03-04-2014, 10:02 PM
A rose by any other name
Doesn't have an advanced degree
She wants to leave immediately. Soon as she's out the door she wants to get in that rental car and take it straight to the airport. The things left in her motel room, they're not that important really, all she needs is her wallet, her ID, what's on her. She would get home in the middle of the night.
Frank would have to come get her, there is no one else she would ask to pick her up at that time. She would fall asleep on the plane whether she wanted to or not, closed in with nowhere to go and strangers pressed in all around her.
No. She won't go immediately. She can't, anyway. There are things to do, people to see. One in particular, but first Amelia has to find her and as she pulls away from the curb - unnoticed by the neighborly types who like to pretend that house does not exist - she knows the libraries are going to be closing up soon. Tomorrow, then. Everything will be done tomorrow.
So, it's back to the motel for the night, to close herself into her room and shut the world out for a while and think about what she's done. There is a sadness that weighs on her, a sense of loss. But there is also delight, and a giddy, delirious budding euphoria of freedom. They cannot get her now. Justice of a sort will be served, and soon, soon she'll no longer be a fragment of a person, a branch snapped from a tree and left to try and be another plant.
These feelings chase each other round and round as she watches Late Night. Her mind is still going, turning over the events of the last several days again and again. She thinks about life and death and joy and sorrow and love and sunlight until she falls asleep.
=====
Wednesday mid-morning, Amelia is standing in Allegheny Cemetery. The day is cold and grey and her boots are wet with snow, but she doesn't notice these things. She doesn't notice the bleak cast of the barren trees against the cold grey sky or the dilapidated buildings of the Allegheny Arsenal.
She's looking down as she's been looking down for almost an hour. There is a small clear spot before her, an opening cleared in the snow with the toe of her boot. Through that small clearing she can see a small plaque, part of a simple headstone:
Ju
Wes
Ma
As if by some unspoken and unseen signal, a dam breaks inside of her. Amelia lets out a small choked sob as her face reddens and her eyes blur with tears. Dropping to her knees, heedless of the snow seeping through the fabric of her jeans, she starts digging at the headstone with gloved hands. Scrape scrape scrape, shove, until the whole of it is there before her.
One year, three months, one day. That's how long Judy Weston survived without her daughter to take care of her, to pay her bills and make sure she didn't die of an overdose. Amelia doesn't know how she died or how she was found or who found her, she didn't want to look up the obituary. She knows the chances she died before then but no one knew to look for her. None of Amelia's friends or loved ones had high opinions of the woman, her headstone is as basic as it could be, but Amy loved her. She took care of her because that's what you do for family. You're there for them no matter what, but when she went away, when she became Sid Rhodes and left to start a different life, there were consequences.
She kneels there for a long, long time, hands clenched together atop her thighs, tears pouring like a waterfall, face contorted with a grief that has been hovering in the background, waiting to be discovered for almost three years. At least for now the grief is singular. These tears are only for one person and not a lifetime left behind to be lost, and not a future that can't happen anymore. When the crying subsides from torrent to trickle she shifts where she knees, lowers her weight onto her hip and continues down, down, down to lie in the snow. It makes sense, or will later when she thinks back on it. The life of Amelia Weston was interrupted by a moment just like this, with her lying on the ground in unbearable pain. It makes sense that it picks up here again. Except it doesn't really pick up. Sid Rhodes is not a phantom, a figment of the imagination, a ghost that will fade away into nothing. She is Sid and she is Amelia. She has a life in Denver and she has a history in Pittsburgh. They are both true, they are both true. For the moment they are still separate, but soon. Soon she'll begin the process of tying those lives together into one.
=====
Life forges steadfastly ahead. Amelia makes contact with an old friend who cries and rejoices and scolds her for her disappearance. She can tell he wants to ask where she's been, but he can see the ashen pallor of her complexion, the red puffiness of her dark eyes, her mouth chapped and cracking. It's not until much later she feels a rush of relief that he held himself back. She spent too many years thinking the bridge leading back home had burned to ash to fall leap back into the lives of the people there. Soon, she promises, getting his phone number, his email. They'll friend each other on FaceBook probably, and once people see her face and her name she'll be flooded. From a distance it'll be manageable. She's not at that distance yet, though, so he tells her he'll find her belongings and have them sent to her address in Denver. Somewhere in there are her degrees. Even in the first stages of a grieving process that could take months, years, the rest of her life, she has to fight to keep from asking for the location now. She wants those in her hand immediately. She wants proof of her hard work, her success, and that she doesn't belong working as someone's office assistant or a stock girl or behind a customer service desk.
