“It rained for a while and we sat in a shack hidden in the dunes, eating sandwiches. There were middens of dried sheep droppings in the corners and the rain drummed on the roof like gunfire. It was the perfect sanctuary. A place just for us.”

The novel begins with a description of a walk on a beach. The people involved are unnamed, and the place is also unnamed. However, as the novel progresses, the reader can look back on this section and make a connection between the description of the small shack, the statement of how it felt like a sanctuary, and another statement by Janice stating that she was looking for sanctuary, but the place she had in mind might remind her too much of Emma. This quote is Walsh foreshadowing the end of the novel when Emma and Leo save Janice from a suicide attempt.

“Her eyelashes are often wet when she wakes, as if she’s been swimming in a sea of sad dreams.”

Leo describes Emma, giving the impression that she has sadness in her past that she often dreams about. Leo doesn’t know what this sadness might be because the Emma he knows is a happy, well-adjusted, intelligent woman. This begins the revelation of secrets that Leo learns about Emma. Walsh returns to this image later in the novel and reveals that Emma wakes with wetness on her eyelashes because she dreams of the child she gave up for adoption. This adoption is a secret Emma kept from her husband and one he slowly learns the truth of.