“Not really.” She fingered the lid of the box again.

“Trudy usually sits at that table back there to work. Those are her supplies.” Violet gestured to the shelves that held everything Trudy needed to make her sculptures: clear jars for salvaged sea glass, shells, small pieces of driftwood, and bundles of dried sea grasses; a few rolling pins she wrapped with fishing line once she untangled the snarls; and large plastic bins that held the bigger pieces of driftwood. Next to them were her tools: a spool of wire, scissors, wire cutters, a scattering of beads, and the ever-present knot of fishing line.

“Are you an artist?” The way the girl’s eyes lit up when she saw Trudy’s things made Violet wonder.

But the girl just shook her head and went back to browsing. A few minutes later, the bell at the door jingled. Violet lifted her head from where she was wiping the counter under the teakettle and saw the girl walking out, one hand stuffed in her pocket. Violet called out a good-bye, and the girl glanced back over her shoulder but kept her feet moving purposefully in the other direction.

Later, as Violet did one last walk-through of the shop before she switched off the lights and locked up, she noticed the little shell box was gone.

* * *

After dinner Violet organized her backpack while Trudy sat at the dining table, hard at work. Trudy kept the bulk of her materials at the shop, but she used a tackle box to transport home the ones she wanted to continue working on at night. That night she’d toted home the most uncooperative materials from the morning—the dried seaweed and clunky clam shells—and she’d spread them out on the table, along with part of an old green fishing net and a length of chicken wire she’d pulled from the sand under their dock. It was a strange combination, even for Trudy, but she had a way with raw materials like that. She’d ponder and squint and move pieces around until they spoke to her and told her what they wanted to be.

At least that was how Trudy had explained it when that perky writer from Bay magazine interviewed her last year. The woman acted like there was some kind of magic to it, the taking of random, broken bits and swirling them around until they became something altogether different.

Trudy had scoffed and flipped to a new page in her notepad. I’m an old woman and I like to make things with my hands. It’s a hobby, not magic.

But it was much more than just a hobby for Trudy. Violet knew that. It was why Violet never complained when she sat in a dining chair and felt the crunch of a forgotten seashell underneath her. Or when Trudy lugged home a driftwood log, leaving behind a scrum of fine sand all over the heart-pine floors or the cool tile floors of the shop. Trudy and Violet both navigated life the best way they knew how—for Trudy it was working with her materials and setting the pieces just right, while for Violet it was through the birds, savoring their ease of flight, identifying their needs, helping them on their way.