The morning after Hiram died, I wrote my first piece for piano. It is a requiem. When I play it gives me a bit of peace, though I've struggled to title it. Remember how I once said I was intelligent, not creative? That holds. Music is math. Titles are something else entirely.
I am still, as my darling grandfather called me, Rosetta Stone. I don't weep openly or mourn excessively, but it still hurts to lose him. If nothing else, the loss seems to have bridged the great divide between my daughter and my granddaughter.
"We should have a little party," Eureka said to me. "For Snowflake Day, maybe? Cheer everyone up a little."
Remember how I worried so about Eden, confined to her room with her toys through her childhood, worried she'd never learn to grow up? Well, on one hand I was right, but on the other, it seems that schooling in its entirety is a whole different sort of alienation for someone as unique as my granddaughter. She longs for friendship and community, but locks herself away in every spare moment at her workbench.
Besides, I feel parties are inherently a bad idea when someone in the household is nearing death. I think we all know who I mean.
In the end, I gave into Eureka and helped her organize a party. In return, she had to sit with me for a few hours and work on her school performance.
"Why are we in the bathroom?" she asked.
"Old habits die hard, I suppose," I answered.
As promised, when the morning of Snowflake Day arrived, we threw a gift giving party.
We gathered in the new upstairs sitting room that Eunice built for us. It is airy and bright and the perfect spot to forget your woes. Those we invited showed up, as well as half the town in hangers on.
Eureka pretended to ignore "Humbug" as she calls him, but little by little, I believe she is realizing that she made a mistake ignoring the quiet boy back when he was still an option.
Humberto was a brilliant student at the Scuola, and would often attend extra lectures and even office hours to enrich his learning. I am disappointed to hear he is still unemployed, but I imagine nothing but greatness in his future. In addition to his intellect, he has a sense of humor that draws the types of crowds I myself have never managed. Even my mother loves him.
Though her old friends all showed up, including Dominic Mays and Guadelupe Dexter, hand-in-hand, Eureka stayed alone. She sat, almost as though she was unwelcome, curled up on herself to watch the partygoers.
It was a concern. I am not great with emotions and problems of the emotional sort, so I'm unaware of just how to help her, short of offering funds for therapy, which I imagine would be poorly received. Freddie, unfortunately, goes too far in his emotional support and just frustrates her. Her mothers are ... well, parents. And everyone knows how teens feel about parents. She audibly groaned at them several times throughout the party.
The sole comfort she seems to have is reclining in the bed or rocking chair in Mona Lisa's room, and watching Mona Lisa paint or sculpt in silence. She is a strange bird, our Eureka. She did rouse herself to speak to a portly blonde boy who'd come to the party with flowers for her.
"Oh, look, Campbell..."
"Carson, my name is Carson."
"Oh. Right. So, um ... you okay there?"
"Yeah. My cousin just makes me nervous. She's a criminal you know. And I'm a coward."
"Hot."
"So look," she said. "I think the flowers are pretty and all, but I'm not really interested in a romantic kind of thing..."
"You don't have to be shy. Lupe said you were shy."
"This isn't shyness. I'm sincerely not interested in a romantic relationship with you. But I'd be happy to be friends!"
"BUT I'M A NICE GUY!" he shouted. "I RESPECT YOU! WHY WON'T YOU LOVE ME?"
He then proceeded to ignore her and sit next to her while sniffling loudly through the gift opening. Eureka, to her credit, did not react in any visible way. Lupe was fiendishly delighted and exclaimed, "this is a fantastic party!"
It wasn't a bad party, though. Even Eureka seemed to enjoy it, with or without the attentions of a clearly unstable boy. We opened presents in the lovely glow of a winter afternoon while I played carols on the piano.
After everyone disbursed, we had our traditional Snowflake Day pancake dinner. A Classic tradition.
Eureka, who so very rarely opens up, was telling Mona Lisa, and perhaps Eunice by default, about her hopes for the future.
"Sometimes you hit rock bottom, ya know?" she said, mouth full of lemon pancakes. "High School sucks for lots of people. But it's like ... like the cocoon stage, right?"
"You're no caterpillar, my darling," Eunice was saying. "You just need better friends."
"But things get better, that's true," Mona Lisa said. "I was miserable as a teen too. Trust me."
"I'm not miserable," Eureka muttered.
Well, maybe she's right. Maybe things go to absolute rock bottom before they start to look up. Maybe you shouldn't tempt fate and throw a party when you know Grim likes them so much.
Moonglow is the one who alerted us that something was amiss. She is devastated to have lost one of her best friends. Granny too is heartbroken. But I feel encouraged. I feel ... somehow happy, to have been witness to Sherlock ascending into the light. He seemed fine with it. Happy even. And I maybe envied him for a moment, as I will not experience that release of death. Not for centuries, if ever.
The whole family, obviously, is going to struggle with the loss for a while, just as they struggled with losing my darling Hiram.
Grim made himself at home with us, as he usually does. I passed by him and he said, "Hello again."
I said, "hello, sir."
And he said, "Hiram says you're beautiful."
Eureka, in grief, foolishly decided to toy with her mother's witch things and ended up quite unconscious on the floor.
I woke her and put her to sleep, brushing my lips on her soft, cool forehead.
"If there is an absolute zero," I said to her. "We're here, and the only way to go is up."
"Mm," she said. "G'night Rosetta."
Then she paused, sitting up slightly. "Wait," she said, "wait."
"Yes dear?"
"Good night, g...grandmother."
There in the moonlit black and white room, finally a small smile began to tug at her lips as she laid back down. I stood stricken in the doorway, before I finally managed, "Good night, my Eureka."
I played one last time the Requiem I'd written for Hiram before sleeping. Then I scrawled on the sheet music,
Absolute Zero - by Rosetta Classic - for Hiram, for Sherlock, and for Eureka
