Beyond That, The Sea Quotes
"This was in Maine, where the family went each summer, and it was during the war, although that was hard to remember when they were there."
"It was beautiful, a blurry patch of green, caught up between the ocean and the sky."
"She often finds it hard to reconcile the girl she was then with the adult she is now. They seem like two separate people."
"Once again she hadn’t wanted to leave, and once again she had."
"That final summer, her wish was to stay. To be with them all, forever."
"In the dream he has again and again, he walks into the ocean, fully dressed, the wet fabric a weight."
"Better that she go to America, he thought, where the fingers of war were less likely to touch her."
"But now she is overflowing with sorrow and rage."
"She lies in Beatrix’s bed, curling her body into a ball."
"Never before had she realized the depth of the sky."
"She feels as though she left home years ago, as though the girl she was there is separate from the girl standing here."
"Beatrix hates her new haircut. She looks like a child."
"There’s a wildness to it that reminds her of Maine."
"She was happiest when she sat in the middle, when she could feel them on either side."
"Her face must have reflected the joy she felt."
"She leans forward now, blows out the flame in the votive, and closes her eyes."
"She thought it might be the only way she could locate her girl."
"What must this be like for her? To be sent away from home, by yourself?"
"She feels sure—to her surprise—a kiss brush across her cheek."
"He wonders what Beatrix thinks about her 'adventure.'"
"She feels a fool, wrestling with it alone, in this tired and empty dining room."
"The desire line, Father calls it. Their very best way of getting from here to there."
"She never reads the letters there, in the kitchen."
"Beatrix is not like any other girl William knows."
"He’s been carefully tracing the maps in his atlas and then using colored pencils to mark the progression of the different armies: the Allies in blue and the Germans in red."
"Gerald knows what she means. When they were younger, William would always pose moral questions at the dinner table."
"This was all before Bea. Now he would probably choose Bea and Mother, and maybe even Bea over Mother, but he definitely wouldn’t choose William."
"She’s got a solid group of girlfriends, and she’s always somehow in the center of that group."
"Gerald hopes that this does indeed mean the end of the war."
"I can’t choose one person, even though he knew that person would be William, but of course he would want to bring Mother and Father and some of the cousins and his friend from down the street."
"She doubts her mother remembers the first letter from the Gregorys, which also spelled out that she would get her own bath."
"What must it be like to watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean?"
"He loves mapping out what he reads, so he can see how it all works."
"She hasn’t looked at that letter in so long, but it’s at the bottom of the pile of letters in her desk."
"Some secrets are weights to be borne. Others are gifts, little bits of warmth, to be revisited again and again."
"It’s hard to separate her grief from losing Mr. G and her grief at losing William. They seemed connected, and it felt final."
"I can no longer imagine the two of them together. This thing she had thought about for so many years."
"We best get you to your train. Bound to be crowded, this time of year."
"This time in London, he decided, was to be a secret, one never to be shared."
"It’s a pleasant day, the sun occasionally peeking through the clouds, the rain held at bay."
"He wished Bea had been there, so they could have replicated the moment that she left the States."
"The phone call. The knock on the door. She wasn’t sorry to have seen William, and she wasn’t sorry to have slept with him."
"You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
"That’s the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare."
"When she was in New York with Mum in July, they had gone to a baseball game, the first game of a doubleheader."
"She wanted to walk until she became part of the city, until her feet simply gave out."
"It was a beautiful July day, too, and when they got there, when they emerged from the dark hallway, when the stadium light and noise opened up around them, the blue sky above it all, even Mum stayed quiet."
"The Red Sox beat the Yankees, much to the dismay of the crowd, but Beatrix cheered under her breath every time another ball was hit, another base reached, another run scored."
"A part of her wanted to run away from her mother, to jump onto that train, to watch the changing coast on the way north, to arrive at South Station, to burst into that kitchen in time for dinner."
"Dear William, I couldn’t resist. He’s a marvel, isn’t he. Mantle, I mean."
"The world is beautiful in its silence. This is part of what he missed in California, the stillness of a morning like this one, a sense of belonging to this place."
"The six weeks in Baltimore helped him to think more deeply about civil rights."
"A car accident, he says. Car flipped going around a turn. Over at the beach. He almost made it home, Rosie."
"It took years to realize that she was at fault, too. For years she blamed her mother for so much, and now understands how that created so much unnecessary pain."
"One teacher or another has come down sick, won’t be able to make it in Monday morning."
"How wonderful, Bea says in a rush. You know, I’ve never been abroad."
"Mother, Gerald says, and there’s that tone again. She invited you. That’s something special."
"And yet here they are, she and Gerald, on the other side. They’ve made it through."
"Holidays, she knows, make the past present in unexpected ways."
"She hadn’t been able to get all the storm windows in place, and temperatures would be well below freezing tomorrow night."
"I think she believes this is just a phase, and by next year I’ll take up golf or something, and move along."
"Dead or alive, we carry these people with us."