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Words Unspoken

By Elizabeth Goldsmith Musser

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Words Unspoken
by Elizabeth Musser


Prologue

Saturday, May 25, 1985
Somewhere between Atlanta and Chattanooga on Interstate 75

The hail came from nowhere. The sky turned dark gray, as if a shade had suddenly been pulled down over the highway. Lissa felt her knuckles tighten on the steering wheel as the hail pounded the windshield.
“Leave it to Tennessee to give us hail on an otherwise perfect spring day,” Momma said lightly.
She isn’t worried, Lissa thought, so why should I be? The cars behind her on I-75 had slowed to a crawl, disappearing in the rearview mirror.
“Anyway, I think that a substantial scholarship to a small, liberal arts college is worth considering. I know you have your heart set on an Ivy League, but I was frankly impressed with this small school.”
“There’s so much to think about, Momma. It makes my brain hurt.”
Momma laughed. “One day at a time, Lissa.”
Now the hail was hitting the windshield so forcefully it popped.
“This is freaky.”
“Yes. You better slow down, Liss.” Momma’s voice cracked.
The hail thundered all the louder, harder. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Lissa wondered where all the other cars had gone.
“I think we should pull over. This will pass in a few minutes.”
Lissa pushed on the brake, too quickly, and the car slipped and swerved precariously to the left. She saw the white dashes separating the lanes blend into one. How can I measure a safe distance from the car in front if there are no dashes? It’s all one twisting curving blurry line.
It didn’t matter—there were no cars ahead of theirs.
“Lissa! Slow down!”
The car was almost perpendicular to the highway. What had her driving instructor said about correcting a skid?
Turn the steering wheel in the direction the car is already going.
She turned the steering wheel, and the car slid in the opposite direction, zigzagging across the highway. A car passed, slowly, slowly on her left.
That man looks really scared, staring out the window at me.
A horn blared. Or was it the hail? A car crept by on the right. Then one swerved out of the way on the left.
This is what it feels like to be completely out of control.
The hail popping on the windshield echoed the sound of her pulse in her ears.
How will I go to college if I die on the highway in a freaky storm?
“Slow down, Liss!” Momma’s voice was a whisper, a terrified whisper.
Lissa forcefully pressed down on the brake, and the car slid again—now they were hurtling to the right, toward the cement wall of an underpass. Lissa watched it move closer, closer.
We are going to hit the wall. It is covered in graffiti, and we are going to hit it.
The car righted and slowed as the wall drew closer. The sound of hail stopped momentarily under the cover of the bridge. Lissa was vaguely aware of the screeching of brakes. Closer, closer.
The car slipped out from under the bridge, the hail pounded again, the white lines began breaking up. The car finally came to a halt in the emergency lane.
Lissa let out a sob, head down, hands trembling on the wheel. She sat with her mother in stunned silence, hearing only their labored breathing.
“Thank the Lord,” Momma whispered eventually, seconds later. Or minutes? She reached over and gave Lissa’s hand a pat. “There. Good job, sweetie.” She flashed Lissa a weak smile.
Lissa continued to tremble. She couldn’t release her fierce grip on the steering wheel.
The hail stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and the sun blinked through the clouds. Cars whizzed by, spraying the windshield with fresh rain.
“Honey, scoot over to the passenger’s side. I’ll drive.”
Still Lissa sat, her hands on the steering wheel, her seat glued to the upholstery.
“Scoot over, sweetie. I’ll come around.”
She met her mother’s eyes briefly; they shared a smile of relief. Other cars sped by. The wet pavement shone, glistened, a rainbow of colors in front of them. Lissa slid to the passenger side, admiring the violet blue that momentarily dressed the pavement, while her mother walked in front of the car and quickly opened the driver’s door.
At the same moment Lissa saw, with a glimpse in the rearview mirror, a truck trying to pass a car, the car swerving, slipping and skidding as she had done minutes before. She saw it as in slow motion, the car sliding across two lanes, coming towards them, towards her mother. The scream started in her throat and exploded, “Momma!”
The car slammed into theirs, throwing Lissa’s mother twenty feet ahead onto the pavement of I-75.

