Scary Stories

Chapter 13 - The Recipe Book

When I got the call that my uncle had been arrested again, I wasn't surprised. He was charming, reckless, and unpredictable—the kind of guy who knew his way around trouble and didn't seem to mind it. But this time felt different. It wasn't just a few months; he was facing ten years. A decade behind bars, for possession of over a pound of cocaine. They said it was hidden in the trunk of his car, packed away as casually as groceries. 

It stung. He'd promised us he was clean, that his wild years were behind him. Even at Thanksgiving, he'd go out of his way to remind us all that he was on the straight and narrow. We'd had our doubts—old habits don't vanish overnight, after all. But a pound? None of us had seen that coming. My uncle swore up and down the drugs weren't his, said he was framed, that someone wanted to see him gone for good. But when we pressed him on it, he'd just clam up, muttering that spending a decade locked away was better than what "they" would do to him.

After he was sentenced, my mom called, her voice tight, asking if I could go to his place and sort through his things. It was typical family duty—the kind of thing I couldn't turn down. I wasn't close with him, but family ties run deep enough to leave you feeling responsible, even when you know you shouldn't.

So, with him locked away for the next ten years, I volunteered to clear out his apartment, move his things to storage. I didn't know why I was so eager, but maybe I felt like it was the least I could do. The place was a disaster, exactly as I expected. His kitchen cupboards were filled with thrift-store pots and pans, each one more scratched and mismatched than the last. I could see him at the stove, cigarette dangling from his lips, stirring whatever random meal he'd thrown together in those beat-up pans.

The living room was its own kind of graveyard. Ashtrays covered nearly every surface, filled with weeks' worth of cigarette butts, and the walls were a deep, sickly yellow from years of constant smoke. Even the light switches had turned the same shade, crusted over from the nasty habit that had stained every inch of the place. It was clear he hadn't cracked a window in years. I found myself running my fingers along the walls, almost wondering if the yellow residue would come off. It didn't.

In one corner of the room was his pride and joy: a collection of Star Trek figurines and posters, lined up on a crooked shelf he'd likely hammered up himself. He'd been a fan for as long as I could remember, always rambling about episodes I'd never seen and characters I couldn't name. Dozens of plastic figures with blank, determined stares watched me pack up their home, my uncle's treasures boxed up and ready to be hidden away for who knew how long.

It took a few days, but I finally got the majority of the place packed. Three trips in my truck, hauling boxes and crates to the storage facility across town, until the apartment was stripped bare. The only things left were the stained carpet, the nicotine-coated walls, and the broken blinds barely hanging in the windows. There was no way he was getting his security deposit back; the damage was practically baked into the place. But it didn't matter anymore.

As I sorted through the last of the kitchen, my hand brushed against something tucked away in the shadows of the cabinet. I pulled it out and found myself holding a small, leather-bound book. The cover was cracked and worn, the leather soft from age, with a faint smell of cigarette smoke clinging to it. The pages inside were yellowed, brittle, and marked with years of kitchen chaos—stains, smudges, and scribbled notes everywhere.

The entries were scattered, written down in no particular order, almost as if whoever kept this book had jotted recipes down the moment they'd been created, without thought of organization. As I skimmed the pages, a feeling crept over me that this book might have belonged to my grandfather. He was the one who'd brought the family together, year after year, with his homemade dishes. Every holiday felt anchored by the meals he'd cooked, recipes no one had ever been able to quite replicate. This book could very well hold the secrets to those meals, a piece of him that had somehow made its way into my uncle's hands after my grandfather passed. And yet...