Unspeakable: Surviving My Childhood and Finding My Voice

By Jessica Willis Fisher

Using the written word as her witness statement, Jessica Willis Fisher gives a lacerating portrait of a girl finding her voice after years of being silenced and an unforgettable story of risk and faith.

Growing up the eldest daughter in a large, highly controlled, fundamentalist Christian household, Jessica Willis was groomed to perform, and to conform to her father's disturbing and chaotic teachings. Cut off from anything unapproved by her father, Jessica was persistently curious about the outside world, always wondering what was normal or potentially dangerous about her upbringing.

When the Willis family rocketed into fame after their appearances on multiple televised talent competitions in 2014, Jessica and her family landed their own reality TV show and toured across the globe, singing and dancing for millions. The world loved this beautiful family of kids; young and vivacious, the Willis's presented themselves to be extraordinary and happy. But the older and wiser Jessica got, the more she had to face that what was going on behind closed doors would forever be escalating.

In this elegant, harrowing story of the manipulation and codependency that defines abusive family relationships, Jessica Willis Fisher lets us see the formative moments of her childhood through her eyes. Fisher's haunting coming-of-age memoir captures the beauty and ugliness of a young woman finding her way—filled with longing, fear, confusion, secrecy, and most importantly, hope for the future.

Unspeakable: Surviving My childhood and Finding My Voice shares:

• An unflinching look at the manipulation and codependency that defines abusive family relationships
• The formative moments of Jessica's childhood through her eyes
• An unforgettable story of courage and strength

Beautifully written and monumental in its bravery, Fisher's story is proof that we can all become so much more that the things that happen to us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Nov 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781400332953

Jessica Willis Fisher

Jessica Willis Fisher is a singer/songwriter, performing artist, and author who believes that sharing our stories with one another will change the world. Growing up the eldest daughter in a toxic and abusive household, she performed with her family band The Willis Clan until her departure in 2016 at the age of 23. Her first book, Unspeakable, narrates her harrowing struggle to both articulate her childhood experiences and find her true voice on the other side of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. A passionate advocate for survivors, Jessica lives in Nashville, TN with her husband, Sean Fisher.

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Prologue

JULY 11, 2017

WE DRIVE IN SILENCE WITH THE AC ON BLAST, FIGHTING THE inevitable heat of a black car under the strength of a rising summer sun. As we near our destination, my husband, Sean, presses my sweating hand into his larger one. Only sixty days before, we’d fed each other cake while I wore white.

Are you doing okay? he asks. I can barely nod.

My phone vibrates in my lap, and I swipe to read the latest message.

They’ll be on the right side of the road, I say, just another mile up.

Gravel grinds under our tires as we cross over the rumble strip and onto the shoulder. My younger brother Jedi hops out of a waiting Honda and into our back seat.

Thanks, guys, he says, as we continue on our way.

The Cheatham County courthouse is a red brick building with floor-to-ceiling windows and a portico supported by a pair of large Doric columns. Deep-green awnings and matching railings mark the side entrance and the sheriff’s office in the back. As we pass slowly, we scan the parking spaces and sidewalks for any news vans or cameramen and see nothing out of the ordinary for a small Tennessee town on a Monday morning in mid-July.

So far, so good, Sean says, parking on the quiet side street.

The district attorney’s (DA) office stands a few yards away, looking for all the world like a miniature courthouse, complete with red brick, green accents, and a pair of columns. I glance at the clock for the millionth time. We don’t want to be too early or too late. The schedule has already been moved up, and this last-minute change seems to have succeeded in throwing the press off the trail.

After a few more minutes, Sean squeezes my hand in signal. As we walk toward the entrance, we see a towering figure coming our way, a family friend who happens to be a lawyer. He isn’t officially representing anyone but is here to provide moral support. His handsome face is grim and slightly haunted as he shakes our hands inside the lobby, asking how we are. Again, I can’t seem to find any words.

The DA emerges with ferocity burning in her outrageously blue eyes. Though she is the shortest of our group, there is no doubt she is ready for battle, clad in a power pantsuit with her hair cut aggressively short. Together, we exit in a tight pod and cross the street toward the back of the courthouse. As a guard ushers us through security, my dress boots ring conspicuously loud to my ears, and I try walking toe-heel to mitigate their clacking racket. No phones, declare the signs posted on the doors. Sean and Jedi have to stop and tuck in their shirts to meet the dress code.

Once it’s confirmed we are in the right location, we try to determine the best place to sit. If possible, I want to be able to see but not be seen. I am here to witness the proceedings, yet I worry my presence may create a scene. The courtroom has three sections of church-like pew seating, with two aisles leading down to diminutive brown picket gates. The folksy quaintness of the swinging gates commands my disembodied curiosity for a moment. Why aren’t they intimidating blockades? What is their purpose if not to prevent an impassioned criminal from lunging toward the spectators in a last-minute bid for revenge?

