Chapter 17 #2
Brady and Morgan gave her a gift certificate to a bookstore on the mainland, the used one she'd mentioned to Beck on the deck the night of the first kiss. She held it up and pointed at Morgan. "You remembered." Morgan pointed at Brady. "He remembered. I just drove."
Brent and Ashley gave her a candle that smelled like the beach. "Ashley picked it out," Brent said. "I wanted to get you a blender but Ashley said no." Jon, from the counter: "She's got a blender. It's at my house."
Jon didn't bring a wrapped gift. He walked to her chair and kissed the top of her head and said "Happy birthday, baby girl. Your present's at the bar." She didn't ask what it was. Whatever it was, it would be there tomorrow and it would be right because Jon Green knew his daughter.
Beck's was last.
He stood from the table. The room went quiet, not because he asked for silence but because the evening had arrived at the place it had been heading all night and everyone in the room knew it except Kirstin.
He went to the bedroom. He came back carrying it, wrapped in brown paper, the edges taped clean. He set it in front of her and sat back down.
"Beck," she said. "What is this?"
"Open it."
She studied the paper. The wrapping was precise, neat, the work of someone who cared about how it arrived. She ran her finger along the taped edge. She caught the seam and pulled.
The paper came away.
Kirstin's mouth opened. Her hand went to her chest.
Beck saw it.
The painting was her. On her beach. The deck, the tiki torches unlit in the background, the paperback open in her lap, her legs pulled up, her hair down, her face turned toward the page.
And the smile. The one nobody asked for.
The one that showed up when she forgot anyone might be watching.
Morgan had painted the light on the water behind the deck, the gold of late afternoon, the warmth of a woman alone in her favorite place doing her favorite thing.
It was the photo from his phone and it was more than the photo from his phone because Morgan had seen what the camera caught and understood what it meant and put that on canvas.
"Beck," she said. Barely.
"I took the picture when you weren't looking," he said. His voice wasn't steady. He hadn't expected that. "On the deck. You were reading."
The painting was her. On her beach.
"Who—" She stopped. She turned to Morgan.
Morgan was standing beside Brady. Her eyes were wet and she wasn't saying anything because there was nothing to say.
The painting said it. The photo said it.
The man sitting at the table who'd spent the last week worrying about pasta sauce while a painting of the woman he loved leaned against his bedroom wall, he said it.
Kirstin looked at the painting again. She touched the edge of the canvas where Morgan had painted the light on the water behind the deck. She traced it with one finger.
Jon stood up from his chair. He walked to the counter and turned his back to the room and put his hands on the edge of the granite and his shoulders moved once.
"Dad," Kirstin said.
"I'm fine." He wasn't. His voice broke on the second word. "I'm making another round."
He didn't make another round. He stood at the counter for a full minute with his back to everyone and nobody interrupted him because nobody interrupts Jon Green when he's having a moment about his daughter.
The evening wound down slowly, in pieces, nobody wanting to be the first to leave. Luke and Addison helped clear the table. Brady washed the dishes because Brady washed dishes in other people's kitchens, it was what he did. Morgan dried.
Jon was the first to go. He hugged Kirstin at the door, long, his chin on top of her head, and said something into her hair that Beck couldn't hear and wasn't meant to. He shook Beck's hand. Held it. Looked at him.
"You're a good man, son," Jon said. Then he went to his truck.
Brent and Ashley left next. Brent shook Beck's hand at the door. "Tremendous pasta. I'm going to think about it all weekend." Ashley steered him toward the car.
Luke and Addison were at the door. Luke slapped Beck's shoulder. "Nice work tonight." Addison hugged Kirstin and whispered something that made Kirstin close her eyes and nod.
Brady and Morgan were last.
Morgan stepped up to Beck. She put her hand on his arm and rose up and kissed his cheek.
The kiss was soft and brief and she stepped back and her face was the Morgan face, the one that had been running the island for thirty-two years, except this version of it had nothing to do with running anything. This was the heart underneath.
She turned to Kirstin. She pulled her into a hug. Close. Tight. She had painted another woman's happiness and watched it land exactly where it was supposed to.
"He sees you," Morgan said.
She let go. She took Brady's hand. They walked to the Sierra and the headlights swept across the trees and they were gone.
Beck stood in the doorway. Kirstin was beside him.
The taillights disappeared down the road and the night was warm and the rental was quiet and the painting was on the table inside, leaning against the wall where she'd propped it, the brown paper on the floor in a pile she hadn't bothered to clean up.
"Thank you," she said. Not the general kind. The kind that comes with eye contact and a voice that isn't managing anything. "You got it right, Beck. You really got it right."
Hudson was asleep on the couch. The candles Morgan had placed were still burning. The bread was gone, the pasta was gone, the margarita pitcher was empty on Jon's blender.
"Walk you to your car?" he said.
She turned to him. Her eyes were clear and steady and present.
"No," she said. "I'm not going anywhere tonight."