Chelsea's Sins

Chapter fourteen: "Old Farts" is an actual golf term, btw (Kelly)

When I see the caretakers and the large quantity of senior citizens, it's more than obvious where we are. He sent us to a nursing home. Fair enough I suppose; but we still don't know why we are here. The check-in area is beautifully festooned with mums and other autumn flowers. The woman at the desk is young and has pearly white teeth.

"Hello," she greeted, "are you visiting?"

"Yeah, just visiting." I replies.

"Name and visitee?" She asks, typing something into her computer.

Before I can say anything, Dawn puts her arm around my shoulder and says, "actually, we're here on account of a newspaper article about the lives of elders who lived through the Civil War. My name is journaler Lily Dawson and this is my partner and best friend, Michelle Makarov."

I smile and go along with it– not that I really have a choice at this point. The woman prints us some name tags and tells us to have a nice day. We thank her and walk away as we put our name tags on.

"Whoa," Dawn whispers to me, "I can't believe that actually worked."

"Dawn, why did you make up names for us?" I ask.

"Because we would be considered suspicious if we are going around asking a ton of people random questions trying to figure out who we are looking for." She explains, scanning the room. "That, and I really wanted to go undercover."

"Dawn you're an idiot! What if we get caught?"

"Huh, you know, I'm having flashbacks to the first hint when I said the exact same thing to you when you flew across lanes like a madman!"

"Fine, you win."

We look around the room feeling lost and out of place. What are we looking for? I guess we should start with our fake reason.

"Let's go ask those guys over there if they were in the Civil War or what they can remember of it." I say, pointing to a group of men on a sofa, discussing politics.

"Wait, we aren't actually going to go along with our aliases, right?" Dawn asks.

"Well, we would be considered suspicious if we don't, right?" I say, walking up to them.

I smile as I walk up to them. When I sit down in an empty armchair, they immediately stop talking and stare at me. Suddenly a familiar feeling comes in my head. Not now! My heart is racing and my mouth won't move. A cold chill goes down my spine as I try to think of something to say.

"Good morning gentlemen!" Dawn greets, reaching her hand out to each of the men. She shakes hands with each of them, and as she does I calm my racing heart. Dawn to my rescue again! I hate myself for having social anxiety. Who knows how Sam became extroverted with a mom like me, freezing up every time I'm in a social situation with anybody I don't know.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all. My name is Lily and this is my partner Michelle. We would love to talk to you all about your experiences in the Civil War," Lily– I mean Dawn, said.

"Ah, war," one of them groaned, "why would you want to hear about a dreadful thing like that?"

"Ah, come on, Harry," another said, "look at the beautiful young women. I can tell you all about the war, misses."

"Thank you, sir. Please, go on." Dawn insists.

"I don't like talking about war," one man with a raspy voice said, "it just reminds me about how I lost my son and my brothers."

"Nothing good came out of World War Two," Harry says. "Just a bunch a idiots looking to try out their weapons on each other. Plain and stupid."

He took a drink of his cranberry juice and coughs a couple times.