Leo looked toward Hannah.
She gave him an encouraging nod.
He crossed the room and sat beside the old man.
“Look what I brought.”
Arthur studied the notebook.
For a moment, his expression changed.
He reached out and touched the worn black cover.
“That’s mine.”
Leo smiled.
“Yes.”
Arthur opened it.
He turned the pages slowly.
The blue swings.
The red postbox.
The bakery.
The little bear.
He stopped at the drawing of the house.
His finger rested on the blue roof.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he looked toward Leo.
“Home.”
The boy nodded.
“That’s right.”
Arthur smiled.
“Good.”
Leo leaned closer.
“Grandad, do you remember our detective game?”
Arthur looked uncertain.
“Detective?”
Leo picked up the drawing of the bear.
“We find things.”
He pointed toward the park.
“First the swings.”
Arthur watched.
“Then the bakery.”
The old man’s eyes followed the pictures.
“Then the red postbox.”
Arthur nodded faintly.
“And then?” Leo asked.
Arthur stared at the last page.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then he placed his hand over the picture of the house.
“Home,” he said.
Leo grinned.
“Case solved!”
Arthur laughed.
It was a small laugh, quiet and slightly breathless.
But Hannah recognised it immediately.
It was the same laugh she had heard when her father used to cut Leo’s toast into the wrong shapes just to make him protest.
She stood by the window and watched them.
A little boy who now knew the meaning of forgetting.
An old man who could no longer always remember what he had once known.
And between them, a battered black notebook full of crooked drawings.
Leo closed the book and rested his head against Arthur’s arm.
For a while, neither spoke.
Arthur looked down at the child beside him.
He could not have explained everything about who Leo was.
He might not have remembered the rainy afternoon in the park, or the bread roll, or the day they made the first puzzle.
But he turned his hand and gently covered the boy’s smaller one.
Leo smiled.
“Love you, Grandad.”
Arthur looked at him.
Then he smiled too.
“Love you, little fellow.”
Outside, the rain continued against the glass.
Inside, the notebook lay open on the table, its final picture showing a small blue house beneath a bright yellow sun.
The lines were crooked.
The proportions were wrong.
The little bear beside the front door looked more like a potato with ears.
But Leo had never asked his grandfather to draw perfectly.
He had only wanted him to play.
And Arthur, even when he had begun to lose his way, had made certain there would always be a place in the game where the two of them could meet.
The little boy leaned closer.
“Grandad?”
“Yes?”
“Shall we find home again?”
Arthur looked at the open notebook.
Then at the child beside him.
“Yes,” he said.
He picked up the first card.
“Let’s see where we are.”
And together, they began again.
THE END
