They ate Meg’s soup with crusty bread and the honey lemon butter that had become a Shack staple. Conversation flowed easily—Stella talking about her classes she was signing up for, Anna describing her plans for the new house, Meg and Luke fielding questions about wedding dates they hadn’t set yet.
Normal. Easy. Family.
After dinner, Margo stood.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ve made you wait long enough.”
She led them to her studio—the small room off the back of the cottage that had been her sanctuary for years. The covered canvas stood on its easel, draped in white cloth, larger than any of them had expected.
“When did you have time to paint something that big?” Anna asked.
“I’ve been working on it for months. Years, in my imagination.” Margo positioned herself beside the easel. “This is... I don’t quite know how to explain what this is.”
“Just show us,” Stella said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Margo looked at her great-granddaughter—this girl who had appeared from nowhere and become essential to all of them. This girl who was, somehow, already in the painting. Already part of the story.
“Okay,” she said. “Here.”
She pulled the cloth away.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
The Beach Shack filled the canvas, rendered in Margo’s distinctive style. Light poured through the windows, catching the shell ceiling.
And the people.
Tyler behind the counter, camera strap over his shoulder, caught turning toward something outside the frame. The expression on his face was one Margo had studied for months—not posed, not performed. The way he looked when he was paying attention to something that he couldn’t avoid.
Meg at a table, papers spread around her, phone in hand. But her eyes weren’t on the phone. They were lifted, looking at something—someone—across the room. A small smile played at her lips. The smile she wore when she thought no one was watching.
Anna at the grill, sleeves rolled up, completely at ease in a way she hadn’t been a year ago. There was paint on her apron—a detail Margo had added almost unconsciously, a reminder that Anna carried her art everywhere, even into the kitchen.
Rick at a table, his pencil poised over a ledger, his face frozen in concentration.
Bea, her apron stained in paint and looking a little flustered with a handful of plates and drinks.
And Stella. At an outdoor table, camera raised, framing a shot. The newest Walsh. The one who had chosen them, chosen this, chosen to stay.
“Oh,” Meg said.
“That’s us,” Tyler said. “That’s... actually us. How we actually are.”
“That’s the point.” Margo watched their faces as they studied the painting, as they found themselves in it, as they recognized the truth of what she’d captured.
Stella stepped closer, examining her painted self. “You put me in before you knew I was staying.”
“I put you in because I hoped you would stay. Because you belonged in the picture whether you stayed or not.” Margo touched her great-granddaughter’s shoulder. “Faith in oils and morning light.”
“Margo.” Anna’s voice was thick. “This is incredible. This is the best thing you’ve ever painted.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. Look at it.” Anna gestured at the canvas. “You got everything. The light, the feeling, the way it feels to be there. This isn’t just a painting of the Shack. This is... this is love. In a painting.”
Margo felt tears prick her eyes. Blinked them back. Eighty years old, and she still cried at her own art. Some things never changed.
“There’s someone else,” Bea said quietly.
