesting that something is intruding on Miri's already fragile world. Carmen's denial reinforces Miri's isolation—she can't even trust that someone is reaching out. The calls may also symbolize the unknowable forces (the Centre, Leah's past) that are pressing in on the couple, or Miri's own anxiety manifesting as a phantom connection.