“Yeah,” she said finally. “I’m going to keep it.”
“Where?”
Anna looked around Bea’s room—the ocean light, the bare walls waiting to be filled.
“Here,” she said. “If you want it.”
“Really?”
“She is your grandmother. You never got to know her. Maybe this is a way of...” Anna searched for the words. “Carrying her with you. The good parts.”
Bea took the painting carefully, held it up against different walls.
“Here,” she decided, pointing to the spot beside her window. “So she can see the ocean too.”
Anna felt tears prick her eyes. “Perfect.”
They hung the painting together—Anna holding, Bea hammering, both of them stepping back to check if it was level.
“We should name her,” Bea said.
“The woman in the painting?”
“Yeah. If we don’t know who she is, we can decide.”
“What would you call her?”
Bea studied the figure, the woman forever gazing out at the water.
“Hope,” she said finally. “She looks like she’s hoping for something.”
Anna wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders.
“Hope,” she agreed. “That’s exactly right.”
They stood together in Bea’s room, looking at the painting, at the ocean beyond, at the future they were building in a house full of ghosts.
“Sam would hate that we’re here,” Bea said quietly. “Wouldn’t she?”
“Probably.” Anna squeezed her closer. “She’d say we should be somewhere else. Following the light. Chasing something.”
“But we’re not.”
“No. We’re making our own light.” Anna kissed the top of Bea’s head. “Right here.”
The house settled around them, old bones creaking, accepting new occupants.
And somewhere, in the fading evening light, Hope gazed out at the water, waiting for whatever came next.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The last brushstroke was always the hardest.
Margo stood before the canvas, brush loaded with a touch of titanium white, studying the painting she’d been working on for months. The Beach Shack glowed with afternoon light. Her family moved through the space—Tyler, Meg, Anna, Stella, Bea—all of them caught mid-moment, mid-breath, mid-life.
And Sam. At the edge. Looking in.
The final detail was small—a highlight on the shell ceiling, the way light caught the nacre and scattered it into rainbows. Barely visible unless you knew to look for it. But Margo would know. She always knew.
