Chapter 2

My family' s old farmhouse was exactly as I' d left it seventeen years ago, a decaying skeleton in the forested foothills of the Cascade Mountains. The paint was peeling, the porch was sagging, and the barn where my father used to store his logging equipment looked like one strong gust of wind would knock it over. It was perfect.

I used the entirety of my personal savings, a meager sum I' d squirreled away from odd jobs over the years, to buy a used, beat-up Ford Ranger. It was mine. The first thing that was truly mine in a long, long time.

The work was hard. I started with the house, tearing out rotten floorboards and patching the leaky roof. Every swing of the hammer, every splinter in my hands, felt like an act of reclaiming my own life. I was building something from the ground up, with my own two hands.

My old high school friends, blue-collar guys who' d always seen the toxicity of my marriage, came around on weekends. They brought beer and toolbelts, their easy laughter filling the empty spaces in the old house.

"About damn time you got out of there, man," said Dave, a burly carpenter, as we hoisted a new beam into place. "We never liked the way they treated you."

One night, on a whim, I propped my phone up on a stack of wood and started filming. "Day one," I said to the camera, my voice rough. "Rebuilding a life, and a future microbrewery." I documented everything: the painstaking work of restoring the old farmhouse, the design sketches for the brewery I planned to build in the barn, and my first brewing experiments on a small homebrew kit.

I showed the process of selecting local hops, of malting my own barley, of the simple, honest craft of it all. I didn't try to be a personality. I just worked, explaining the process in my quiet, direct way.

To my complete astonishment, the channel, which I called "Cascade Craft," went viral. People were drawn to the authenticity of it. They left comments about the satisfaction of watching real craftsmanship, of seeing something broken being made whole again.

"This is more relaxing than any meditation app."

"I'd kill for a bottle of that stout you're making, Ethan."

"Finally, a YouTube channel that isn't fake."

The views climbed into the hundreds of thousands, then millions. Ad revenue started trickling in, then pouring. It was more money than I'd ever seen in my life. I quit my part-time job at the local hardware store and focused entirely on the rebuild and the channel. I had found a new purpose, a new community, and a new source of income, all from the ruins of my past.

One evening, my phone rang. It was an unknown number, but I answered it anyway.

"Ethan?"

It was Nicole. Her voice was strained, unfamiliar in this new context.

"What do you want, Nicole?"

"I... I can't figure out how to work the garbage disposal. It's making a horrible noise. And Molly won't eat the mac and cheese I made her. She says it's not like yours. Can you just tell me how you make it?"

I felt a cold, hard wall slam down inside me. For seven years, I was at her beck and call. For seven years, my skills were a convenience she took for granted.

"Google it," I said, my voice flat.

"What? Ethan, don't be an asshole. Just tell me."

"I have no obligation to help you, Nicole. You have a new life now. So do I."

I hung up before she could reply and blocked her number. I stared out at the dark silhouette of the mountains, the scent of pine in the air. The peace was absolute.