Evangeline Evans has a chance to leave her past behind. Will she take it? |
The little blond girl peeks into the living room. 'Perfect' she thinks. All the adults are too absorbed in the game to notice her spying. She creeps back over to the stairs. Making sure the door is shut behind her, she dashes up the stairs and meets a brown-haired girl in the hallway. She's lugging an empty dresser drawer. "A little help here," she says all out of breath. Together the girls make their way back to the stairs. They position it just right so they won't bounce off the walls. "Do you reckon we should've put pillows at the bottom?" Asks the brunette as they climb in. "Too late now!" The other one cries out as they push off. Whoosh! They fly down the stairs in their makeshift sled. They ram into the closed door at the bottom with a sickening crunch. There are cracks spiderwebbing out from the point of impact. All sound from the living room abruptly stops. A voice calls out, "Girls?" "Uh oh," says one. "We're dead," says the other. The door opens and they tumble out. The woman who opened the looks back and forth between them and the door for a moment and erupts in laughter. The girls smile and climb to their feet. "Are you all right?" She asks. "It was Emmy's idea!" Exclaimed one as the other cried, "It was Evie's idea!" They mock glare at each other before bursting into identical grins. Evie knew she wasn't in trouble. Mom never stayed mad. She enveloped them in a hug and they noticed someone behind her. Slowly the grins melted off their faces. Though she was young she could still see the barely contained rage simmering beneath her father's surface. They had ruined his dinner party. And there would be hell to pay. |