Page 7 of Cooking Up My Comeback

After dinner and the Great Cartwheel Debate, Jack disappears into the house and returns with a cardboard box that’s seen some serious life.

“Found this when I was cleaning out the storage unit that came with the campground property,” he says, setting it carefully on the table. “Previous owners left it behind. Thought you might find it interesting.”

Inside the box: old photographs, yellowed newspaper clippings, and a collection of menus from restaurants that used to call Twin Waves home. Some date back to the sixties.

“Look at this one,” Hazel says, pulling out a faded menu. “The Lighthouse Inn. Fresh caught fish, prepared with love and served with a smile.They really don’t write copy like that anymore.”

I flip through the photographs. Black and white snapshots of families gathered around tables, waitresses in checkered aprons, chefs standing proudly behind counters loaded with fresh seafood. This town had a real food culture once. Places where people gathered not just to eat, but to belong.

“This is your building,” Jack says, pointing to a photograph dated 1978. “It was called Murphy’s back then.”

In the photo, my gutted disaster looks completely different. The windows sparkle, flower boxes burst with color, and a hand-painted sign promisesThe Best Clam Chowder on the Coast.People sit at the window tables with coffee cups and genuine smiles, looking out at the same ocean I’ve been staring at all afternoon. A waitress is caught mid-laugh at the counter.

It looks warm. Welcoming. Everything I usually avoid.

“What happened to it?” I ask, though I think I already know.

“Same thing that happened to most of the local places,” Jack says quietly. “Tourism shifted in the eighties. When it came back, people wanted chain restaurants and familiar names. The family places couldn’t keep up with the marketing budgets, so they just... faded away.”

I study the photograph, trying to imagine that warmth and laughter back in the building I’ve been rewiring. The foundation is still there. The view is still spectacular. Question is whether anyone still wants that kind of place.

“You should keep this,” Hazel says, sliding the menu and photograph toward me.

I nod and tuck them carefully into my jacket pocket. “Thanks.”

“Uncle Brett,” Ellen pipes up from where she’s been practicing her questionable gymnastics, “are you gonna make a restaurant?”

“Maybe, kiddo. Still figuring that out.”

“Can you make it have ice cream?”

“Ellen,” Hazel says gently, “restaurants don’t always have ice cream.”

“They should,” Ellen declares with the confidence of someone who’s clearly thought this through. “Ice cream makes everything better. Right, Uncle Brett?”

I look at this kid with her absolute certainty that the world can be improved with the right dessert, and something in my chest shifts uncomfortably. “Can’t argue with that logic.”

She beams like I just agreed to personally deliver ice cream to every restaurant in America.

Driving home later with the windows down and ocean breeze cutting through the truck, I keep thinking about that photograph. About the laughter and community and the sense that places could mean more than just square footage and profit margins.

This town used to have that. The foundation is still here, buried under layers of neglect and lost hope. Question is whether it’s worth digging up, or if some things are better left buried.

I pull into my driveway and sit in the truck for a long moment, engine ticking as it cools. The photograph feels heavy in my jacket pocket. Evidence that good things existed here once. That they could exist again, if someone was foolish enough to believe in them.

Maybe that someone doesn’t have to be me. But maybe—just maybe—it could be.

THREE

AMBER

The unemployment office smells like industrial carpet cleaner and crushed dreams, with a hint of what might be tuna salad from someone’s lunch. I’ve been sitting in this plastic chair for forty-five minutes, clutching a folder full of paperwork that’s supposed to prove I’m worthy of temporary financial assistance. My left leg has fallen asleep, and when I try to adjust my position, the chair makes a sound like a dying goose.

The woman behind the desk has the kind of smile that’s been practiced in a mirror until it lost all connection to actual human emotion. “Mrs. Peterson,” she says, consulting her computer screen with the intensity of someone decoding nuclear launch codes.

I wince. “It’s Ms. Bennett now.”

Why did I correct her? Now I have to explain my entire life story to someone who clearly doesn’t care.