Chapter One

Friday, September 18, 1987

Lissa woke as usual to the sound of the voices. Sometimes they only whispered faintly, a vague accusation. At other times they shouted, furious, demanding.
Glancing at the alarm clock, her foggy brain registered seven thirty. How many times had she hit the snooze button? She swung her feet out of bed and planted them on the hardwood floor. She stared at the small oval rug just to her left. The intricate needlepoint pattern displayed a rush of color—pansies and butterflies. Lissa concentrated on the blending of the muted yellows and bright fuchsia. She counted to ten, stood, and made her way into the bathroom, massaging her temples with the tips of her fingers. She threw cold water on her face, grabbed a towel, and blotted her face dry. She reached for an elastic band and pulled her tangled hair into a ponytail, wrapping the elastic around once, twice, three times.
Back in the bedroom, she lay on the rug beside the bed and forced her way through fifty sit-ups, staring at the imaginary spot on the ceiling, the one she had willed into existence so that she could report it to her therapist. Routine, routine.
Down the stairs and into the kitchen, still panting, she turned on the kettle, took a sachet of tea from the little cardboard box, and dangled it into a mug. She added two lumps of sugar. As the kettle began to whistle, she lifted it from the burner and poured the water into the mug, watching the steam rise. She opened a cabinet and grabbed for a box of cereal. It didn’t matter which one, just as long as there was enough sugar to perk her up. Then the hot tea would kick in.
Her father’s empty mug sat in the sink. She studied the thin-lined stain of coffee inside the rim. The dirty trace it left spelled out for her You’re late.
“Lissa! We’re leaving in ten!”
“Okay, Dad,” she whispered to herself.
Sitting on a stool at the breakfast room counter, she leafed through the booklet once again. She knew it by heart—which had in no way kept her from failing the test three times before.
Today would be different, she told herself.
No, it won’t. Today will be like the last 423 days. Dark, depressing, sluggish, morose.
Today had to be different, she told herself, thinking of the letter that sat on her bedside table. When are you coming to see Caleb? it had asked.
Her stomach cramped. She imagined Caleb there in the dark, waiting for her.
Today had to be different.

“Good morning, Lissa,” Mrs. Rivers’s voice called out from behind a stack of books.
“Good morning.” She forced a smile, walked behind the circulation desk to the gray metal cart loaded with books. “I’ll start reshelving.”
“Thanks, dear.”
Lissa pushed the cart along the aisles, reading the book titles slowly, almost tasting the ingredients in the ones she knew so well. Rebecca, All the King’s Men, Things Fall Apart. She grimaced. That one described her life perfectly.
Eastern Crossings. She had never heard of it. She carefully opened the cover, then snapped it closed and reshelved it.
Returning to the circulation desk, she offered, “I’ll pick out a book for the elementary reading today.”
“That will be fine, dear.” The librarian’s voice sounded sugary sweet, sweeter than the cereal Lissa had eaten that morning.
Quit feeling sorry for me!
But why shouldn’t Mrs. Rivers look at her resignedly, when one of Lissa’s favorite tasks was choosing and reading a children’s book for the first graders who came to the library on Friday afternoons?
“I’ll need to leave a little early today, right after story hour.”
“That’s fine, dear. Your father phoned to say he’ll be picking you up. Driving test?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m sure you’ll pass this time.”
Mrs. Rivers didn’t mean to look pitiful, but Lissa knew her thoughts. The girl who had graduated in the top 5 percent of her class from this very school should not be shelving books in the school library. She should be getting an education from Radcliffe or Princeton or Harvard or Williams, or perhaps Georgia State. Somewhere.
Failure. Failure.
Seventeen first graders arrived at the library, giggling and whispering. It pained Lissa to study their bright, inquisitive faces.
I used to be like them. I used to want to know everything. Now I just wish I could disappear.
The children found their places on the rug and looked at her expectantly, eyes wide, faces solemn.
“Today we’re reading a story called Madeline. It takes place in a faraway land called France.” She began to read, giving voice to the characters in the story.
It always surprised Lissa that her own voice sounded warm and full and calm, when inside the voices were not.
Failure. Your fault. Give up!

