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Clement Blanc was a man of refined taste and order. He drank malt whiskeys and wore colognes of cedar wood and bergamot. He wore different coloured ties according to days of the week and wore silver dice cufflinks on days with big meetings. He organised his pens in descending size order on the right hand side of his desk and kept an engraved pocket square in the left side of his jacket.
In every sense and meaning of the word, Clement Blanc was a man of precision. So the fact that the calamitous whirlwind of Amélie Blanc was his daughter was a joke not lost on him.
He wondered what holy man he'd double crossed in a past life to be given her as a child instead of the in-line marvels that were his nieces and nephews. The girls who appreciated sewing and the fine art of silence, the boys who wielded magnificent wit and displayed it all with well-mannered humour.
What he wouldn't give, he thought, to be sat in the car waiting for one of them to haul their cases down the stairs. But, alas, the gods only allow so many favours for politicians, and instead he had Amélie, who stuck her head out of her bedroom window and shouted down; One minute! Before retreating back behind the double-glass panel and jamming the last of her socks into the case.
Amélie cursed loudly when the corner of the case slammed on her toes as she dragged it from the bed. "Est-ce que tu vas bien, mon amour?" Her mother's quiet voice echoed from across the hall.
As different to her father she seemed to be, the true wonder was how she grew from the stomach of Charlotte Blanc. A woman known for her mousy blonde hair and hushed voice. Amélie, however, was all loud comments and boldness. With long brown hair and eyes that crinkled when she laughed, which she made a habit of doing as much as she could.
"Je vais bien, maman." Amélie responded with a softness only drawn from her by her mother. She peeked her head around the doorframe, giving her a soft smile. Charlotte raised her head weakly from her pillow. Amélie wasn't yet used to seeing her like this; sick, gaunt, bordering on lifeless. Her stomach threatened to turn but she swallowed her nausea and padded across the creaking floorboards.
The girl took seat on the edge of the bed, brushing some hair from her mother's forehead, paying to mind to the sweat now stuck to her fingers. "Comment vous sentez-vous?"
"Mieux. Ça ne fait plus très mal." Charlotte flashed a faltering smile. "Tu vas me manquer, ma fille." She whispered, grasping her child's hand and raising her knuckles to her lips.
It looked at though Amélie was about to cry, or perhaps that was simply Charlotte trying to see a reflection of herself, but whatever it was vanished as soon as it came when the aggressive honk of a car horn shattered their reverie.
Amélie withdrew her hand from her mother's and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. "Je t'aime." She didn't spare the time to hear a response, quickly grabbing the case from the hallway and dragging it behind her down the stairs. On the front porch, she ignored the searing burn of her father's stare through the windshield and leaded down to scratch the tuff of ginger fur on the back of the black cat she rescued when she was eight. "Goodbye, Albert. Be good."
