Beyond That, the Sea

by Laura Spence-Ash

Yes, she says, smiling, at last, because his accent is funny and his freckles are everywhere and he’s a wide-open American boy.

too sensitive, she imagines. Such little space between his head and his heart.

Every day is a new adventure, even if they are doing things they’ve done before and before and before.

I can do this. He winks back at her. That’s my girl, he says.

Mr. G smiles. My girl, he says again, and she wishes he would hug her again, but mostly she wishes she could hear her father say those words.

I don’t tell you how to teach, I don’t tell you how to fix the roof, I don’t tell you how to pay the bills. So, in return, you don’t tell me how to raise the children. This is my job, and being a mother is who I am. It’s everything to me.

And she placed her hand right next to his. Will you look at the difference in the size of our hands. Here, hold your hand up. Let’s compare. He was smitten by her openness, by her comfort, by her big smile.

“Be safe,” she called. “I will miss knowing you’re in the world.”

She’s the caretaker. How she hates it when people want to take care of her.

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.

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.

mean? I had four parents, she says. I think a little of each of them is in me, in some way or another. It’s a nice thought, though, isn’t it, she says, turning toward him and away from the darkening sky. Dead or alive, we carry these people with us.

no matter what I try to tell myself, no matter how hard I work to be at home there. I became who I am here.

WHAT’S PAST IS PROLOGUE.