Beyond That, the Sea

by Laura Spence-Ash

She doesn’t tell them that every Saturday morning Mr. Gregory wraps a worn, berry-stained apron around his waist and makes pancakes. That Mrs. Gregory gives her a bath and tucks her in each night. That Sunday afternoons are her favorite time, when she and the Gregorys all sit in the library and listen to the New York Philharmonic on the radio. That some nights she can no longer remember what they look like. On those nights, she turns the light back on and stares at their photo, trying to memorize the details. Those are the nights they enter her dreams.

They sent her away so she could have a childhood. They hadn’t realized, though, that their decision meant that her childhood would, instead, be taken away from them.

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

And you both disappeared even as you stayed by my side.

Some secrets are weights to be borne. Others are gifts, little bits of warmth, to be revisited again and again. No one else ever needed to know. No one else had the right to know. It was theirs and theirs alone.

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

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.

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.