“I’m afraid you didn’t pass,” the young driving instructor said, when Lissa cut the motor and sat with her hands folded in her lap.
She didn’t meet his eyes.
She bit her lip and nodded and murmured, “Thanks anyway.”
She started to get out of the car when he said, “Miss, I don’t mean to intrude, but you say you’ve failed the test three times?”
She nodded again.
“Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, I know you can pass. It’s not that you don’t know how to drive. It’s just you’re so doggone nervous.” He cleared his throat.
You’re doggone nervous too, she thought, but the sarcasm stayed in her mind.
“I know a man who’s really great at helping kids who are afraid of driving. He runs a school. He’s kinda old, but he’s good. Been teaching kids to drive for thirty years now.” He fiddled in his shirt pocket where Department of Motor Vehicles was stitched in dark blue thread, pulled out a card, and handed it to Lissa.
She stared at the card and murmured, “Thanks.”
The young instructor shrugged. “I’d give him a call. Couldn’t hurt.”

Lissa waited at the curb for her father to pick her up. She thought of him as a jovial man, big and brash. He used to hug her to his chest and slap his hand down on the coffee table and let his head fall back in boisterous laughter. He did these things still, but it was all pretense. The arms that closed around her, the big, muscular arms, felt stiff, unbending—a wooden hug that gave no comfort—and his words were equally wooden: Lissa, that’s enough. We will not talk about it again. Do you understand?
She felt the pain gnawing her from the inside.
Your fault! screamed a voice.
So loudly that for the moment she couldn’t hear the one whispering Not good enough.
Her father’s gray BMW rolled into the parking lot. Lissa painted a calm expression on her face, but she was sure he could read it nonetheless, before she even opened her mouth.
The image in her mind was still there, though blurred. She was giggling; her father was tiptoeing through the house, pretending to be befuddled; her mother hummed softly in the background. A bright, airy, happy memory. The tune she could hear even now, that softly hummed tune. Lissa reached, physically, with one hand for the image, trying to grasp it before it evaporated. Even after the image disappeared, she thought she could faintly hear the giggles.
Then she realized it was the panting of the BMW’s powerful motor as her father pulled the car up beside her.
He gave her the big, hopeful smile. “How’d it go?”
She shrugged, climbed into the passenger’s seat, not meeting his eyes. “I failed.”
His smile faded, the wooden arm reached over and patted her on the back. She felt the heaviness of the silence between them. She closed her eyes as they drove toward home, and she willed herself to hear the soft melody again.
Instead, the voices whispered around her head, pecking at her like a bird on a windowpane, pecking. Then suddenly they were shrill—a siren, the teakettle whistling, the burglar alarm at the neighbor’s house. They made her head ache and throb! She rubbed her temples.
“Lissa, you okay?” Her father was staring at her with that perplexed expression on his face.
What could she say? What was she allowed to say?
“Sure, Dad. I’m fine.”
Back in her room, she collapsed on the bed, arms dangling off one side, legs off the other. She turned her head to the side, and with her right hand pulled open the drawer on her bedside table. Reaching underneath a stack of underwear, she clasped the little brown bottle of pills. Thirty-two of them, carefully saved. That should do the trick. She picked up the bottle, let her fingers close around it, and imagined pulling off the small white cap.
What about Caleb? a small voice whispered, wooing her back.
Yes, Caleb.
Rolling onto her back, she reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out the little business card. It was crinkled in the middle. MacAllister’s Driving School. An address and a phone number. I’d give him a call. Couldn’t hurt.
She set down the bottle and picked up the phone, and dialed the number.

