Everyone was quiet long enough to listen to Genevieve, to acknowledge Penny's nod, the way she let out a little sob and then buried her face in her sister's sleeve. It was too much, all of it, more than quiet little Penny could handle and having everyone's eyes on her just made her plain uncomfortable.
After that, everyone started talking at once. Well, it was a combination of talking, yelling, and, on the part of Mrs. Brisbois, something akin to wailing. Penny recognized that it was going on around her but couldn't comprehend it, couldn't differentiate one word from the next, everything jumbling together in one big mass of sound.
"I need to go," she whispered to Gen. "Have we done our duty here?" Penny looked up, first at Gen, and then at her family. She couldn't help but wonder why it was that her mother was so quick to wail piteously about her honor and yet she hadn't the tenderness to comfort her at all. Was that truly so difficult?