Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The house felt different with Meg’s things gone.
Anna stood in the living room of Sam’s house — her mother’s house, Meg’s house all summer, and now, officially, her house — watching Bea haul boxes in from the car.
Not the temporary boxes they’d been living out of all summer.
The real boxes. The ones from storage. Her good brushes, her easels, the art supplies she’d kept packed away because there hadn’t been room while three people shared this space.
“Careful with the blue one,” Anna called. “That’s my good brushes.”
“All your brushes are ‘good brushes.’”
“Some are gooder than others.”
“That’s not a word.”
“It’s an art word. You should understand.”
Bea made a face but handled the blue box with exaggerated gentleness.
Anna turned back to the room. Without Meg’s organizational systems colonizing every surface, the space felt larger. Emptier. Full of possibility.
The smell was different too. Since they’d been there, it had been coffee and printer ink and whatever candle Meg burned to mask the stress. Now it was just old wood, sea salt, and something underneath—something that might have been turpentine, or the ghost of her mother’s presence.
“You okay?” Bea appeared at her shoulder.
“Yeah. Just... adjusting.”
Meg had taken the last of her things to Luke’s this morning, and for the first time since they’d arrived from Florence, the house felt like it could breathe.
Not in a bad way. Not that it hadn’t breathed before, but just that it now had a purpose, rather than—waiting.
Anna walked through the rooms slowly, trailing her fingers along walls, doorframes, the edge of the kitchen counter. This had been Sam’s studio, once. The house they’d grown up in. Before Margo bought it secretly and kept it waiting for a daughter who never came home.
She stood in the center of the space, turning slowly, taking it in. The walls that had held Sam’s canvases. The floors that had been splattered with paint, then sanded clean, then splattered again. The window seat where, according to Margo, Sam used to sit for hours watching the water.
“You’d hate this,” Anna said to the empty room. “Me, living here. Organizing things. Making it a proper home instead of a creative crazy zone.”
The house didn’t answer. Houses never did.
“But you’re not here,” Anna continued. “You haven’t been here in years. And someone should be.”
She heard Bea moving around in the back room, the thump of boxes being set down, the creak of closet doors opening. Normal sounds. Living sounds.
Anna walked to the window seat and sat down. The ocean stretched out before her, endless and blue, the same view Sam had gazed at all those years ago. The same view Meg had gazed at for months. The same view that would now be Anna’s.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Meg.
How’s the move going? Need help?
Anna typed back.
Almost done. Bea’s claimed the ocean room. I’m having feelings in the living room.
Good feelings or bad feelings?
Complicated feelings. The usual.
Want company?
Anna considered.
Sure. Bring wine.
Already on my way. ETA 10 minutes.
Anna set down her phone and resumed her slow exploration.
The kitchen, where she’d cook actual meals instead of the takeout-and-toast diet she’d maintained during her teaching years.
The small room off the hallway that could be a studio, if she wanted.
The closets that were finally accessible now that Meg’s ‘temporary’ storage boxes were gone.
“Mom?” Bea’s voice echoed from the back. “Can I paint my room?”
“What color?”
“Thinking kind of a deep blue. Ocean-inspired but not matchy-matchy with the actual ocean.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Also I might want to do one wall in gold. Accent wall. Very subtle.”
“We can discuss the gold.”
“Discussion implies negotiation.”
“Discussion implies I’m your mother and I control the paint budget.”
Bea appeared in the hallway, grinning. “Wow. When did aliens coexist and trade my mother with an adult? But gold would really bring out my creative essence.”
“Your creative essence can thrive in a blue room.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I’m plenty of fun. I’m just also practical, occasionally, when absolutely necessary.”
Bea wandered into the kitchen, opening cabinets, assessing. “There’s nothing to eat here.”
“Meg just left. That was her job. We haven’t been to the store.”
“I’m aware. I’m lodging a formal complaint.”
“Complaint noted and ignored.”
Anna looked up at a knock at the door. She opened it expecting a delivery driver, maybe a neighbor.
Instead—Margo stood on the stoop, holding a small, wrapped package.
“I wanted to be here,” Margo said. “For the official handover.”
“Margo, you don’t have to—”
“I kept this house ready, waiting for a ghost.” Margo stepped inside, looking around at the space that was finally becoming a home instead of a shrine. “I’d rather see Bea’s homework on that table. I’d rather smell your paint in the studio. I’d rather have someone living here.”
She pressed the package into Anna’s hands. Inside was a key—not the worn brass one Meg had been using, but a fresh-cut copy on a keychain with a small seashell.
“The house is yours now. Officially. Make it a home.”
Anna hugged her grandmother, unable to speak.
“Take the primary bedroom,” Margo added when they pulled apart. “You’re a grown woman running a business. You deserve the good light.”
