The salty wind tugged at Emilys hair as she squinted against the sun, dabbing her brush against the canvas. The blue melted softly into indigo, capturing that fleeting moment where the sea meets duskclose enough to touch yet forever out of reach, like trying to hold sunlight in her palms.
At twenty, the ocean remained a mystery to hera sirens call she couldnt ignore.
Margaret stepped behind her, silent as a shadow, and rested her chin on her daughters shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of paint mingled with brine. It smelled of ripe peaches and the comfort of home.
*Too dark, love,* she murmured, her voice gentle, no reproachonly tenderness. *The seas calm today.*
Emily offered a faint smile without lifting her gaze. *Im not painting the sea. Im painting the sound it made in my memories.*
Margaret stroked her hair. Fifteen years had passed since that daythe storm, the trembling child washed ashore with no name, no past, just eyes like a tempest. Theyd called her Emily. The name had rooted itself deep, becoming part of her soul.
Theyd waited. A week, a month, a year. Posters, police, questionsbut no one came for the fair-haired girl with storm-lit eyes.
It was as if the sea had abandoned her there.
*Your fathers back with the catch,* Margaret said, nodding toward the cottage. *Says the sole leaped right into the nets.*
Thomas was already at the grill, his laughter ringing across the garden. He adored Emilynot just as a daughter, but as a gift the tides had returned after stealing his childhood dreams.
Life flowed quietly, like a stream between coastal rocks. Summers meant gardening and suppers on the porch, crickets singing. Winters were for mending nets, huddling by the hearth, listening to Emily read aloud, carrying them to distant worlds.
There were quarrelsover forgotten flowers, a young doctor at the hospital, futures imagined differently. Thomas hoped shed stay close; Margaret secretly saved for art school. She knew Emilys talent couldnt stay shackled to a village.
But every tension dissolved the moment they gathered at the same table.
Emily set down her brush and turned. *Mum do you ever regret it?*
Margaret studied her, eyes soft. In them lingered the fear of those early daysand endless love.
*Not for a second, my heart. Not one.*
She pulled her close, breathing in oil paint and salt. In that instant, their worldthe cottage, the garden, this daughterfelt fragile as a canvas. And she swore to shield it from any storm.
The *Talent of Our Shire* contest was Thomass idea. Hed tapped the newspaper ad.
*Here, Em. Your chance. Show em what youve got.*
At first, she refused. Baring her soul in public felt like standing naked before strangers. But Margaret had looked at her with hope and quiet pleading.
*Try. Just for us.*
So she did.
For a week, she vanished into her studio. Then, in the dead of night, inspiration struck.
She wouldnt paint what she saw. Shed paint what she *felt.*
Two pairs of hands. Thomass rough palms cradling a seashell. Margarets softer ones sheltering it.
She called it *The Haven.*
It won first prize. Unanimously.
The local paper ran a photo: Emily, shy but radiant, beside her work. The article praised her talent and briefly mentioned her pastthe child found on the shore, adopted by a fisherman and his wife.
The village celebrated.
But weeks later, odd things began. A sleek car cruising slowly past the cottage. The prickle of being watched as she painted on her favorite cliff. Then, one evening, she found Margaret on the porchpale, trembling, clutching an unmarked envelope.
*For you,* she whispered.
Inside, a lily-scented page bore elegant script:
*Hello. Youre called Emily, but at birth, your father and I named you Charlotte. Im Eleanor. Im your mother.*
She read it again. And again. The letters blurred. Her chest tightened.
She looked upand saw the same terror in Margarets eyes.
The letter spun a surreal tale: a yacht, a storm, blackout. Emily had been found two days laterhead trauma, coma, partial amnesia. Memory returned in fragments. Years of searchinguntil an assistant suggested scouring local archives.
Thats how theyd found the contest article.
*I dont want to upend your life. Just to see you. Know youre alive. Happy. Ill wait three days hence, at noon, on your pier. If you dont come, Ill leave. Forever.*
When Thomas returned, he found two pale women and a crumpled letter.
He read it. Hurled it down.
*No ones going anywhere!* he roared. *Fifteen years! Now she remembers? Wants to claim an inheritance, does she?*
*Thomas, calm down,* Margaret said, though her heart raced.
*Im going,* Emily said softly, firmly. *I have to.*
On the appointed day, they walked to the old wooden pier. A tender approached the yacht. A woman stepped outtall, poised, in a cream suit. Her eyes, so like Emilys, brimmed with tears.
*Lottie,* she breathed.
Emily stood frozen. Thomass hand gripped her shoulder. Margarets pressed her back.
*Good afternoon,* she managed. *My name is Emily.*
The conversation stumbled. Eleanor showed photos: a smiling father, her pregnant, a baby in her arms. Charlotte. A whole unknown world threatening to collapse.
*I dont ask you to come with me,* Eleanor said. *But youre all I have left. I want to be near you. Help with your studies. Open doors I couldnt before. Show you the world you missed.*
Thomas clenched his fists.
*She doesnt need your money or your fancy schools! Shes got a home! Shes got us!*
*Dad, please.*
Emily turned to Eleanor. Her minda tempest. Her hearttorn. Two names. Two mothers. Two lives.
*I dont know what I feel. I need time.*
Eleanor nodded, tears falling.
*Of course. Ill wait. Ive rented a house in town. Heres my number.*
The weeks that followed were sleepless, silent. Emily couldnt paint. Thomas prowled like a gale. Margaret clung to fragile balance.
Two weeks later, Emily called.
They met at a dockside café. Spoke of lost years, the shipwreck, the amnesia. For the first time, Emily saw not a wealthy stranger, but a wounded woman rebuilding herself.
Then came the hard, honest talk with Margaret and Thomas.
*I want to know her,* Emily said. *It doesnt mean I love you less. Youre my parents. My haven. But she shes my mystery. My beginning. I need to understand who I am.*
It was the start of a long road.
Eleanor bought a cottage nearby. Not as a display of wealth, but an olive branch.
The first months were stiff with silence, tension, forced smiles. But slowly, the ice thawed.
Surprisingly, Eleanor won Thomass respect not with money, but the sea. She spoke of tides, winds, nets. Margaret, reassured, opened her heart.
Eleanor never replaced Margaret. She became a friend. A keeper of memories.
She funded art school, escorted Emily to galleries. And she shared storiesher father, their home, childhood laughter. Piece by piece, she returned what the sea had stolen.
A year later, Emily painted anew: the old pier, two boatsone weathered, one gleaming. Between them, three women, hands linked.
Titled: *Family.*
Seven years on. A London gallery. A vernissage. Emily, now twenty-seven, poised, acclaimed, presented *Haven & Tide*a