Monday, September 21

One more year until retirement, Ev MacAllister told himself, leaning forward in the chair to tie his shoes. He did not dwell on the thought. Truth was, he loved his job. A vocation, he called it. At first Annie had thought he should look for something better than sitting in the passenger seat with nervous kids. Eventually, she had understood and accepted it, even embraced it.
He stood up with a grunt, thankful that they had agreed and flourished in that idea for so long after the accident. Could it be almost thirty-five years?
His first client drove well, a sixteen-year-old girl who was meticulous, careful, and focused. Easy. The next client was waiting for him by the mailbox of the dirt driveway that made a loop in front of his old Victorian home. The sky was cloudy, a surprisingly cool nip in the September air.
Ev always gave his clients the benefit of the doubt, refused to judge by appearances. But after observing kids for so long, he could read them with amazing accuracy, and what he saw in front of him was spelled out on the young lady’s face as if she were holding a sign.
I’ve failed this test several times and I’m scared to death and I’m begging you. Please help me.
She wore jeans and a bright turquoise T-shirt. She had pulled her tousled brown hair into a loose bun and secured it with a long spearlike instrument, and the hair stuck out and strands fell down around her face. That face held an injured look, fragile; thin, dark circles around large, dark, expressionless eyes. He thought briefly that if she’d gained ten pounds she would be very attractive. As it was, he wondered if she could be anorexic.
“Good morning, miss,” he greeted her, holding out his hand.
She offered hers limply, not even bothering to disguise her resignation.
“You must be Lissa. I’m Ev MacAllister. You ’bout ready?”
She nodded, met his eyes briefly, then stared at the ground. “Yes, sir.”
And he imagined her thinking Just my luck to get some old geezer.
She looked up. “I’m only here for the free evaluation. I’m not sure I’ll be taking lessons.”
“That’s fine, young lady. See how you feel after today. If you want to continue, you may.”
She nodded again, her hands stuffed into her jeans pockets. “How long does it usually take to help someone?”
“All depends on the person.”
“I see.”
“But I can tell you that in over thirty years of teaching, only a handful of people couldn’t get over their fears.”
She glanced up at him suspiciously when he pronounced the word fears. “I need to learn to drive again. It means everything to me.”
“Then we’d better get to work, wouldn’t you say?”
For one brief moment, Ev saw what looked like a flash of determination in her eyes, before she turned them down to stare at the pavement again. That was enough—the look in her eyes brought back the memory of an old, familiar aching. He felt the lurch in his gut, ignored it, and walked toward the car.
“Okay. Thanks, sir.”
“You’ll be driving Ole Bessie today. The blue Ford Escort over there. We’ll take a few loops around the driveway first, just to see what you know, if you don’t mind.”
The girl didn’t smile.
She’s a serious one.
“I don’t mind.”

Lissa took in the surroundings as she walked over to the old car. The house sat perched on a hill at the end of a wide country road with a view of Lookout Mountain spreading out in front of it. A spacious green carpet of grass out front bisected the semi-circular dirt driveway. The house was white and needed a new coat of paint, but it looked neat and clean. A wraparound porch led to the front door, and the roof was black and gabled. Flowers grew rampant around the house and in window boxes.
Two other cars, a red Buick and a white Impala, were parked beside the light blue Ford. Painted along both sides of the Ford in dark blue lettering was the advertisement: MacAllister’s Driving School. Mr. MacAllister wore a blue seersucker suit that almost matched the color of the car.
Lissa studied him curiously. He was tall and lean and stood erect, as if he had been in the military. His thick silver hair was abundant—definitely not military—and he wore old blue-and-white tennis shoes that seemed incongruous with the rest of his appearance.
She liked him. He seemed confidant and calm, and something else. Kind. Yes, that was it. Kind, with a sense of humor.
“Okay, Lissa. A few bare essentials before you take the wheel. I know you’ve heard it all before, but it never hurts to review.” He pointed out the accelerator, the brake, the turn signals, the rearview and side mirrors. He mentioned that the faster the car was going, the more sensitive the steering wheel was to the touch, and easier to turn.
He glanced down at the sheet of paper she had filled out with her personal information.
“I see you used to drive. Is there anything you’d like me to know before we start? Any past experiences I should know about?”
She shook her head too quickly, swallowed, and stared at the ground.
“All right, then. Let’s get in.” He opened the door to the driver’s seat, and Lissa slid in.
The upholstery was dark blue, worn thin in several spots. Lissa noticed the single brake pedal on the instructor’s side. Mr. MacAllister got in and closed his door, and the noise made her jump, for no reason.
She pulled on her seat belt, turned the key in the ignition. As Ole Bessie gently rumbled to life, Lissa heard the voice.
Your fault.
She willed herself to block it out, released the brake, and pressed lightly on the accelerator, checking her mirrors. She drove slowly around the circular driveway in front of the big white clapboard house. Once Mr. MacAllister leaned over toward her and adjusted the steering wheel, just barely, when Ole Bessie’s tires veered slightly off the dirt driveway and onto the patch of green grass.
After the third lap, he said, “Okay. That’s great, Lissa. Just pull to a stop over by the hickory tree.”
As she braked she noticed, with another feeling of relief, that his pedal brake mashed in automatically with hers.

