“And then we’ll fix it.”
Tyler grabbed the towel and headed back to the tables.
The Shack was hers now. Not technically—the trust belonged to all three of them, and Margo’s name was still on everything that mattered. But the daily running of it, the openingand closing, the ordering and prepping and managing and improvising when Roberto sent rocks instead of tomatoes—that was Anna. Had been since the end of summer, when she’d quit full-time teaching to take the anchor position.
She’d spent her whole life being the chaotic one. The artistic sister who rearranged furniture without asking and implemented “improvements” nobody wanted. She’d nearly gotten them a health code violation with art supplies in the kitchen. Tyler still brought it up at family dinners.
But something had shifted. The Shack didn’t need her to be artistic. It needed her to be steady. And steady, it turned out, was the first deep breath she’d taken in years.
The front door opened again and Margo walked in, wearing her painting smock over a blue cotton blouse and carrying a canvas tote. She looked around the way she always did now—quick scan, left to right, checking that everything was where it should be. The look of someone who’d built something from nothing and was learning, slowly, to let other people hold it.
“Just stopping by,” Margo said, setting her tote on the counter.
“You stopped by yesterday.”
“I forgot my good brush. The flat sable. Red handle.”
“You don’t keep brushes here, Margo.”
“I might have left it after the meeting.” Margo was already opening drawers, moving things aside like who knew every inch of this kitchen by touch. “It was right here?—”
Anna watched her grandmother check three drawers she’d already checked and said nothing. Margo didn’t need a brush. Margo needed to see that the grill was heating, the cheese was out, the prep was on schedule. That her life’s work was still breathing.
Tyler came back from the dining area and kissed Margo’s cheek. “Morning! You’re here early.”
“Looking for a brush.”
“Sure you are.” He caught Anna’s eye over Margo’s head. “Everything looks great, by the way. Anna’s got it handled.”
Margo straightened a stack of napkins that didn’t need straightening. “I can see that.” A pause. Then, softer, “The avocados look good today.”
“Roberto’s best,” Anna said. “Unlike the tomatoes, which are basically furniture.”
Margo picked one up, turned it in her hand the same way Anna had. “Two days. Put them in a paper bag with a banana.”
“Roberto’s bringing ripe ones by ten.”
“Good. But bag these anyway. Never waste.” Margo set the tomato down and looked at Anna. Pride, maybe. And something underneath it that looked like relief. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“You’re never in the way.”
“I know. But this is yours now.” She picked up her tote—the one that definitely didn’t contain a missing brush and headed for the door. “Circle’s got me booked until Friday. Eleanor signed me up for a garden club.”
“You hate gardening.”
“I hate petunias specifically, but I do enjoy things that grow on their own. Like basil. But Eleanor was very enthusiastic and I didn’t have the energy to argue.” Margo pushed through the door, then turned back. “The bread delivery is usually six minutes late on Tuesdays. Don’t let the driver blame traffic. It’s a six-block drive.”
“Got it.”
“And the pilot light on the left burner flickers when the wind’s from the west. Just tap it.”
“I know, Margo.”
“Of course you do.” Margo smiled—which made her look thirty years younger—and left.
Anna stood in the quiet kitchen and listened to her grandmother’s footsteps fade on the boardwalk. The grill ticked as it heated. The ocean murmured through the propped-open windows. Morning light climbed higher now, warming the wood floors, catching the shells on the ceiling—hundreds of them, decades of family pressed into plaster and paint.
Tyler reappeared from the storage room with a case of napkins balanced on his shoulder. “She find her brush?”
