The Silent History: A Novel by Eli Horowitz, Kevin Moffett, Matthew Derby

through to me, but in a way that I wasn’t even picking up. I know it’s unproductive to think that way, to think of that time as wasted. But those are years I can’t get back. That whole stretch, I can never recover it. Whereas I feel like if I’d only known, I could have brought her so much further along. I could have taught her so much.
    The teachers started offering an evening class for parents to learn about some of the facial muscles and the basic microexpressions that they could make. All the parents sat facing each other. I was the only single parent taking the class, so I had to pair off with Francine. I wished that I could have worked with anyone else, because there was something about Francine that was just … she was kind of very attractive in an almost hostile way, like a wounded animal, if that makes sense. But I didn’t want the attraction I felt to transform into an obsession or anything, because I wasn’t … I mean, I lived in a basement. I’ve never been the kind of person women were interested in, even way back before I met Mel. I didn’t have a chance with Francine, and I wasn’t sure I’d even want one if I qualified. I still felt the presence of Mel, even after eleven years. It was like a gravitational pull she had on me.
    Anyway, I had to stare at Francine’s face for several hours a week while we learned things like the difference between the zygomaticus major and the zygomaticus minor, and how tightening the lips was different from pressing the lips, and that certainly led me to start thinking about her more often than I wanted to. I couldn’t help but be taken by the incredible uniqueness of her face. She had sharp eyes and a flat nose with a broad, heart-shaped bridge. And always a bit of a wistful look that the muscle exercises only made more intense. I didn’t get to know too much about her during class. We were so focused on, like, learning to detect an inner brow raise as opposed to an outer brow raise. It was frustrating and boring at first, really intensely boring. But once you kept at it for a while, once you just sort of accepted the boredom, you could reach a new level, a deeper kind of seeing. You could see tiny differences appear, subtle variations. Nothing that really made sense, you know, nothing that you could remember from one moment to the next. But I could definitely see changes in Francine’s face that I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. It was hard not to fall into a sort of … it wasn’t love, but it was something. I spent so much time scanning the surfaces, the whole terrain of her face. I came to know it so well.
    At home, Flora tolerated my attempts to communicate with her. She thought it was funny. I can’t imagine how it must have looked to her. Like baby talk or something, nonsense or white noise. We would sit at the kitchen table, and I would start to make the expressions I’d learned the night before. She’d stare back at me with this look like she didn’t know how to respond. But we were getting closer to the goal. Definitely closer to being able to have an actual conversation. It injected me with this new sense of hope. I felt like Mel could see us from wherever she was. I was bringing us together again, which was part of why the time I spent with Francine was so terrifying. I felt like it was some kind of test. I’m not a biblical person, but I felt like Francine was there in my life to test my mettle. To try my dedication to Mel and to the future I was working so hard for.
    And then there was a social event at the school. The Spring Festival. A thing with games and food. I was looking forward to it, to being with all of the other parents. I knew Francine would be there, and I’m not going to say that didn’t play into my excitement. But there was also just a general feeling of anticipation. We were all, the whole community, we were like astronauts or explorers, all of us discovering this new way of life. Nothing was going to be the same,