Bloom

Epilogue

This is it. This is the day. The diary is finished, the photos gone through. There's nothing more I can do to figure this out, H has to tell us about his life, we have to hear it from his mouth.

"Mum?" I call as I walk to her office. "Can I borrow Grammy's Rolodex?"

"Sure?" She says confused. "It's in that drawer. What do you need it for?"

I find her Rolodex and start flipping through it, trying to find H. "I just need to find someone for her," I mumble.

"Who?" She asks distractedly.

"H," I say nervous that she's going to try to stop me. I don't know why she would, but I'm this close, I can't end it here. I finally find him and take a picture of his card. There's not much information on it, just an address and a phone number.

"I think I'm going out," I tell her. "Reign might come with,"

"Where to?" Mum asks without looking up from her computer. Her graphic design business has taken off this summer, she's been incredibly busy the past month especially. 

"Just going on a drive, might stop off at the library" I lie. It's not that she wouldn't want me to go visit H. Maybe she wouldn't, considering only Grammy seems to know who he is today; mum only remembers him from when she was a child. But still, it's easier to keep it between my sister and I until I figure more out. It feels like I know him, I read his diary entries, I feel like I lived his memories, but I don't even know his name, I don't know L, and I don't know their story, not really. But I want to.

"Alright, have fun, love," she says, still distracted in her work.

"Reign," I call as I walk to her room. "We're going out,"

"I'd rather die," she says dramatically. I take her hand and drag her off of her bed and throw shoes her way. Reluctantly, she follows.

I had to have read hundreds of diary entries over the past few weeks. The journal was full of them. Years' worth of entries. I feel like I know this man and his life, I feel close to him, and yet, he has no idea who I am.

🎞

It's confusing, at first, standing in front of Kensington Care Home. It makes more sense the longer I stand and stare at it. Grammy is in her eighties, the boys in the photos were young in the fifties. Of course, they'd be old now, but in a nursing home? Asking H to tell me, a complete stranger his life story? That seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

"Are we going in or not, Darcy?" Reign pulls me by the arm to the front doors.

"Hi, how can I help you?" the lady at the front desk asks. It's freezing cold in the building, but it feels and looks like a home. It's cute, it reminds me of Grammy's house. Decorated, but not overly so that it feels cluttered. Just homey, it's really rather lovely, I feel like I could stay awhile.

"Hi, um, I—we want to see someone?" I say, it comes out as a question.

"Who are you here for?" She asks.

"That's the thing," I say nervously. "Our grandmother sent us. She says we need to talk to someone that goes by H?"

"H," the lady repeats. I nod. "You're going to have to give me a little more than that, I think,"
I take a deep breath and haul one of the albums onto the counter and open it. "This is H," I point to the curly-haired boy with the too-big smile and pretty face. "I don't know anything else about him, but my grandmother does. She said these are his things. I want to give them back,"

The lady looks from me, to Reign, to the photographs. She's thinking about it, but she isn't sure. I can understand that, though, two teenage girls come into a care home in the middle of the day demanding to see someone that they don't even know the full name of. Eventually, though, she picks up her phone and dials a number. I can't hear much of what she's saying, but it sounds like she's talking to H, asking if he wants to see us.