Beyond That, the Sea

by Laura Spence-Ash

The present’s hardly there; the future doesn’t exist. Only love matters in the bits and pieces of a person’s life.

Better that she go to America, he thought, where the fingers of war were less likely to touch her. But he never told her that he’d forced Millie’s hand. He let her believe it was Millie’s choice.

Before they all leave the beach, she turns from the Gregorys and faces east, back toward the island, and beyond that, the sea.

How sweet that moment is, that moment of before. When anticipation is everything. When everything is new. When there are no consequences, when there is no after.

She stood and brushed out her dress as she lit a cigarette and watched the little boat meander through the water, utterly at the whim of the current. “Be safe,” she called. “I will miss knowing you’re in the world.”

Oh, why can’t time be stopped in those moments. Why is it so hard to understand how fleeting it all is?

When you look back, it’s so easy to see the path that you’ve traveled. But looking forward, there are only dreams and fears.

So many things she would have done differently. Regret, she has found, is the loud thing that’s left.

We love people for all sorts of different reasons and in all sorts of different ways, she says. Remember that. And it only gets better, the older you get. Young love isn’t necessarily the best love.