Words Unspoken (33 page)

Annie MacAllister bustled out of the house before they could even get out of the car. “Everett MacAllister, where have you been? Dinner is getting cold!”

Lissa watched Annie in her jeans and apron, a small, energetic woman, a little round in the middle, with flashing blue eyes and gray hair that fell straight and covered her ears.
Feisty
, Lissa thought, remembering with pleasure her first meal at this house.

Ev planted a kiss on Annie’s forehead. “We got detained looking at the sunset at Rock City.”

Lissa wondered what Annie would do with such a pathetic excuse.

“So he gave you the
think
and
thank
speech, did he?” Ignoring Lissa’s surprised expression, Annie wiped her hands on the apron and held them out to Lissa. “So good to see you again.”

“It’s nice to be back. Thank you for having me.” Then, remembering the cookies, Lissa went back to Ole Bessie and retrieved the foil-covered plate. “I baked these for you.”

“Well, that was very thoughtful, Lissa. Thank you.”

Ev grinned, and Lissa imagined what he was thinking.
She’s making progress, doing something for others, making cookies. This is good.

Annie had prepared meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans, a simple meal that reminded Lissa of something her mother might have fixed. She forced herself to think of something else. Thankfully, Annie asked her a question about Latin and The Sixth Declension, and the conversation began to flow smoothly.

“Ev was the king of languages in college. He routinely embarrassed his professors by quoting lengthy passages from Virgil in Latin.”

“You studied languages in college, Mr. MacAllister?”

Ev wiped his mouth with a linen napkin, creased his brow, and cleared his throat. “No, I didn’t study languages—just liked them. I had taken five years of Latin in high school, so I just kept it up, along with some literature classes. I was a bit of a first-class jerk in school.”

“You can say that again!” Annie confirmed with a nod.

“Where were you in school, Mr. MacAllister?”

“Oh, up East. Annie and I both went to school up East.”

“There are lots of schools ‘up East.’ Which one?”

“Princeton.”

“Princeton! I visited there! It was my first choice for a while. I loved the campus. Those beautiful gray-stoned buildings and the way you could just feel the weight of years of learning …” Lissa stopped in midsentence, embarrassed.

The MacAllisters looked equally uncomfortable, and Annie changed the subject. “Ev says you really enjoy Latin. That little bookstore in Decatur is a jewel, isn’t it? We haven’t been there in the longest time.”

Eventually the conversation turned to Rome and its museums and Elizabeth piazzas. But later, Lissa wondered why Ev and Annie MacAllister tried so hard to disguise their fine education, their northern roots, which were embedded in the way they pronounced some words.

No,
disguise
was not the right word.
Camouflage
? Was that it? And if that was the right word, what in the world did they have to hide, and who was the enemy?

Late that evening, Lissa sat down at her desk and wrote in the spiral notebook.

There are two things that happened recently that are noteworthy. First of all, the only time I’ve heard the voices in the past three days was driving up Ochs Highway this afternoon. Momma just invaded my thoughts. It was horrible, but Mr. MacAllister says nothing is wasted. I hope he’s right.

I really like them both, the MacAllisters.

The other thing is that twice this week I actually went back to Before and felt excited about college—especially tonight when Mr. MacAllister mentioned Princeton. I could practically smell the spring air of that weekend in April when I visited the campus. I realized that Mr. MacAllister is right.
If I can get my mind off myself and on to other people, I feel a lot better.

She sifted through the letters from colleges and read again the latest letter from Jill.

… I absolutely love three of my classes, Liss. I wish you would come for a visit. I know you would love it here. This place is so you, Liss. I swear. Please come.

Before she climbed into bed, she had another thought:
I am thankful for Ev and Annie MacAllister. They really care about me. I can tell that they carry a weight of heartache, just as Mr. MacAllister said, but somehow they still manage to live a happy life. They’re studying the sky and thanking their God and hoping for something. I have no idea what, but I want to know how and why.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23

“I’m outta here!” Lin Su flung a bottle of formula at Ted as soon as he stepped into the house. “And don’t stand there staring at me like you have no idea what is going on!” She grabbed her purse and pointed to her watch, her black eyes flashing. “LeeAnne has
not
eaten, and her teeth are driving her crazy. She’s got a fever. I gave her children’s Tylenol at four, so you’ve got to hold out until eight before she gets any more. And Sammy has deposited his you-know-what in his pants four times today. You try to potty-train that stubborn child!”

Ted imagined his shoulders sagging a little more with each tidbit of information Lin Su spit out. But for some reason, the last sentence brought a half grin to his face. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry I’m late. You go have fun with the girls, and Sammy and I will deal with the— the
poop
.”

Lin Su’s eyes softened, then she smiled too. “Another rough day?”

He pecked her on the lips. “Don’t even get me started.” He patted her on the rear end and said, “Go on. Have fun. We’ll be fine.”

Ted watched Lin Su breeze out the front door, and he wanted to cry.

Maybe he would. Maybe he and LeeAnne could just both scream at the top of their lungs while Sammy pooped on the floor.

Ted set down his briefcase in the entryway and took the bottle of formula to where the baby was whining in her crib. He picked her up and held her fiercely to his chest, then walked across the hall. Sammy was watching a video in the den.

“Hey, buster! What’s up?”

Without turning his head from the screen, Sammy stood up from his place on the floor, backed up a few steps, and plopped himself down beside his father and baby sister.

“Hey, Daddy,” he whispered. “We have to be quiet. This is the good part.”

As LeeAnne contentedly sucked the bottle and Sammy sat snuggled beside him, Ted watched cartoon dinosaurs trampling across the parched earth. He stared at the screen and literally felt pain for these beasts, desperately searching for water in a scorched desert.

