Page 30 of The Beach Shack Artists 3
“It’s different now,” Margo protested. “I’m out of practice. The Festival’s gotten more professional, more competitive?—“
“You were professional,” Eleanor interrupted. “You had a studio, you showed regularly, you sold your work. You won best in category in ’79, for heaven’s sake.”
“That was more than forty years ago.”
“So?” Vivian leaned back in her chair. “Mozart was composing at five. Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until she was in her seventies. Art doesn't stop being art just because you get older.”
Margo was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing the rim of her wine glass. “After Richard died, I had to choose. Art felt like a luxury I couldn’t afford when I was worried about keeping the Shack running and the family fed.”
“But you kept creating,” Vivian pointed out. “The shell ceiling—that’s art, Margo. You just changed the medium.”
“Richard used to say that,” Margo admitted softly. “’Always the artist,’ he’d tell me when I’d rearrange the shells to match the night sky patterns.”
“Smart man,” Eleanor said. “He knew you couldn’t stop creating, even when you thought you had to.”
They sat quietly for a moment, the ocean keeping its steady rhythm below them.
“So,” Eleanor said carefully, “with all three kids back and about to face their first real test as potential inheritors of the Shack, and you turning eighty and maybe wanting to reclaim some time for yourself...”
“You think I should enter the Festival,” Margo finished.
“I think you should do whatever makes you happy,” Vivian said firmly. “But if painting makes you happy, and you’re painting work that’s good enough to show—which it is—then why hide it?”
“What if I’ve lost my nerve?” Margo asked quietly.
“Then you find it again,” Eleanor said simply. “Same way you found the nerve to keep the Shack running all these years, to raise a family, to navigate every crisis that’s come your way. Courage isn’t something you lose permanently—it’s something you practice.”
Margo paused for a moment, watching the stars begin to appear over the darkening ocean. “The kids might burn the place down if I step back too much.”
“They might,” Vivian agreed. “Or they might surprise you. Either way, they’re adults. They get to figure it out.”
“And you get to paint,” Eleanor added. “You get to remember what it feels like to create something just because it makes you happy.”
“It does make me happy,” Margo admitted. “Happier than I’ve been in... well. A very long time.”
“Then that’s reason enough,” Eleanor said.
“Though if you decide you want to share that happiness,” Vivian added with a grin, “we’d all be proud to see our Margo Turner back in the Festival program.”
“’Our Margo Turner,’” Margo repeated with a laugh. “You make me sound like a local treasure.”
“Aren’t you?” Eleanor asked.
Vivian lifted her glass. “To Margo Turner,” she said, voice firm but affectionate. “Local treasure, master of the Shack, creator of shell ceilings, and—if we’re lucky—featured Festival artist next year.”
Eleanor raised hers too. “To carving out space for yourself, after a lifetime of making space for everyone else.”
Margo blinked, caught off guard by the sudden emotion in her throat. “Careful,” she said, voice rough. “You’ll make me think I actually deserve it.”
“You do,” they said, almost in unison.
She clinked her glass to theirs, trying to smile through the lump in her throat. “To whatever comes next,” Margo said. “And to finding out if the Shack can survive without me micromanaging every pot of coffee.”
“It’ll survive,” Vivian said dryly. “Whether the family survives each other is another question.”
They moved on to other topics after that—Vivian’s ongoing war with her neighbor’s wind chimes, Eleanor’s latest quilting project, Bernie’s increasingly elaborate betting pools on local drama. But Margo found herself thinking about stepping back, about letting go of some control, about trusting the peopleshe’d raised to handle things without her constant management. About Rick being right.
About reclaiming time for the things that made her happy.