Late Wednesday night finds her back in the city that's now her home. Frank came and got her from the airport and slowly, tentatively, she began to tell him about Pittsburgh. He's not her best friend, but he's closer and more dear than anyone else in her life. Besides, he has a right to know who's been living under his roof, who he helped in her times of crisis while she tried to find a stable job. They get home and she greets Cici, inviting her raven to perch on her arm with a clucking of her tongue. Frank asks if she wants anything, and she knows what he means. Ice cream, root beer floats, and something cheesy and the opposite of romantic on Netflix. She smiles, gives a small shake of her head, and heads downstairs to her room for a shower and to unpack.
And unpack she does. Once Cecilia is settled, Amelia - Sid - both, steps into her closet to put the laundry from her trip into the basket and put away her bag. That's when she sees a corner of dark cloth hanging down from an upper shelf. Frowning, she tugs at it, but it's not until it's falling down all around her that she remembers putting away the tapestry for the winter. It fills the small space of her closet, half inky blackness - faded from washing - half colorful nebula. She remembers the day it was given to her, well before any declarations of love. The memory is tainted now, as are all the ones that came after, the happiness diminished, the comfort turned cold. Still, she wraps it all around herself as she sinks to the floor. This time when she cries, everything comes out. All the hurt and loss and pain. Her mom, her old life, the people she loved then, the people she loves now. Jim. Coming to see her at Luke's clinic. Would he have done that if he'd known? Would he have come to get her when she called, would he have been understanding of her other sins if she'd given him a choice?
She cries for hours. Every time she thinks she's done, some new memory rushes up to replace the last and she starts all over again. All things must end, though. Love, pain, even grief. They don't last forever.
As her heart and her mind empties out, she drifts off inside that closet wrapped in the cosmos. Stars all around her, stars all inside her, stars binding everything indelibly together. Everything connected, people, elements, feelings. When she closes her eyes she doesn't sleep.
She goes to some other place instead.
=====
because i did not want to assume she ran off scott free:
niko @ 6:25PM
Private Message to Samael
[psst! something for an impending moodpost: a normal person's percept score, +2 diff because no one wants to look over there]
Roll: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 4) ( fail ) VALID
Samael @ 6:27PM
Private Message to niko
Witnessed!
niko @ 6:40PM
Private Message to Samael
thanks!
Doesn't have an advanced degree
She wants to leave immediately. Soon as she's out the door she wants to get in that rental car and take it straight to the airport. The things left in her motel room, they're not that important really, all she needs is her wallet, her ID, what's on her. She would get home in the middle of the night.
Frank would have to come get her, there is no one else she would ask to pick her up at that time. She would fall asleep on the plane whether she wanted to or not, closed in with nowhere to go and strangers pressed in all around her.
No. She won't go immediately. She can't, anyway. There are things to do, people to see. One in particular, but first Amelia has to find her and as she pulls away from the curb - unnoticed by the neighborly types who like to pretend that house does not exist - she knows the libraries are going to be closing up soon. Tomorrow, then. Everything will be done tomorrow.
So, it's back to the motel for the night, to close herself into her room and shut the world out for a while and think about what she's done. There is a sadness that weighs on her, a sense of loss. But there is also delight, and a giddy, delirious budding euphoria of freedom. They cannot get her now. Justice of a sort will be served, and soon, soon she'll no longer be a fragment of a person, a branch snapped from a tree and left to try and be another plant.
These feelings chase each other round and round as she watches Late Night. Her mind is still going, turning over the events of the last several days again and again. She thinks about life and death and joy and sorrow and love and sunlight until she falls asleep.
=====
Wednesday mid-morning, Amelia is standing in Allegheny Cemetery. The day is cold and grey and her boots are wet with snow, but she doesn't notice these things. She doesn't notice the bleak cast of the barren trees against the cold grey sky or the dilapidated buildings of the Allegheny Arsenal.
She's looking down as she's been looking down for almost an hour. There is a small clear spot before her, an opening cleared in the snow with the toe of her boot. Through that small clearing she can see a small plaque, part of a simple headstone:
Ju
Wes
Ma
As if by some unspoken and unseen signal, a dam breaks inside of her. Amelia lets out a small choked sob as her face reddens and her eyes blur with tears. Dropping to her knees, heedless of the snow seeping through the fabric of her jeans, she starts digging at the headstone with gloved hands. Scrape scrape scrape, shove, until the whole of it is there before her.
