"You want to know the truth?" Margo said finally. "I've been thinking about it more lately. Not selling, exactly, but... what comes after me."
Meg felt her stomach drop. "Are you sick?"
"No, no," Margo said quickly. "Nothing like that. But I'm eighty, Meg. I can't pretend I'll be doing this forever."
"Tyler will?—"
"Tyler has his own life," Margo interrupted gently. "His photography, his travels. He helps because he loves me, but this was never supposed to be his burden."
Meg joined her at the window. "It's not a burden."
"Isn't it?" Margo's voice was quiet but not bitter. "Fifty years I've been tied to this place. Every morning at five-thirty to prep, every evening counting receipts. I've never taken a real vacation, never traveled anywhere I couldn't drive back from in a day."
"Do you regret it?"
Margo was quiet for so long Meg wondered if she'd heard the question.
"No," she said finally. "I don't regret it. This place has been my life's work. But that doesn't mean I haven't wondered sometimes what else I might have done."
"Like what?"
"I was good at some other things,” Margo said, almost shyly. "Before your grandfather died, before I had to figure out how to keep this place running on my own. I was actually pretty good at it."
Meg looked up at the shell ceiling with new understanding. "The mosaic."
“No, but it’s saved me,” Margo admitted. "Each shell placed exactly where it wants to be. It's become my canvas, I suppose."
"It's beautiful."
"It's something." Margo turned away from the window. "But you didn't answer my question. What happens when Tyler comes back and you go back to San Francisco?"
Meg felt the familiar tightness in her chest that came with thinking about her corporate life. "I guess I go back to my old job. My old life."
"Is that what you want?"
The question hung between them like a challenge.
"I thought it was," Meg said slowly. "A week ago, I would have said absolutely. But now..."
"Now?"
"Now I'm not sure what I want."
Margo nodded as if this answer satisfied her more than a definitive yes or no would have.
"You know what I think?" Margo said, beginning to untie her apron. "I think sometimes the best decisions aren't really decisions at all. They're just—obvious. Recognizing what's already true, even when we've been trying not to see it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean maybe the question isn't what we want to happen," Margo said. "Maybe it's what's supposed to happen."
Joey cleared his throat from behind them. "Um, sorry to interrupt, but we've got a couple more orders if you want to keep the grill going."
"Of course," Margo said, re-tying her apron. "Back to work."
But as she moved toward the kitchen, she paused next to Meg.
"For what it's worth," she said quietly, "I haven't felt this hopeful about the future of this place in a long time."
