“I will take plate C but I need my Steak a lil more done just not as much as D lol”
Wait until you read the twist that changed everything…
Full story in the first comment
“I will take plate C but I need my Steak a lil more done just not as much as D lol”
Chapter 1: The Peculiar Request
Old Man Tiber, as everyone in Havenwood called him, though his name was actually Arthur Tibbets, squinted at the waitress, a young woman named Sarah with tired eyes and a nametag slightly askew. He’d been coming to the Havenwood Diner every Tuesday for twenty years, always ordering the same thing: Plate C, the sirloin steak with mashed potatoes and green beans. But today was… different.
“Plate C, you said, Mr. Tibbets?” Sarah asked, pencil poised over her pad.
“That’s right, dear. But a lil’ more done. Not as much as D, though. You know, somewhere in between.” He chuckled, a raspy sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement.
Sarah frowned. Plate D was well-done, almost charred. Plate C was medium-rare. “So… medium?”
“No, no. Not medium. Just… between. Like a memory. Faint, but present.” He tapped his temple with a gnarled finger. His son, David, sitting across from him, sighed. He knew this routine. It wasn’t about the steak. It was about… something else. Something David hadn’t been able to decipher in all his forty-two years.
“Dad, you’re doing it again,” David said gently. “Just tell her how you want it cooked.”
Arthur waved his hand dismissively. "Don't you worry your head about it, son. It's… a feeling. She'll understand." Sarah looked increasingly bewildered. As she walked away to enter the order, David noticed a tremor in his father’s hand as he reached for his coffee. He hadn’t seen that in months. Something was truly wrong. And it all started with a steak, or rather, a very specific request about how it was cooked.
Chapter 2: Echoes of a Past Life
David watched Sarah deliver their order. The steak, cooked to an odd shade of brown – definitely not medium, not quite well-done – sat before his father. Arthur didn’t immediately eat it. He just stared.
“Is everything alright, Dad?” David asked, concern lacing his voice.
Arthur finally looked up, his eyes glistening. “This… this takes me back, David. Back to the summer of ’68.”
David groaned inwardly. The summer of ’68. The phrase was a trigger, a gateway to a past his father rarely discussed. He knew it involved his mother, Eleanor, who had passed away when he was just ten. But the details were always fragmented, shrouded in a melancholy Arthur refused to fully unpack.
“What about it, Dad?”
“We were at the Lakeside Resort. Your mother… she insisted on getting my steak cooked just like this. ‘Between,’ she called it. Said it reminded her of… of a picnic we had. A special picnic.” Arthur’s voice trailed off. “She said it was the perfect level of… remembering.”
David remembered snippets of stories about the Lakeside Resort, about a summer romance, about a young, vibrant Eleanor. But he’d always assumed his parents’ connection was instant, unwavering. This… this suggested a different narrative. A more complex one. He recalled his Aunt Carol mentioning a brief period where his parents were separated before he was born. Could this “picnic” be connected? He needed to know, but his father was clearly lost in memories, a fragile landscape he was hesitant to explore.
Chapter 3: The Hidden Photograph
After a strained lunch, David insisted on helping his father tidy up at home. Arthur’s house was meticulously organized, bordering on sterile, as if preserving order was a way to keep the past at bay. While sorting through a stack of old photo albums, David stumbled upon a hidden compartment in Arthur’s desk.
What happened just seconds later left everyone in the room completely speechless… (Continue to Part 2 →)
