Words Unspoken (35 page)

“Thanks, Nelli. Thanks for being there.”

Katy Lynn shuffled out of bed and into the office down the hall, where shelf after shelf was lined with hardback books, most of them well read. Flipping on the light switch, she reached for one of her favorites, finding comfort in the worn feel of the cover. Her mother had given it to her on her fifteenth birthday, back in 1960.
Eastern Crossings
. She loved that book. It had grabbed her, touched her heart, made her laugh and cry. Somehow Miss Green had known what was going on inside her fifteen-year-old soul.

Katy Lynn brushed her fingers across the other novels by S. A. Green. She’d read every one. Good friends. She shuffled back to the bedroom, flicked on the lamp on the bedside table, and snuggled under the covers. At three twenty she switched off the light and drifted to sleep with a scene from the third chapter settling gently in her mind.

Vasilica, the young hero of the novel, was close to giving up, when his younger sister came beside him, assuring him that they weren’t stuck. Little Tonia promised her big brother that someone would come for them.

Katy Lynn had always loved the conversation between brother and sister. She loved how the youngest character in the novel pronounced the wisest words.
And somehow, she made me believe them,
Katy Lynn thought. Now, in the middle of the night, she could almost hear Janelle pronouncing the same words, offering comfort to her older sister, who also felt like giving up.

________

Silvano tossed and turned in his bed. Why had he waxed eloquent about S. A. Green to Lissa Randall? He’d hardly believed it was his voice talking, listing her literary acuity. All of it true. Problem was, he didn’t need to be finding virtue in the woman he was planning to expose. And he did not want to be reminded of the way her books jabbed him in the soul, the way phrases from the new novel floated out to him, breaking into his thoughts. He didn’t need this. He needed to think straight. Already he was having trouble concentrating with images of Lissa Randall in his mind. She was no pushover. She’d called his bluff in a minute. So he needed to proceed with caution. The
Aeneid
in Latin, of all things!

He got out of bed, found a notebook and pen, and began to compose the letter to a couple of major magazines—a letter that was going to buy him fame and attention and a better job. He had to word it perfectly, leaking just enough information to let the editors know his offer was for real. And then he would see who offered the most for such a scoop.

After struggling with it for half an hour, he got back in bed. Drifting off to sleep, he thought of another scene from Green’s manuscript. He heard his own voice transcribing the words in his mind.
Can’t you see you’re going too fast, Silvano? You are going to get into trouble! Deep trouble!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26

The first thing on Lissa’s mind Monday morning when she arrived at Chattanooga Girls School was the novel that Silvano had recommended. His description of S. A. Green intrigued her. As she straightened a few things at the circulation desk, she asked, “Mrs. Rivers, have you ever heard of an author called S. A. Green?”

“Oh, sure. She’s very well known. Not very prolific, though.” She left the circulation desk, with Lissa following. “Her first book came out when I was about your age.
Eastern Crossings
. I loved that book. I had the choice of reading it or
The Red Pony
by Steinbeck. I knew Steinbeck would be sad, so I chose Green—and bawled my eyes out over it. I tell you, that little novel changed my life.”

She scanned a shelf. “Here it is.”

“It changed your life?”

Mrs. Rivers laughed good-naturedly. “Figuratively speaking, of course. But, yes, at the time, that novel touched something in me that needed touching.”

At Lissa’s skeptical gaze, Mrs. Rivers handed her the book. “Don’t believe me. Read it for yourself.”

Lissa held the thin paperback novel in her hands. It had that comfortable feel of use, like her leather saddle. Many hands had held this book, had turned page after page, so that under the clear plastic cover, the corners turned up and the paper inside had lost its crisp, clean feel.

“Thanks, I think I will.” She carried it back to the desk and signed it out.

At two in the morning, Lissa could not get it out of her mind. The novel was disturbing. She felt as though the writer had looked inside her own heart. How could this be, when S. A. Green was describing orphans on the other side of the world in the early twentieth century? Orphans waiting for a train that never came.

Silvano and Mrs. Rivers were right. The prose felt like a smooth cream on chapped hands. How could such beautiful words bother her so deeply?

One of the characters had told young Vasilica, the novel’s hero, that sometimes the only way to move ahead was by looking back. Something like that. Something about the way to the future being found in the past.

Lissa groaned. She was stuck in the
Now.

Silvano made her look back, that was true—back to happier memories of Latin and Rome and boys. Her ride on Caleb had certainly taken her back to the thrill of feeling a horse beneath her, the natural high she felt jumping those fences. Even now, the dull soreness in her thighs was a pleasant reminder of her workout on Caleb. Mr. MacAllister was forcing her back too—to the scene of the accident and then further back to the winding road up Lookout Mountain, when driving was just another challenge, another competition, something fun.

Her mother’s ash blond head appeared around the corner where Lissa was sitting at the kitchen table. “Lissa, you are the most competitive girl I have ever seen. It’s two in the morning! Will you please come upstairs to bed?”

“I want to be ready.”

“You
are
ready. You’ve practically memorized the whole book, sweetie!”

Another night, and again her mother came into the kitchen where Lissa sat spread eagle on the floor, rubbing Neatsfoot oil into her saddle.

“Liss, you are going to be too tired for the show tomorrow. We’ve got to get up at five. Go to bed.”

She
was
tired. Exhausted. But the adrenaline always kicked in when she and Caleb rode into the ring. Two Cokes in the morning with a sausage biscuit and she would be ready to go… .

