Salt And Silence

Episode 3: Salt and Silence

Brightport had a quietness that didn’t feel empty. It felt intentional—like the town knew how to hold space for people who didn’t want to be seen but needed to heal.

Jeaner was starting to blend in.

She developed a routine: sketch by the docks in the morning, walk the beach after lunch, return to the inn before sunset. It gave her enough solitude to think, but not enough to spiral.

And in the middle of that silence… there was Rowan.

He never intruded. But he always noticed. Like the time she shivered slightly on the pier, and he quietly handed her a thermos of hot coffee without a word. Or the day he left a folded paper crane on the bench where she always sat—no note, just the gesture.

There was comfort in the way he existed. Solid. Present. Uncomplicated.

That morning, Mrs. Tilly knocked on her door holding a flier.

“Rowan asked me to give you this,” she said with a knowing twinkle in her eye.

Jeaner unfolded the paper. It read:

“Help Wanted – Paint signs for the new docks. No sea experience needed. Just steady hands and better taste than mine.”

—R.

A smile tugged at her lips despite herself.

---

She showed up that afternoon.

Rowan glanced at her from behind a crate. “Didn’t think you’d come.”

“You bribed me with sarcasm. Worked.”

He chuckled softly and handed her a brush. “You good with blues? Or do you only paint heartbreak?”

“Depends on the shade.”

They started with the basics: repainting numbers on the boat slips, sketching names onto wooden signs. She worked quietly, focused, while Rowan sanded rough wood and repaired weathered beams. Occasionally, he’d hum—low, barely audible.

There was peace in that. Work that didn’t need performance. Connection that didn’t demand stories.

By day’s end, Jeaner’s arms were speckled with paint, and her heart felt unexpectedly lighter.

As she packed up, Rowan looked at her.

“You’re not running from something, are you?”

She paused. “Not anymore.”

He nodded, as if that was the answer he’d expected. “Good. Then maybe you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

Jeaner stared at him, surprised by how much that single sentence made her want to believe it.

---

Over the next few days, painting turned into something else — laughter, quiet conversation, and easy companionship. Rowan told her he grew up in Brightport, left for a while, then came back when his brother died. He didn’t talk about the grief directly, but it sat between his words like a soft ache.

Jeaner didn’t press. She recognized that ache.

“I used to think leaving fixed things,” she said one afternoon, painting the word “Marlowe” onto a boat sign. “But some pain clings to your bones, no matter where you go.”

Rowan didn’t reply immediately.

Then he said, “Pain like that doesn’t want to be fixed. Just witnessed.”

She looked up at him. “Is that what you’re doing?”

He met her gaze. “Only if you’ll do the same for me.”

Something in her cracked open—just a little.

---

That evening, Jeaner walked to the shore alone, sketchbook in hand. She sat by the rocks and drew her first peaceful image in weeks:

A boat sailing away—not fleeing, not lost—just... free.

She titled it “Letting Go.”

And as the tide pulled in around her ankles, she whispered a name she hadn’t said out loud in days.

Kellan.

Not with longing. Not with anger.