Geno forced her into the limo, and she was left to steel herself against the next task.
The reception home for the Hilden family was filled with socialites making hollow condolences and well wishes, whilst stuffing their faces with expensive hors d’oeuvres. The air appeared to hold an almost reverent atmosphere, but the deceptively respectful whispers held only gossiping about the wayward son who had run off to his own demise. Unsurprisingly, Maxine DeLauro was nowhere to be seen. Of course that was probably for the best, considering Amiel’s radical mood swings of late. She may have finally satisfied her urge to hit something; Maxine’s face, for example.
Amiel stood at the entrance with her mother, greeting people as they entered, accepting their condolences and nodding at the appropriate times. Truth be told, Amiel wasn’t paying the slightest attention, and should someone ask who she had talked to, she wouldn’t have been able to remember a single face she’d greeted. When the cloying air and incessant gibbering became too much for her, she quietly excused herself to search for an escape route. Stumbling outside, she drew in ragged gulps of fresh air. Her hands shook on the metal railing on the stair landing as she held onto it for strength. She pulled away from the bars to wipe imaginary wrinkles from her dress, lost in the vague and wild abandon of shock and depression. The last time she had felt even half of this pain was at her father’s funeral.
She sighed, thinking back on their father. He had been a tall and handsome man. Actually, Jaron had been an almost exact replica of their father. Amiel was blessed with a feminine version of her father’s looks, though her temperament was said to be like her grandmother. She remembered her father often telling her she was just like his mother. “ The temperament of a lamb and loyalty of a lion, ” her father had always teased. Her Grandmother Amielia was her namesake, though Malinda had demanded they shorten the name, and use her own middle name for Amiel’s. It was a matter of great consternation to their mother, that neither of her children had gained any of her own traits.
Warwick had had mahogany colored hair, green eyes, honey tanned skin, and a thousand watt smile. Amiel remembered him as a good man, though that was often over shadowed by the fact that he let his wife get away with anything and everything. He supported her silently, never refuting anything she said, never stepping in to stand up for his children, or himself for that matter. Should they ever begin to treat their mother in a form she found unsavory, she would chide him and he would instantly step in on her behalf, or simply leave the room. They had loved him deeply but that love was difficult to show when tangled with their feelings of worthlessness, and the fact that he was never on their side. It felt a little like being fed to the lions. Amiel was lucky in the respect that she had only been seven when he died. She had not felt his silent betrayals as deeply as Jaron had.
He had died in a traffic collision caused by the Infected. Several people had been killed in that accident. A pack of Rabids had run into the midst of a busy highway, causing a multiple car pileup. Though her father had died from the impact of flying out of the car’s windshield, her mother had decided the simple involvement of anything to do with Rabids was enough to ‘infect’ him, at least in reputation. She’d had him burned, rather than buried. Warwick’s ashes, along with his son’s now, were placed in the family’s expansive and historical crypt.
Amiel breathed in deeply, refusing to cry again. She wondered how there were any tears left after having shed so many over the last two weeks, particularly the last two days. But still they demanded entrance into the world. The door opened behind her, squeaking slightly. She tensed imagining her mother, Geno, or even the press following her out here to her
Anieshea; Q.B. Wells Dansby