Words Unspoken (15 page)

“Wif Weeanne. Changin’ da stinky diaper.”

They both laughed and, with Sammy stuck on Ted’s back, traipsed through the house, past the kitchen and master suite to where they could hear Lin Su humming as she patted powder on LeeAnne’s perfect little bottom.

He came from behind and kissed his wife on the neck. “Hmm, you smell good,” he whispered in her ear.

Lin Su turned around, black eyes beaming, and said, “You made it back in one piece!” Hoisting the baby on a hip, she planted a kiss on Ted’s mouth while Sammy peeked over his shoulder. “So tell all. What is this mysterious Miss S. A. Green like?”

Ted laughed out loud. “Crotchety old thing, that’s for sure. Jerry was right about that. I don’t care a bit for her. But I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. She’s going to be a wonderful client—easy, in some ways. As long as I don’t get on her bad side.”

Sammy wiggled off his back, and LeeAnne crawled after her brother to where the VCR was set up.

“Now, you’ve got a choice,” Lin Su said, giving him her best tigereye look. “We can eat dinner now, or we can let the kids watch the new Disney video I picked up at the store while we have dessert first.” She winked seductively.

Ted grinned. “Wow. What an offer! I think I’ll choose that dessert.” He held her around the waist. He could tell her about the China trip later, over dinner. For now, with LeeAnne safe in her playpen, peering out at the TV, and Sammy lying beside her with his blanket, Ted pressed the Play button and escaped to the bedroom with Lin Su while a Disney melody played in the background.

Later, when the kids were tucked into bed, he held Lin Su close and said, “I’ve got a little surprise for you.”

“Really?”

“Ever heard of the Million Dollar Club?”

She made a face, the one he loved where she scrunched up her button nose and pouted with her lips. “Nope, but it sounds like a club it might be fun to join.” She flashed a smile.

“It’s a great club to join—except you have to qualify. And to qualify, you have to do a million dollars’ worth of business in a year for Goldberg, Finch and Dodge.”

“Not bad. Know anyone who’s done that much business?” she teased.

“You’re looking at him!”

“Is that so? And here I thought all you did was meet for lunch with slightly crazy old women.”

Lin Su was acting nonchalant, but he knew she was thrilled for him.

“And if you qualify for the club, they give you a free trip.”

“Now, that sounds interesting.”

“All expenses paid for you and your wife. And guess where the firm will be sending the ones who qualify this year?”

“No idea. Disney World?”

“Guess again.”

“The Grand Canyon.”

“Think a little farther away, a little more exotic.”

“Europe.”

“Exotic.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Ted! Tell me!”

“China.”

Lin Su’s eyes grew wide, the perfect, startled expression. “No. You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding. A weeklong, all-expenses-paid trip to China. Only we won’t stay just a week. We’ll be taking the kids to see your family— the aunts and uncles and your grandparents—while we travel with the company. And then we’ll spend another week with your family after the trip.”

“Is this already a done deal?” Lin Su asked, incredulous. “Oh, Ted! Are you serious! This is real?”

“This is real, sweetie.”
Almost for sure
, he thought. His numbers were right on track for this far into the year. “You are going home for a visit.”

The first time in eight long years. This was what he had dreamed of offering to his wife. This made all the headaches worth it.

He loved that his wife was gorgeous
and
tough. She’d never had anything handed to her on a platter. She deserved this. He thought back to their first meeting.

MIT. Second semester sophomore year, economics class. Two hundred students in the amphitheater. He had noticed her immediately. Petite, Asian, beautiful, dedicated. Over the months he observed her in the library way past the hours of most students. Asian tenacity, he called it. Finally in March, he’d gotten up the nerve to speak to her.

“Hi, I’m Ted Draper. I think we have econ together.”

“Oh, I hadn’t noticed.” She didn’t even look up from her books.

“Do you ever take a study break?”

“Rarely.” She kept her head buried. “And I don’t lend out my notes. Or go on dates.”

“That makes two of us, then. I’m here to study. I plan to be top in my class.”

She gave him a sideways glance, slightly intrigued. Lifting her eyebrows, she said, “Well, that’s interesting. I’m planning on being the top in
my
class.”