* * *

Well, I’ll be, Ev thought to himself. In spite of her scared, anemic appearance, the girl handled the car with ease as she drove around the semi-circular driveway.
“Lissa, you did just fine. Now let’s just go down the road a little ways, and that will be enough for today.”
She gave him a questioning look. “That’ll be all?”
“We don’t want to overdo it. Little by little, you’ll get your confidence back.”
She pulled out onto the wide road in front of the house and started slowly down the hill.
“I like to go easy the first lesson. But for your second lesson, would you be ready for a drive on a small road—not much traffic?”
“Yes, sir.”
“On Wednesday we’ll go over to the Chickamauga Military Park. It’s convenient, with wide roads that curve around easy, a low speed limit, great scenery, relaxing.” He glanced at Lissa. “Altogether a good place to practice.”
She nodded.
“My philosophy is to get you back on the road again as soon as possible. I don’t believe in spending hours driving around parking lots. Makes you feel like you’re on a merry-go-round.”
She nodded again as the road opened up before them.
“Just go straight on ahead for about a mile or two, and then we’ll turn around at the filling station and go back to the house.”
The clouds had evaporated; the sky was that intense autumn blue that Ev loved. Lookout Mountain towered in front of them. In fact, from their position miles away on the road it looked as if they might drive right into it.
“Do you mind telling me your driving history, Lissa? You say you’ve failed the test several times?”
One hand, the right, tightened on the steering wheel almost imperceptibly, but Ev saw it.
“Um, well, I had my license and I drove a lot. But . . .” Now the left hand clutched, the knuckles whitened. “But there was an accident and . . .”
“You’ve been afraid to drive ever since.”
She glanced at him. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
“So what we need is to work on building up your confidence, young lady.”
Her hands relaxed, and she took a deep breath. “That would be great, sir. Yes, that would be great.”

Ev let the screen door slam as he came in from the porch. Six thirty-five. He needed a glass of lemonade. The weather had decided to turn muggy, and Ole Bessie did not have air conditioning.
Something about that young woman irked him. Bothered him. No, scared him. Hurt him. There.
Back on the porch, he settled into the rocking chair with the glass of lemonade. He took a long sip, closed his eyes, tried to shake the image of the scared young woman, skinny with hollow eyes. Hollow, desperate eyes, begging him for something.
Begging him for life.
As quickly as he admitted it, he saw her. Tate. Little Tate as a round-faced baby, sparkling brown eyes. Tate at five, mischief written across her pudgy cheeks and in the crease of her brow. Tate at ten, stomping out of the room, furious with her older brother. Tate at fourteen, taking her first sip of alcohol . . .
Stop it! he told himself. What good did it do to relive these things?
He stood up, said out loud to himself, “I’ll be glad to help her if I can.”
If I can? He had helped so many others. Of course he could!
What about Tate?
Nothing he could do about Tate. Nothing he could have done, he corrected himself. He closed his eyes, took another sip of lemonade, walked to his little office, and sat down at the desk, where he scribbled a note to himself before going back outside. Time for his next client.