Judith Weston
May 14, 1967 - March 23, 2011
May 14, 1967 - March 23, 2011
One year, three months, one day. That's how long Judy Weston survived without her daughter to take care of her, to pay her bills and make sure she didn't die of an overdose. Amelia doesn't know how she died or how she was found or who found her, she didn't want to look up the obituary. She knows the chances she died before then but no one knew to look for her. None of Amelia's friends or loved ones had high opinions of the woman, her headstone is as basic as it could be, but Amy loved her. She took care of her because that's what you do for family. You're there for them no matter what, but when she went away, when she became Sid Rhodes and left to start a different life, there were consequences.
She kneels there for a long, long time, hands clenched together atop her thighs, tears pouring like a waterfall, face contorted with a grief that has been hovering in the background, waiting to be discovered for almost three years. At least for now the grief is singular. These tears are only for one person and not a lifetime left behind to be lost, and not a future that can't happen anymore. When the crying subsides from torrent to trickle she shifts where she knees, lowers her weight onto her hip and continues down, down, down to lie in the snow. It makes sense, or will later when she thinks back on it. The life of Amelia Weston was interrupted by a moment just like this, with her lying on the ground in unbearable pain. It makes sense that it picks up here again. Except it doesn't really pick up. Sid Rhodes is not a phantom, a figment of the imagination, a ghost that will fade away into nothing. She is Sid and she is Amelia. She has a life in Denver and she has a history in Pittsburgh. They are both true, they are both true. For the moment they are still separate, but soon. Soon she'll begin the process of tying those lives together into one.
=====
Life forges steadfastly ahead. Amelia makes contact with an old friend who cries and rejoices and scolds her for her disappearance. She can tell he wants to ask where she's been, but he can see the ashen pallor of her complexion, the red puffiness of her dark eyes, her mouth chapped and cracking. It's not until much later she feels a rush of relief that he held himself back. She spent too many years thinking the bridge leading back home had burned to ash to fall leap back into the lives of the people there. Soon, she promises, getting his phone number, his email. They'll friend each other on FaceBook probably, and once people see her face and her name she'll be flooded. From a distance it'll be manageable. She's not at that distance yet, though, so he tells her he'll find her belongings and have them sent to her address in Denver. Somewhere in there are her degrees. Even in the first stages of a grieving process that could take months, years, the rest of her life, she has to fight to keep from asking for the location now. She wants those in her hand immediately. She wants proof of her hard work, her success, and that she doesn't belong working as someone's office assistant or a stock girl or behind a customer service desk.
Late Wednesday night finds her back in the city that's now her home. Frank came and got her from the airport and slowly, tentatively, she began to tell him about Pittsburgh. He's not her best friend, but he's closer and more dear than anyone else in her life. Besides, he has a right to know who's been living under his roof, who he helped in her times of crisis while she tried to find a stable job. They get home and she greets Cici, inviting her raven to perch on her arm with a clucking of her tongue. Frank asks if she wants anything, and she knows what he means. Ice cream, root beer floats, and something cheesy and the opposite of romantic on Netflix. She smiles, gives a small shake of her head, and heads downstairs to her room for a shower and to unpack.
And unpack she does. Once Cecilia is settled, Amelia - Sid - both, steps into her closet to put the laundry from her trip into the basket and put away her bag. That's when she sees a corner of dark cloth hanging down from an upper shelf. Frowning, she tugs at it, but it's not until it's falling down all around her that she remembers putting away the tapestry for the winter. It fills the small space of her closet, half inky blackness - faded from washing - half colorful nebula. She remembers the day it was given to her, well before any declarations of love. The memory is tainted now, as are all the ones that came after, the happiness diminished, the comfort turned cold. Still, she wraps it all around herself as she sinks to the floor. This time when she cries, everything comes out. All the hurt and loss and pain. Her mom, her old life, the people she loved then, the people she loves now. Jim. Coming to see her at Luke's clinic. Would he have done that if he'd known? Would he have come to get her when she called, would he have been understanding of her other sins if she'd given him a choice?
She cries for hours. Every time she thinks she's done, some new memory rushes up to replace the last and she starts all over again. All things must end, though. Love, pain, even grief. They don't last forever.
As her heart and her mind empties out, she drifts off inside that closet wrapped in the cosmos. Stars all around her, stars all inside her, stars binding everything indelibly together. Everything connected, people, elements, feelings. When she closes her eyes she doesn't sleep.
She goes to some other place instead.
=====
because i did not want to assume she ran off scott free:
niko @ 6:25PM
Private Message to Samael
[psst! something for an impending moodpost: a normal person's percept score, +2 diff because no one wants to look over there]
Roll: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 4) ( fail ) VALID
Samael @ 6:27PM
Private Message to niko
Witnessed!
niko @ 6:40PM
Private Message to Samael
thanks!