We slide into the front row of the rightmost section, Jedi taking the first space, Sean next, and then me, farthest from the door through which the accused will be led. Light pours in through the windows along the left wall, transforming figures into hazy silhouettes whenever they pass the panes. Each of my labored heartbeats thumps in my ears as the murmuring crowd waits for the judge to appear and begin the day’s proceedings. I see the faces of relatives, drawn and somber, and recognize a few dear neighbors. The rest of the audience is strange to me, each person present for reasons unknown to the small contingent representing my community.

How did we get here?

I had been cautioned against attending, warned that whatever closure I hoped to gain would not be found here. Nevertheless, I felt the need to bear witness to the surreal events, no matter their outcome. Other than my lone sibling, the rest of my immediate family chose not to be here. I look at the smooth, newly chiseled jaw of my younger brother, whose gaze stays focused on the corner door. He impresses me with his transition toward adulthood, so much more mature than I was at his age. Gone are the rounded cheeks of the mischievous toddler I once knew, his initially platinum hair cooled to a dusty ash. He is sixteen; I am twenty-five.

I keep a tight hold on Sean’s hand, watching the light glint off the diamond set in white gold on my ring finger. Here is a tiny anchor to my new life, shining proof, hard evidence that a better chapter is beginning even as the pages turn to end this old one.

There is rustling in the front of the room, then the bailiff’s voice rings out, All rise.

For a moment I feel as if the assembly might burst into song, like a harmonious congregation risen to our feet in praise of God; but it is a robed judge, not a pastor, who assumes his place before us. A vibrant American flag drapes the wall behind his head.

We don’t know when our case will be called. Though my restless feet long to move in their usual subconscious motion, my boots are too boisterous on the hardwood floor, so I knead my thumbs compulsively instead. The attorneys’ dialogue is unexcited, their voices easily heard without amplification, working in a rhythm honed by routine and practice. The judge presides, and the defendants speak when spoken to. A part of me continues trying to reach mental preparedness, as if I will somehow be able to think my way through the unthinkable with just a little more time.

The word murder brings me to maximum attention. Here, in the speed-trap town of my girlhood, a man attacked his elderly employer and left him to slowly die from his wounds. Shocked by the violence, we listen as details of the crime unfold. The perpetrator, a skinny, long-haired man with facial piercings, pleads guilty and is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The weight of permanent consequences hangs heavy in the air. Before he is led away, the daughters of the victim are allowed to speak. One tries to find forgiveness in her heart. The other casts white-hot condemnation into the face of the killer as tears flow down her trembling cheeks. She says it will never make sense to her that he can go on living, even as a prisoner, while her father cannot. I am stunned by the sheer force of her raw feeling.

Just a few weeks before, I had learned this was called a victim impact statement. The DA took the time to walk me through what I could expect from the final steps of my own justice process. When she gave me a chance to comment on the level of punishment she was pursuing, I admitted I wanted as strong a sentence as possible. As awful as the words felt in my mouth, nothing less would let me feel safe. I wanted to know for certain my perpetrator was no longer at large. She assured me the plea included forty years with no chance of early parole.

And we will avoid trial, she had added.

A victim impact statement was a chance to say my piece before the sentencing court if I so wished. It seemed only right to me that a victim would be able to face her abuser and declare her truth for the record. On the other hand, I could not fully shake the worry that our hopes for resolution would fall apart at the last moment, sending us to trial after all.

As I listen to the bereaved daughter speak freely, I suddenly wish I’d said yes. I wish I had prepared my own statement, my own letter. I imagine myself up there in her place.

But what would I say?

The impact of everything I’ve seen and experienced cannot be condensed into a single speech shared with strangers under the gaze of the offender. The weight of it, the whole of it, the complicated details still feel indescribable. Besides, I must stay quiet to protect my mother and younger siblings. I must make myself and my part in our family’s history as small as possible so no one will ask further questions, and this will all be over. I cannot say or do anything that might make the accused angry—angry enough to not accept the plea deal at the last moment.

The skinny murderer is led away, and the judge sorts his papers.

The bailiff calls for the State of Tennessee versus Toby Willis.

Unguarded gasps escape behind me. My eyes snap to the corner door, tracking the cluster of darkened bodies shuffling along the backdrop of light, searching for a familiar profile. The clink of metal chains cuts through the electric hush. When the procession rounds the corner, I see my father, handcuffed and shackled. He is dressed in an orange uniform, his shaggy beard grayer than I’ve seen before. Though he steps gingerly, as if his bones could shatter at any moment, my stomach roils, and I fear what will happen if our eyes connect. He looks so different, so aged, like a discarded shell of a man. Even his almost eighty-year-old defense attorney looks robust in comparison. I realized later it has been just shy of a year since we’d last spoken to each other, my father and me.

