Seanfram Manor

X

Nickel counted one, two, three, as she carried Europium and sat him safely on the latrine.

"Thank you, my dear. Believe me when I say that if I could guarantee that I would not knock it over, I would have a potty in my study."

"But would it not smell?"

"If you are interested, we can figure something out. I do not want you running from the other end of the house just to help me."

"I insist, it is not a problem. I am glad to help," she assured, humidifying a rag.

"I would need a potty next to my bed so I can find it easily. I am blind but I am not yet accustomed to navigating through touch."

No need to apologize, Nickel would have liked to say, but she instead grabbed his hand and gently caressed it.

"I did not expect my earliest memories to last so long," he kept musing, "it is the recent things I have trouble keeping track of."

"May I ask you something?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"How did you live such a long life?"

That came out wrong, how have you lived would have sounded much better, what is it like to live a long life would have prompted more questions, which she was not ready for, her impulsive first question was the correct one all along.

"By being in good company."

She nodded at the answer. Of course, you can do this, what do you really feel.

"It is that I feel like you have a wise secret on how to live that I would also really want to know."

"Well, in that case, it has been chance. But I also have been very happy, which is also a product of chance."

"But to be happy, you have to be free of problems."

"I am aware, which is why it is by chance that I have not had much trouble in my life."

"But I do not understand. Even when free of problems, people want something else which they do not have. They never have everything they want."

The elder meditated for a moment.

"It is that I have always had everything that I need. I have my books, my job, my supplements, and many people who visit me everyday, sometimes with their company animals. Let me return to what I meant by good company. People need it. There are some peculiar types, I have been a peculiar type. I have spent time alone with my books, doing that which brings me happiness and being in the company of my books. But I always kept people around me."

"But you never married! Who do you have?"

"I have friends!"

"And when they leave?"

"I have made more."

"What about your family?"

"I see them in my most vivid dreams."

He extended his hands, meeting hers, and he clasped them. The smile on his face grew, and Nickel felt overwhelmed, her eyes watered but she breathed calmly.

They separated their fingers, still in the moment, joyful, but before she reincorporated and grabbed the rag to clean him up, Europio changed his expression from jovial to serious in a matter of moments, and tried to point his gaze at her.

"Life can be better. A better world is possible. But the people that withhold that happiness refuse to share it. That is what has plagued us from the beginning."

She arrived at her house at seven, with the moon already visible. The entrance was illuminated by a candle, Lanthanos was cooking beef in a pot and Rhenium was still awake. The child ran up to her stretching his arms, she bent down and gave him a hug. Lanthanos greeted her with a kiss. He asked her how she had been, good, same as usual, the prince is staying the night today, really, yes, I had to change the sheets, make his bed, leave him night clothing borrowed from the Lord's wardrobe, is there anything they can do themselves, I know, what have you got there, a book, yes, they usually let me read when I am done with my activities, but I thought I would relax here too the next few days. She walked to the kitchen, where a rag dried the moisture of the walls, a duster removed dirt from the plates, under the table a miniature wooden horse with wheels for hooves spun in circles, near the door a toy made out of thin and flexible paper strips floated and shook in a multicolored dance, she checked the beef and gestured at the duster, which dropped limp. Time to plate.

Rhenium sat down, she followed, Lanthanos served three bowls of beans with a cut of beef, flavored with onions and garlic. As a side dish, he had roasted calçots. Exactly done, she told him, it is delicious. Thank you, he said. Rhenium had only tasted a spoonful of beans when he asked:

"When are you coming back home?"

"I have to work, my child. I have to work there for us to live like we do. Would you rather I stayed here if you could not have your toys?"

"Yes," he said, pouting.

She smiled. Lanthanos side-eyed her. She wanted to see him more often, too, he was almost seven, but something impeded her explaining why she could not return, it was something she probably did not know.

"Did you and your grandmother do anything fun today?"

"She taught me how to make a paper sailboat," the boy's expression changed, his face brightened. Lanthanos nodded.

"He already tried it in the broth. Do you remember how to make one again?"

Rhenium laughed and shook his head.

"Then tomorrow we can go with your grandmother and practice again."

She liked being at the Lord's House. She liked working at the Lord's House. The place had a snobbish beauty to it, it was spacious, solemn and very empty. It held exotic antiques, generational relics, the house itself was a historical object, and plenty of interesting people lived in it. It was not the house that was bad. If she could find the Lord, she could ask if her family could move in, perhaps they would bring their furniture, plates and pottery and install them on their own and be given the least opulent rooms, they would be nevertheless together under any astral body, her husband could find a new passion and get a better earning job, she could see her child grow and tell him stories before bedtime, about an aristocrat boy that climbs up trees and decides to live in them, perhaps.