“Margo—”
“And before you say anything about not deserving it or feeling like you’re taking something from Sam—stop. Sam left. You stayed. That’s not a judgment, it’s just true. And the people who stay deserve to be comfortable in their staying.”
Bea appeared in the hallway, drawn by voices. “Margo! Did you bring food? We have nothing to eat.”
“Complaint already lodged,” Anna said.
“And ignored,” Bea confirmed.
Margo smiled. “As it happens, reinforcements are on the way. Meg texted me—she’s bringing everyone.”
“Everyone?” Anna’s eyes widened. “The house is empty. I don’t have—”
“You have family. We’re on it.” Margo settled onto the window seat like she belonged there. “Besides, I suspect Meg has news. She sounded... fizzy.”
“Fizzy?”
“Effervescent. Bubbly. Like champagne waiting to pop.”
Anna and Bea exchanged looks.
“That’s either very good or very bad,” Bea said.
“With this family? Probably both.”
Fifteen minutes later, the house was full.
Tyler and Stella arrived first, carrying grocery bags. “Meg’s orders,” Tyler said, setting them on the counter. “She was very specific about the cheese selection.”
“When is Meg not specific?” Anna asked.
“Good point.”
Luke appeared next, looking slightly nervous in a way that was very unlike him. He kept glancing toward the door.
And then Meg.
She walked in holding a bottle of champagne, cheeks flushed, practically vibrating.
“Okay,” Anna said, her hands on her hips. “Spill. Margo said you sounded fizzy. What’s going on?”
Meg looked at Luke. Luke smiled—soft, private, the kind of smile that made Anna’s chest ache.
“Luke asked me to marry him. Yesterday morning. In his kitchen. I said yes.”
Bea shrieked. Stella laughed. Tyler said “Finally” in a tone that suggested he’d been waiting years too, in solidarity with Luke. Margo pressed her hands to her heart, tears already forming.
And Anna—Anna grabbed her sister and held on tight.
“You’re engaged,” she said into Meg’s shoulder.
“I’m actually engaged.”
“In his kitchen?”
“He was wearing his marine biology shirt.”
“That’s so him.”
“I know. It was perfect.”
They pulled apart, both crying now, laughing through the tears. The others crowded in—hugs and congratulations and questions tumbling over each other.
Margo made her way to Luke while the sisters were still tangled up.
“You waited a long time,” she said quietly.
“She was worth waiting for.”
“I know. I’m glad you knew it too.” She squeezed his arm. “Welcome to the family. Officially.”
Someone found glasses. The champagne was opened. They toasted surrounded by moving boxes, and it was perfect anyway.
“When’s the wedding?” Bea demanded. “Where’s the wedding? Can I be a bridesmaid? I should be a bridesmaid.”
“We literally just got engaged,” Meg laughed. “We haven’t discussed anything.”
“So discuss! We’re all right here! We have opinions!”
“You always have opinions.”
They talked until the champagne was gone. Tyler documented everything with his camera. Stella helped Bea arrange the cheese board into something Instagram-worthy. Margo sat on the window seat, watching her family fill the house with noise and life and love.
Eventually, reluctantly, people began to leave.
“I should get back,” Meg said, hugging Anna one more time. “I’m glad you’re here. In the house. It should have someone living in it who actually lives.”
“Thank you for letting me have it.”
“Thank Margo. It was always her call.”
Margo, passing by, squeezed Anna’s arm. “It was always going to be yours. I was just waiting for you to be ready to claim it.”
They filtered out—Tyler and Stella first, then Margo, then Meg and Luke hand in hand. Anna stood in the doorway watching them go, then turned back to the house.
Her house. Her home.
Bea was back in her room, unpacking teenager style—which meant everything was on the floor, but at least it was a start.
Anna walked through the living room again. This time, instead of seeing Sam’s ghost, she tried to see what could be.
Her easel by the window, catching the morning light. Her books on the shelves. Her coffee cups in the kitchen. Her daughter doing homework at the table.
“Mom?” Bea called.
“Yeah?”
“I found something in the closet.”
Anna walked to Bea’s room. Her daughter was holding a small canvas—maybe eight by ten—dusty but intact.
“It was behind where Meg had her boxes stacked,” Bea said. “Must have been there the whole time. We just couldn’t see it.”
Anna took the canvas. Turned it over.
It was one of Sam’s. Early work, judging by the style—loose, impressionistic, all emotion and movement.
A woman standing at a window, looking out at the ocean.
You couldn’t see her face, just the curve of her back, the tension in her shoulders, the sense of someone caught between staying and leaving.
“Is that—” Bea started.
“I don’t know.” Anna studied the painting. It could have been Sam. It could have been anyone. “Maybe.”
“Are you going to keep it?”
Anna thought about it. This piece of her mother, hidden in a closet, left behind like everything else Sam left behind.
“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.