They became inseparable. Never a date, just grueling hours in the library, quick coffee breaks, and a gradual understanding that they were both after the same thing. Success.

Eventually, he learned about her background. Her father was American, her mother Chinese. Lin Su had lived all her life in Oregon with her parents and siblings, twice visiting China in her childhood. Money was always tight.

“My family has all their hopes placed in me,” she confided late one night. “Failure isn’t an option. Distractions aren’t either.”

“You won’t fail, Lin Su. You may have an American father, but inside you’re pure Asian—hardworking to the core.”

At that, she seethed. “Don’t you ever stoop to such a low stereotype again, Ted Draper. You understand?”

He remembered how he had blushed. He liked her grit.

Lin Su graduated first in their class and got a full scholarship to business school; he was third with his own scholarships offered. His buddies assumed his pride was hurt, but Ted knew that celebrating and encouraging Lin Su’s success was the only way he could keep her. Theirs was a very rocky relationship: competition, drive, nasty fights, reconciliation. They both liked it that way.

They got married in the middle of grad school and spent their honeymoon in China, visiting all the relatives in a week of celebrations. They had not been back since.

She worked for a financial planning firm for five years, until Sammy came along. With much prodding from Ted, she had agreed to take a little break to stay home with the children. After all, with the market going straight up, they were making it just fine on his salary. Business was soaring—S. A. Green, a few other filthy rich clients and some bond issues, and an interview with an editor from Youngblood Publishers. Everything was going even better than he had dreamed.

________

“Well, there’s irony for you,” Janelle laughed dryly. “I think I need to get away, and instead my bitter big sister announces she’s coming for a visit. Can you believe she wants to come now? What in the world would prompt that?”

“She must be hurting. You know your sister—she won’t show it, but something is wrong.”

“I know my sister, and if something is wrong, she will do everything in her power to pretend it is otherwise. She got a college degree in making sure everything appears to be perfect.”

Brian gave her a squeeze. “Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on her?”

“Who knows? And what in the world do I have to offer now?”

“Maybe she just needs to see someone else’s life. A change of scenery.”

Janelle couldn’t imagine really having her sister visit in Montpellier. She’d invited her for years. Once, back in the late seventies, Hamilton and Katy Lynn stopped by on their way to a cruise. Janelle made a face, remembering that very brief visit. Hamilton had thought they were nuts—fanatics trying to reform the French Catholics and convert the Muslims.

Of course, he hadn’t said it exactly like that. He
had
talked all about
his
business and
his
plans for
his
company and made little condescending remarks about how small their house was and the strange bathrooms. By the end of twenty-four hours, Janelle was afraid her normally peaceloving husband was going to strangle Hamilton—“The egomaniac,” he’d whispered, almost loudly enough for Hamilton to hear.

Afterward, she and Brian had both referred to that incident as the “visit from hell,” and had laughed, albeit sadly. They cared about Hamilton and Katy Lynn, but they were on another wavelength, a completely different planet.

Katy Lynn had always shied away from any talk of faith. Raised in the church, something had gone stale many, many years ago. Janelle did not want to rehash old memories, did not have the mental strength to delve into that painful subject—how two sisters, raised in the same way, could turn out so very differently. Different interests, of course, were normal. But why had she embraced their parents’ faith while Katy Lynn shunned it, blaming her father—
their
father—the gentlest man in the world? For so many years now, Janelle and Brian had prayed for Katy Lynn and Hamilton and Gina. But if the truth were told, the last person Janelle wanted to walk through her front door in four short days was Katy Lynn. Well, actually, perhaps that was inaccurate. At least she wasn’t bringing Hamilton. Janelle could be thankful for small blessings.

________

When Lissa stepped out of the redbrick library building and walked across the spacious grassy courtyard, she had a smile on her face that to Ev looked like the sun’s rays spilling through an opening in the clouds—a pleasant and unexpected shift in the weather.

“Hello, Mr. MacAllister!” she sang out. It seemed the heavens had granted her not only a sunny disposition but a new voice, a warm, rich voice of hope. She wore her hair down, and Ev noticed its bright sheen and the way it bounced lightly as she walked.

