Epilogue
I stroll between the countertops, quietly admiring my students’ creations. Beau always said I should become a culinary teacher
when I retired from the restaurant, but I hated the idea. Yet here I am with a class of eager pupils, feeling happier than
I have in years. I gave up a kidney and somehow ended up with a fuller heart. Still mending—but it’s getting there.
“I think that’s the tallest soufflé yet!” I say to my star pupil. “We might need to get out the measuring tape for that!”
“I once said the same thing to Herb!” Gladys giggles.
The cooking class I started for nursing-home residents six months ago is now thriving, and I’m already getting calls to expand
the program into other facilities. Though many have shunned me since my confession, others, like the new manager at Sunny
Glen, see the unique experience I had and are eager to do better for their residents.
There are students like Gladys who adore cooking and can now show love to their relatives through food again, like they always have.
Then there are men who have never so much as boiled an egg, finding pride in learning something new.
I’ve lost count of the triumphs: the twinkle in Herb’s eye as he baked his wife a birthday cake for the first time in their sixty years of marriage, the joy on Mabel’s and Rob’s faces when they made their mum’s tart.
Rob even painted the design for the flyers we hand out: a lemon tree, bold and bright.
“Hey, chef!” calls Scotty, entering with a crate of green apples. “We over-ordered Granny Smiths at Lorraine. Thought you
could use them.”
Gladys claps her hands in delight. “You know what this means?”
“Yes, Gladys, lenja pita!” I pat the old woman’s arm.
Lisa brushes some cocoa off her apron I embroidered with the name “Sue.” I may be over forty years late, but I’m finally teaching
her how to cook. She licks a chocolaty thumb and chuckles. “I can see why you call it laughing cake now!” She puts her hand
on my shoulder. “They’d be proud of you, you know.”
“Who?”
“Beau and Mum. You turned out okay.”
I give her a crooked smile. “You must take that thing off when you cook,” I say, pointing to the engagement ring on her finger.
“Wouldn’t want it slipping into the batter. Rings can take out teeth, you know!”
She gazes at it, her eyes sparkling more than the diamond. “We booked the band last week.”
“It’s not a ukulele band, is it?” I grimace.
She pokes out her tongue. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Griff . . . Will you walk me down the aisle?”
“Me?”
“I know it’s meant to be my father, but really it should be the one I look up to the most. And that’s you, Griff. It always
has been.”
My eyes sting. “I . . . I’d love nothing more,” I say, drawing her into my arms.
“And now you’ve got your license back, perhaps you can also drive me to the ceremony in your new car.”
“New car . . . ?”
She throws me a set of keys with a Winnie-the-Pooh chain, so familiar they are unmistakable: Beau’s. “Frank and I bought back
the MG with the money we got for the caravan. Thought it was time you got out of the house more.”
I stare, speechless—like so many times over the past year. But this time, the silence is filled with nothing but love.
I used to believe food could fix anything. Turns out, it can’t change the past or repair mistakes. But maybe, just maybe,
it can help us begin something new.