The Strangest Dream (part 15)

She tried to convince her, but it was too much for Autumn to bear.

Evelyn ran up to her room, crying, leaving a purple stain with every step that she took.

As time passed, she was lying on her bed, soaking her pillow with tears when she heard a click. She raised her head and looked out into the hall. The attic door had just opened. "Mama," she cried out, but her mother was still too mad and too busy cleaning up the mess downstairs to give her any attention. Evelyn got off her bed and slowly walked out into the hall towards the attic door. She felt a cool breeze on her legs coming from the dark open crack then quickly pushed the door shut and ran back to her bed. Waiting for her mother, but she never looked away from the hall.

Later that night after Clyde came home and she could hear her mother telling him all about what had happened, so she closed her door not wanting to hear anymore,

shortly after there was a knock at her door and it was her father. "Evelyn, why would you do such a thing to your mother? She works so hard to make you happy." He never calls me Evelyn, she thought, and the look of disappointment on his face gave her a knot in her stomach, that look was something she never wanted to see from him, and no matter how much she pleaded for him to believe her there was no point. "You were the only one in the kitchen," he told her.

Nobody talked at the dinner table that night, her mother's eyes never even met hers even once. Her father then told her to go to bed. "No dessert?" she asked, but her father just stared down at the table, and her mother said, "Go! And think about what you did."

Evelyn went up to her room, feeling defeated.

"Maybe she did it to get your attention," Clyde told Autumn. "Maybe this was her way of acting out." Picking up the stained sheet shaking it in front of her, "I wish she would act out in a better way with less work for me! Honest to god, Clyde, I don't know how much more attention I can give her. Sometimes I go crazy in this house all the time while you are living it up at work!" "Do you think I have fun at work?" He said, "My whole day is spent doing everything I can to put food on this table." She dropped the sheet to her side and looked down. Clyde stood up and walked over to her lifting her chin with his finger.. he put his arm around her waist and started to kiss her neck, whispering, "I spend my whole day doing everything I can to get back here. To you."

Their playfulness brought them outside to the garage sitting in the truck. Clyde and Autumn listened to music and kissed steaming up the windows just like they were young again, reminiscing the old times in his dad's old truck on the farm.

While Evelyn sat in her room, she thought the only way out of this was to lie.

She ran down the stairs to tell her tale, but no one was there, and the dishes were still in the sink. She opened the front door looking towards the garage at her daddy's truck and thought she saw somebody out there, but when she called out, nobody answered.

She heard music playing, so she started walking out there and stood in front of the truck blinded by the headlights. She put her hand in front of her eyes, blocking the light. "Mom? Dad? "What are you doing out there?" She could hear them, but she still couldn't see them. Autumn caught a glimpse of Evelyn through the drips from the steamy window.

"Clyde stop," she said quietly, "Evie is standing right there." He then moved over, kissing her hand as she got out.