* * *

Lissa sank onto her bed with a groan.
You see, Caleb, I am trying. I swear I’ll come to see you soon.
She let her eyes travel around the room. Nothing had changed since the accident seventeen months ago. It would be good to move forward, make a few changes, as her therapist had suggested. But she could not. Every single item in her room, every pillow and book and photograph, every trophy and award, was stuck in place as if it had been glued down. Somehow it was simpler to let them stay there and taunt her, remind her of the other life, the before life. A constant reminder of what had been and what should have continued.
Lissa lifted her head from the pillow and forced her body out of inertia. She walked over to the desk, the clean white desk with its three drawers, the desk that the cleaning lady dusted twice a week so that no one would know the neglect. She looked at the photo of the gelding, his chestnut head held high, a blue ribbon attached to his bridle and floating out in the breeze. Lissa herself stood beside the horse, an elated smile on her lips, her black riding hat pulled down on her forehead, her hair swept into a bun underneath. She studied the picture in a way she had not allowed herself to do for so long. Carefree. Even then, what a rare emotion to be displayed on her face.
A surge of joy rushed through her before she could stop it, exactly like the feeling she had had at the moment the photographer flashed the picture. She remembered how the gelding shied, jerking her up, and how she laughed so easily.
Stop it! the voice reprimanded.
With a stiff hand, Lissa turned the framed picture down on her desk, and that one simple gesture felt harder than lifting a fifty-pound bag of horse feed.
Glancing to the armoire on the other wall, she went across the spacious room, reached up with one hand, and touched the gold-framed photo. In this one Lissa wore a sparkling evening gown, pink taffeta on top, closely fitted, showing off an attractive bust line and small waist. The gown flowed out in soft pink petals to her ankles. A strand of pearls around her neck and a string of dangling smaller pearls from each ear completed her accessories. Her lips spread in a wide smile as she clutched the trophy. Beside her was Momma, beautiful gray-eyed Momma, her ash blond hair swept off her bare shoulders, her blue sequined dress sparkling. Momma laughing, looking like an older sister. Laughing and proud of her daughter.
With a swift gesture Lissa knocked the photo over, so that it landed with a slap on the top of the armoire. There. She had done it.
She went back to her bed and lay down.
What good did it do? Tomorrow Helena would come to straighten and clean. She would right the fallen frames, dust them carefully. Unless Lissa could bring herself to say the words, pronounce them convincingly—“I don’t want these in my room anymore”—the pictures would be there tomorrow afternoon when she returned from the library, their golden frames shining, the smiling faces taunting, calling her back to when life made sense.
Lissa remembered holding onto Caleb and saying over and over, “It’s going to be all right. We are going to survive. I swear it. This will not destroy us, Caleb. We are going to survive.” Her arms were tight around his neck, she felt his warm breath and held him tighter.
Had she said these things? Did she still believe them? Now she was the one longing for arms to close tightly around her and swear to her, swear to her on everything under the sun that things were going to change. She was going to make it, and these terrible voices would stop. But there was no one around, only the bright, cheerful yellow walls and the bed with its yellow comforter and the desk and the armoire and the china cabinet with ribbons and trophies lining its shelves.
Why did she expect her father to walk into the room now and grab her in his all-engulfing bear hug and hold her there until she had wept on his shoulder and say, “It’s okay, Lissa. You are safe with me”?
How she longed to hear him say that. She longed for his robust laughter, the way his dark eyes twinkled merrily, the sparkle of someone who knew how to appreciate life. But his eyes looked dull now and, if she let herself admit it, angry. Brooding.
She shuffled through the mail he had left on her desk. Three more college applications. A letter from one: Dear Miss Randall, Based on your fine academic achievement as well as your impressive extracurricular activities, we are pleased to tell you that you have qualified for the scholarship to . . .
She picked up the framed high school diploma that sat on the desk and lifted it above her head.
Lies, lies! Failure!
She threw it forcefully across the room, where it hit the door to the bathroom. She heard the glass shatter and then tumble soundlessly onto the soft blue bathmat.
Lissa formed the words in her mouth, repeated them out loud twice, the same words she had longed to pronounce to her father for the past seventeen months. “Stop trying to recreate my life, Dad. That life is over. Do you hear me? Over. Stop trying to make it okay again. It will never be okay again.”
She sank onto the bathmat beside the broken glass and took the little card out of her pocket. MacAllister’s Driving School. For some odd reason she smiled, seeing in her mind the tall, older man with an abundance of silver hair, dressed in a seersucker suit in spite of the muggy weather. She remembered his bright blue bow tie and his dirty white-and-blue tennis shoes.
So what we need is to work on is building up your confidence, young lady.
“Yes, please,” Lissa said aloud.
~from Words Unspoken, by Elizabeth Musser, c2009, published by Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.

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