…me. In front of the first restaurant we ever opened together.”
The photograph showed my father, a young cook in a white apron, standing beside a thin young man in front of a tiny diner. The sign above them read “Walt and Marty’s.”
The man’s name was Martin Cole. Thirty years ago, he and my father had opened a diner together. When Martin was offered a chance to sell their recipes and their name to a food company, he did it behind my father’s back, took the money and left town. My father lost the business and never recovered. He died believing his best friend had betrayed him.
Martin built a national chain of restaurants. He became very rich. And he spent the last ten years of his life trying to make up for what he’d done.
“Every year, I spend a week living on the streets,” he told me. “It reminds me what it feels like to have nothing. Yesterday, I walked into this diner because it looked like the one your father and I built. Then you told me your name. Helen. Walt’s girl. He talked about you constantly.”
The forty-seven cars belonged to Martin’s company executives. He’d called a board meeting at the diner that morning.
He bought the diner from its owner that day. Then he handed me the deed. “Walt’s share,” he said. “Thirty years late, with interest.”
My former manager was let go by the new owner. Me.
I renamed the diner “Walt’s.” I hung my father’s photograph above the register. Every Tuesday, we serve free coffee and soup to anyone who walks in from the rain. Martin comes in every month and sits in the corner booth. He always pays double.
