He came in my direction with a heavy breath, while I went around the table with you in my arms, telling him that the necklace wasn’t with me. Besides being your only memory, this would be the chance you had to know something about your past. I couldn’t let him destroy it in a moment of fury, but when he backed me close to the sink, he heard the necklace noise inside my pocket. Before he could fly to get me and take the necklace by force, we heard the farm’s buyer opening the door, bumping into that scene. “Oh, excuse me. Good Morning. I’m looking for Mrs. Eva Bloom.”
“That’s me, good morning Mr. Smith. Please, get in. My brother will wait with the baby in the car, right Lars?” Your father backed down. Still killing me with his eyes, he took you and went to wait outside. I had to deal with the farmer, feeling my body shaking and saying the cause was coldness, but my nerves were collapsing. Mr. Smith noticed something was wrong but didn’t dare to ask what happened there. He signed the check and the contract in my name.
I went to the car where you two waited with blurry windows, your father’s breath had calmed down. I didn’t say a thing, just turned the engine on and we left the farm. Not in my craziest dreams did I ever think I would have left that place with my brother and my niece.
On the way, we said only a few things. “She is a beautiful girl, Lars. What is her name?” “Lola,” he said, staring at his own reflection at the rearview mirror. “My eyes, by Gunnar! I heard Nefarious saying something about a transition of dimensions. I spent a lot of time there. It must be because of that.”
“Who’s Nefarious? And who is Gunnar?” He didn’t answer and kept saying that weird phrase ‘by Gunnar!’ After a few miles he started to open up. He said that this Gunnar was the founder of Lumen. I loved the expression and starting using it myself. He explained Lumen was a place affected by the purity and life energy of people that live in our world. This just confirmed what I had studied in quantum science. Everything is energy. All human beings have the power to transform their own thoughts, even more, their feelings, into something real, palpable. Here, at our level, or in another dimension. Only people are not conscious of it. Your father found a way to access this place through that amethyst found in the woods. It opened a portal into that mirror that took him directly to the fourth dimension, direct to the Kingdom of Lumen. It was a perfect place, with no greediness, violence, or cheating. It was any human being’s dream to live in a place like that.
I know it sounds like a crazy person’s speech, but it was at this place that he lived for ten years of his life on Earth. He said that he didn’t know very well how time relates here and there, but that a half hour here would be almost a whole day there. A year here was equal an eclipse, an eclipse could last almost fifty years. But who cares if you live for 90 eclipses! The prisms, what the Kingdom residents were called, live more than we do. They are hospitable and gentle, they welcomed him with all the love he missed here. They are not green, nor do they have pointed ears. According to your father, ‘they look like us, but are a lot better than us.’ To them, we are hybridus, which means we can be as good as we can be bad. Lars was one of the few that arrive into Lumen, in the fourth dimension. After that day, we never touched on this subject again. Still, in the car, he made me promise.
“From now on, we never will talk about this again. Between us, much less with any other person. It will be our secret forever. You can make whatever you want with that necklace, but I never want to see it again, you understand?” I told him I did, he was too serious for me to say anything else. I kept all my curiosity in my chest and the necklace in my pocket, it was the best thing to do. Lars ended up letting go of the necklace story, decided to live like that never happened.
Arriving to Stockholm, we went to my house where I settled you two in Dad’s room. You didn’t look like someone who just arrived from a trip but from a war, you needed a bath and some rest. To mask his purple eyes, I lent him my sunglass, and we bought colored contacts, a real advancement in medicine. The only color available was brown, we didn’t have any other option. He said they itched at the beginning, but as everything in life, he had to get used to them. You slept through your bath, it seemed like you hadn’t slept in days, and you kept sleeping afterwards. Lars took a shower too and put on some clean clothes that had belonged to your grandfather.
“Eva, take me to our father’s grave. I want to see him.” “You need to rest for a little bit, we can go later.”
“I have lost too much time already, I’m ten years late.” He was right, he needed to say goodbye. All of us went to the city cemetery where your grandfather’s tombstone was still polished. I stood behind, a few steps away, next to a tree, so he could have his private moment. Lars went to the grave holding you, faced the letters ‘KARL BLOHM, LOVING HUSBAND AND FATHER’ and couldn’t hold back his tears, I could see him sobbing and rocking his shoulders. He turned back with his face wet, but this time he held a smile.
“I remember when Dad told me about going to the clerk, he wrote your last name wrong on the birth certificate, with a double o.” Eva Bloom! He was furious! But he told me that two siblings couldn’t have different names. What people would think? No way! So I became Bloom too, the first Blooms in the family. We laughed together over that sweet memory.
He even looked like Lars from before, when he was a little boy charmed by the kites, affectionate. Your father came back to this world, but that boy who shared love inside the house was gone with Mom forever. He never could ask forgiveness to our father for the fights and for vanishing from our lives. Life is like this. We are shaped by our feelings. That’s why I always tell you to be patient with him, your father suffered a lot for all that happened to him.
He tried to go on with his life as before, but no one can erase the past. Lars was marked forever by this experience. We lived some weeks together at my apartment, it was happy days for me but he was always very quiet, looking like he was living with no promise. That’s when he started drinking, alcohol and cigars seemed to ease his suffering, and he ended up turning into the alcoholic that you know today. The burden of the Kingdom’s destruction, peoples’ deaths, was too heavy for an honest man to carry, you were the memory that never let him forget, even drinking all the alcohol in the world.
I know two things affected his heart - coming back and living here with you. He would never abandon you, but leaving Sweden was the best option he had to get his life back. Everything here reminded him of the pain, his parents, and the absences. Going far away you two could be happy in a new place and that’s what he did.
It didn’t take long until he found the perfect opportunity, a constructor took him to work on the railroad reform construction in Florida, and his wife was willing to help him with the baby. It was what Lars needed. He left once more with you in his arms. But now, at least I knew that you were alive and that you could come back to see me. He was the one who sent the letters now, I always received news.
As soon as you got there, your father met Jessica. They got married right way, agreeing that they would never say anything about you not being their daughter together. I know Jessica doesn’t treat you with the same love and cherishing that she does Rodrigo. I spoke to your father a few times about you coming to live with me, but he never let me. He told me about some horrible fights with her because of the way she treats you. Although he is the way he is, he wants to have his daughter close to him. But looking at you is at the same time a memory of his pain, as you represent all the guilt he had in this story.