Soon they will be extinct,
he thought to himself.
And if I get caught, I could be history too.

It took him an hour and a half to get the kids to bed. Now he stood by LeeAnne’s crib and watched the little pink blanket rise and fall softly with each breath. Only LeeAnne’s black hair shone out from under the blanket.

“Baby girl,” he whispered. “I have so many dreams for you, baby girl.”

Back in his bedroom, Ted picked up little Sammy from where he lay splayed out in his Batman pajamas, finally having given in to sleep after the third reading of
Goodnight, Moon
. Ted lifted his son and took him to his bedroom with the walls that Lin Su had painted bright blue interspersed with white, fluffy clouds. He gently laid his son in the bed, pulled up the covers, and put up the railing. Sammy had a dance all his own in the night, and all too often he ended up with a thud on the floor. The security railing helped Lin Su sleep more peacefully.

After a long, hot shower, Ted warmed up the leftovers in the microwave and carried the plate back into the den, flipping on the television. The kids’ bedtime routine had kept him from hearing the voices that had shouted and screamed at him all day.

You are going down, Ted! You’ve been found out! Too late! Too late!

For the past two days he’d imagined hundreds of sets of eyes on him, expected the office manager to call him in at any moment and lay it on the line. Fired for illegal trading and summoned before the arbitration board—every broker’s worst nightmare.

CNN narrated the disasters in the world, focusing primarily on the stock markets around the globe. After five minutes, Ted switched off the TV. His nerves could not take any more bad news. Instead, he thought he’d try one of S. A. Green’s novels that Eddy Clouse’s secretary had given him over two weeks ago.

Ted never read novels. Ever. His reading consisted of the
Wall Street Journal, Barron’s,
the
New York Times,
the
Atlanta Journal and Constitution,
and a dozen books on the stock market. But tonight he needed a break. He went into the bedroom and picked the shortest one, a book called
Eastern Crossings,
fully expecting it to lull him to sleep within minutes. When he heard Lin Su’s key in the door, he glanced at the clock and was surprised to see the time. 11:53. He was on page eighty-five, and he had not noticed the time go by. Even as he set down the book on the nightstand, he was still picturing a line of orphans waiting by a train in Eastern Europe.

“How were the kids?” Lin Su asked, coming into the room.

“The kids were great. LeeAnne screamed for an hour and Sammy pooped three times in his pants.” He flashed her a smile. “Just kidding. They were really great. How was your night out?”

“Fun. It was a lot of fun.”

He forced himself to concentrate as Lin Su recounted her evening. When she snuggled up next to him in bed, he felt thankful for her words.

“I think we’re both too bushed tonight.”

He turned off the light and kissed her on the lips. She fell asleep almost immediately, but Ted stayed awake for a long time, with scenes from that novel drifting in and out of his mind.

A line of orphans waiting and waiting for a train that would never come. The image of their hope evaporating like the steam from the engines as the trains left the station without the children inside.

Ted thought of the way he had felt a lurch in his gut as he read about those poor children who were stuck in a place where no one could rescue them. Stuck in a physical place, but much more importantly, stuck in the emotional clutches of a past that had discarded them and a future that looked as promising as the blur of the trains passing by.

Stuck. He felt stuck, alone, and terrified. Hope was evaporating. As he drifted off to sleep he wondered,
Who can help me out of this mess? I don’t want to go to jail.

SATUR DAY, OCTOBER 2 4

At least she found something to talk to her father about over their lunch of soup and salad. Though he didn’t ask, she volunteered the information, cutting through the silence like her knife cut the ripe red tomatoes on her plate. “Dinner last night with the MacAllisters was great, Dad. They are a really fun couple.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Liss,” her father said, not looking up from the Saturday edition of the
Atlanta Journal,
which sat by his plate. “Glad you are getting out a little, even if it is with an older couple.”

She ignored his innocent jab and asked, “And guess where they went to college?”

“I have no idea.” He was reading the financial page, as he’d done all week, yet another article about Black Monday and the crash of the stock market.

“They met at Princeton.”

“Princeton?” He set down his fork, turned from the newspaper, and furrowed his brow. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. They both graduated from Princeton.”

Her father met her eyes. His round, boyish face looked pudgy and soft, his eyes tired and only vaguely interested in what she was saying. “This man went to Princeton, and now he teaches kids how to drive? I find that a bit odd.”

“Maybe so, but it’s true.”

“I suppose it could be. Perhaps he had another job for years and decided to slow down and do this little thing.”

“He’s been doing this ‘little thing’ for thirty years, Dad!”

“Strange,” her father said, turning back to the paper. “I’d like to see his diploma.”

Fuming, Lissa stood up from the table. “I’ve got to get ready for my date.”

“Your date?” He chewed on a bite of lettuce. “Ah, yes. With that Italian fellow. Silvan.”

“Silvano.”

“Yes, Silvano. He’s a bit of a character, isn’t he?”

She hurried up the stairs, not replying. When the doorbell rang ten minutes later, she ran out the door, carrying a bulky sports bag and calling out, “Gotta go, Dad!”

She wanted to scream at him: A cocky young Italian who drives a sports car, and a seasoned Princeton grad who drives an old blue Ford. Figure that one out, Dad. And while you’re at it, figure out how your daughter fits in the puzzle too! Instead, she simply imagined her father still sitting at the table, deep in thought about the stock market and anything else that would keep his daughter far away from touching his hard, wounded heart.

Silvano was wearing a pair of jeans—perhaps designer jeans, but nonetheless he was trying to look casual.

“Hey,” she greeted him nonchalantly.

“
Ciao
, Lissa. It’s a delight to be with you again. Thank you for consecrating this lovely Saturday afternoon to me.”