“Hello, Lissa!” He hoped his own voice communicated more warmth and optimism than he felt. Having Annie acknowledge Lissa’s resemblance to Tate had not brought him relief. It only made him worry more.

“Um, Mr. MacAllister,” she said as he started the engine, “I think I’m ready to drive through the park again.”

“You sure? Remember, we’re not trying to set any records.”

“I know that, sir.”

She talked easily as they drove across the Tennessee River and headed out of Chattanooga toward Fort Oglethorpe. She seemed eager to get in the driver’s seat of Ole Bessie. Parked by the old house-turned-visitorcenter, she hopped out of the passenger’s seat and walked in front of the car, almost skipping. Ev barely had time to situate himself before Lissa was buckled in and revving the engine.

She backed the car out easily, pulled onto the wide road of the Military Park, and inched forward slowly but with confidence. Three deer from across the street perked up their heads at the sight of Ole Bessie.

“You ready to take the battleground loop?” Ev asked.

“Sure.”

Another clear blue day, another perfect fall festival. Perhaps he’d been wrong about Lissa. Perhaps she could get past the block more quickly than he had expected. He’d been wrong before.

She handled the first part of the loop with ease. “There are so many monuments in this park.”

“Over two hundred. Chickamauga was the bloodiest two-day battle of the war. Over thirty-four thousand men were killed, wounded, or missing.”

Even as he said this, he noticed a barely perceptible change in the girl. The bead of sweat started on her upper lip—the way it had for Annie during her unpredictable hot flashes. But Lissa was nineteen. She cleared her throat three times in a row and leaned forward, squinting, then began to tremble, her fist in a tight coil, her breathing rapid, her brow sweaty. With only the deer looking on, Lissa pulled the car off into a small parking space meant for tourists who wanted to take pictures of a nearby military statue.

She leaned her head on the steering wheel and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mr. MacAllister. I guess I was wrong. I just thought that maybe things would go more smoothly, but the monuments and all …” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

“We’re not in a hurry, Lissa.”

The trembling stopped, but the girl looked devastated, surprised by her failure.

“I was so sure that today I wouldn’t hear that voice—you know, the one that says it’s going to happen again. That I’ll have another accident … or worse.”

Ev tried to think of something to say. Then he asked, “Do you remember what I told you the other night about voices?”

“That we have to figure out which ones to listen to and how to shut the other ones up?”

“Exactly.” He patted the upholstery and squinted through the bright sun on the windshield. “Tell me what the nicest voice you ever hear says to you.”

“The nicest voice?” Lissa’s voice was thick with sarcasm. “Did I say there was a
nice
voice?”

“No, but I’m sure there’s one in there somewhere. Think about it.”

He was determined not to be in a hurry with Lissa Randall. They sat in Ole Bessie, with the monument in memory of the 35th Ohio Regiment looking over at them.

Lissa didn’t say a word for a long time. Finally, she cleared her throat and said in a whisper, “The nicest voice I heard was my mother’s. She’s the one who would say, ‘Let yourself enjoy things. Your life isn’t all planned out, no matter what your father says. Dream, Lissa. Close your eyes and dream.’ ”

“And when you let yourself, Lissa, what do you dream about?”

She seemed to relax a little. “Not much these days. I dream that my father and I can have a real conversation. Something that goes a little deeper than the weather or work.”

“Anything else?”

“Look, Mr. MacAllister, I really appreciate all your help, but I don’t think this is going very far.” She unbuckled her seat belt and shifted her weight so that she was facing Ev. Her voice was steady now, controlled. “My father and I are stuck. All he wants is for me to go to college. The best college possible. He cannot even begin to consider that I may not ever get there. That would freak him out big-time. So he just pretends things are going fine, that I am gradually getting better and that my ‘little job’ at the school library and my ‘little time’ spent with you learning to drive are just necessary—albeit embarrassing—steps to getting me ready for college. He cannot look at reality. The man absolutely refuses.”

Vigor had returned to Lissa’s voice, and determination. The word
gutsy
flashed in Ev’s mind.