With a satisfied smile, Lissa admitted to herself that she wanted to go back
and
she wanted to go forward. Eighteen months was long enough to be stuck. Another scene from
Eastern Crossings
flashed before her. Tonia, Vasilica’s little sister, was trying to encourage her brother and reassure him that they were not stuck, that someone would come to get them. She loved the little girl’s words, full of hope and faith. Yes, the faith of a child.

She surprised herself by saying out loud, “That’s what I want. I want the faith to believe that I am not stuck.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28

Every florist in Montpellier was selling chrysanthemums—yellow, gold, burnt orange, burgundy red—displayed in pots in front of the nurseries. Rows and rows of pots. For All Saints Day—
Toussaint
, as they called it in France; for the graves, for the dead. Janelle paused beside the vendor’s stand at the
marché
where the mums were a better price and chose two, gold and burgundy, for Josh’s grave. Of all the French traditions, this was the one in which she wished she had no reason to participate: visiting the little cemetery, carrying her bundle of flowers. She wished she could disappear into some French child’s skin and traipse through the manicured paths of this graveyard and play peekaboo behind the stone statues, oblivious to the sorrow.

Life in a foreign country was all about adapting to the new culture. She’d been doing that for years.

Why, God, why do I have to adapt to
this
? To death?

The wine and cheeses and four-course meals and long walks on Sunday afternoons, these she enjoyed. She endured the crazy governmental red tape, the rudeness of the shopkeepers, the undisciplined way people crowded each other and broke into line. Even the constant criticism from neighbors, from the children’s teachers, from churchgoers, she had accepted as another part of French culture. But not this! Not the way her heart was constricting as she held the pots of chrysanthemums in front of her like a protective shield.

“There you are, Nelli!” Brian appeared with bags laden with fruits and vegetables from the
marché
. His eyes settled on the mums and darkened. “Let me get those for you.” He reached out for the chrysanthemums, but she shook her head.

“No, it’s okay. Let me carry them.”

They walked back to the little gray Renault in silence. Brian tossed the bags into the trunk and Janelle carefully placed the flowerpots on the floor, wedged in between the front and back seats. When Brian started the car and pulled onto the road heading home, she broke the silence with words that sounded even to herself as if they were pronounced by someone else.

“Let me get through the long weekend. Let me get us all through the first of November. Then I’ll think about going back to the States.” Her voice was thin, feeble, on the brink of breaking. “I’ll think about it, Brian, but I don’t want to get my hopes up. The airplane ticket isn’t in our budget. It would put us under for months.”

Brian held up his hand, wagging his forefinger as every Frenchman did to say
You’re wrong
. “We already have the money for the ticket.”

“What?”

“Katy Lynn made the deposit into our account as soon as she got back to Atlanta. She asked me not to tell you, because she wanted you to decide for yourself. But if you want to fly back to Georgia, we have money for the ticket.”

Tears trickled down Janelle’s face. She had no words.

Go home.

________

“… planning to fly to Atlanta on November fifth … a month … if that’s okay with you and Mom.”

The crackling in the phone line made his daughter’s words barely distinguishable.

“Of course, Nelli, of course you can. We would be delighted.”

“… kids and Brian through
Toussaint
… the flowers … the grave. I always do that.”

Ev was sure that Janelle’s voice was cracking, more than the telephone line.

“Of course. Of course.”

The conversation lasted no more than four or five minutes. After he said good-bye to Janelle, Ev pushed back his desk chair, stood up, and let his eyes travel around his office—their office. It was spacious, with a window that looked out on the front porch and into the distant mountains, and furnished with furniture he had inherited from his mother and father. Books were crammed into every available space of the mahogany bookshelves that took up one whole wall. No, not crammed. Lovingly inserted. Every one of them chosen with care, history books from his Princeton days, classics, modern novels, picture books on France, travel guides, books on economy and politics, biographies. The stuff of a lifetime.

The filing cabinets were Annie’s domain, and they
were
crammed with the records of students, the bills and licenses and tax forms, drivers’ guides and pamphlets, the paperwork for a small home business.

Ev walked around his office and let his gaze rest on the dozens of framed photos on walls and shelves. Black-and-white baby pictures of Katy Lynn and Janelle in beautiful silver frames. Beside them, another silver-framed photo showed Annie and Ev in wedding attire, their faces erupting in delight as they stepped out of a limousine. On a different shelf was an old color eight-by-ten pose of their wedding party.

He reached for that photo and stared at the smiling face of little Tate. At eight years old she had held the honor of flower girl. There she stood, a big openmouthed grin showing several missing teeth, her shining brown hair falling to her shoulders, two tiny braids crowning her head. She wore a long sleeveless dress, the same color as the bridesmaids—a soft blue—and short white gloves. She held a small white straw basket in front of her, filled with real rose petals.

It was 1943. A fancy wedding in the middle of a war. Six months later he’d flown over the Atlantic to fight Hitler and fascism. By the time he got back, a mere two years after the wedding, Tate seemed so grownup— much too grown-up for a ten-year-old.

“Tate,” he whispered through the catch in his throat.

Katy Lynn probably did not even remember her young aunt. No, surely she did, for Tate had loved baby-sitting her niece. Janelle, though, had heard her name mentioned only a few times, and that many, many years ago.

There’s so much they don’t know, Lord. How do I explain it now? Why should I? Will they understand? Will it make sense?
Then out loud he asked, “Will they forgive me?”

Ev replaced the framed photo of the wedding party and left the office, closing the door behind him.

“Janelle’s coming home, Annie.”

Annie, arms filled with groceries, lifted an eyebrow as Ev took one bag from her. Then she gave a stilted laugh. “Well, she couldn’t have picked a better time.”

Ev took the eggs and milk out of the brown paper bag. “Annie, anytime is the perfect time to see our daughter.”