How did we get here?

Together, criminal and lawyer face the dais, making spectators of us in the pews. We, the voiceless, have no lines in this drama. Whatever our diverse emotional investments in the outcome of the scene, we must follow one line at a time, waiting for the moment of resolution.

I cannot see my father’s face, so I stare at the right side of his graying head.

The judge is already speaking. It is my understanding that Mr. Willis is going to be entering a plea of guilty to four counts of rape of a child.

I watch the words enter my father’s ear, praying they will not jar him to anger.

Twenty-five years on count one, twenty-five years on count two, the judge says, checking his information. Forty years on count three, forty years on count four. Was that correct, he asks.

Yes, says the district attorney.

My father raises a frail right hand and is put under oath.

I wish I had asked if and when the original arrest warrant would be read aloud. Then I could tighten my gut at just the right moment and offset the drop, like on a roller coaster. The date and initials that accompany my father’s alleged offenses will mean something to certain individuals in this room. There will be no hiding for me. I admire the steely carriage of the DA and take heart.

The judge asks if my father understands the charges brought against him.

The mumbled response is inaudible in the pews.

The judge asks again. Do you feel like you understand what is going on in this case?

I hear the answer this time: Yes.

Quick, now, I think. While that word is still in his mouth. Do it now.

Do you understand that you have the right to enter a plea of not guilty, and if you plead not guilty you have the right to a speedy and public trial by jury?

My heartbeat spikes. Don’t talk him out of it, I beg silently.

I understand, my father says.

No, please go back to yes. Stay with yes.

The judge plunges on through his script. Do you understand that if you went to trial you would be presumed to be innocent until such time, if ever, the State proves your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of all twelve jurors and their verdict would have to be unanimous before you could be convicted of any crime?

I understand.

Is that a tinge of bitterness I hear? Am I imagining a strain of resistance?

Do you understand that if you went to trial, you and your lawyer could confront and cross-examine all witnesses the State might call to testify against you?

Memories flood unbidden into my mind and body. I recall what it is like to be caught under my father’s microscope, to be interrogated, accused, questioned. Will he get the chance to do it all again, in front of a judge and jury? Please, no.

Do you understand that if you went to trial and you were found guilty of a crime and sentenced for that crime, you would have the right to appeal that judgment and the sentence to the court of criminal appeals?

Yes, sir comes the reply.

I struggle to keep breathing as I imagine a version of this day where the end is never reached, where my father keeps fighting, dragging out the fear and pain. I don’t want him to have that chance. Where would be the justice in that?

I know everything is proceeding according to the rule of law, but it feels wrong. Here is a moment of dramatic climax decades in the making. How can any bystander know if the ending is proper and just? Maybe that’s why I was given the option to speak. Maybe I am the missing character. I wish I had said yes. But my voice has been gone for so long. Where did I lose it? How will I ever get it back?

There is no script for my role, no archetype, no example to guide me. My proof and its burden are housed in a trembling body and imprinted memories, largely inaccessible by speech.

How did we get here? And what would I have said?

Part 1

1

EARLY CHILDHOOD

WHEN I GO BACK TO EXAMINE THE EARLIEST MEMORIES OF MY life, I can distinguish three short scenes. They are slight and delicate, like tiny glass sculptures, best not to squeeze too tight lest they shatter and disappear altogether. They spring forth without preamble and then dissipate without much in the way of context, unmoored from the gravity of time. Strange what survives the weight of years; strange what falls away.

First, I can remember being potty trained. Or, more specifically, I can remember the last time I purposefully avoided going to the toilet, instead defying my mother and peeing in my panties. I am hiding under the knobby legs of the old upright piano and must have just relieved my miniature bladder because I can feel the carpet damp and slightly warm underneath me. The memory is almost just that single instant. It fades away at the faint promise of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that will finally coax me out of my hiding place.

Next, I can remember crouching in the dark with expectant glee, each of my limbs spring-loaded as I wait with stifled breath underneath a draped table in a loud and crowded event space. There is a stiff bow in my hair and my socks are trimmed with white lace, folded down to touch the buckled strap of my squeaky patent leather shoes. At any moment, a pair of my young relatives will lift away the tablecloth and find me in our boisterous game of hide-and-seek, and I will shriek in shock and delight before scurrying away at their triumphant shouts.

And finally, I can remember my tiny body lying atop my parents’ bed. I am wearing a loose old adult-sized T-shirt in lieu of a nightgown. I can hear the white noise of a shower running somewhere out of sight. My father is there, leaning over me, touching a part of my body I don’t have a name for with his large warm hand, talking about things I do not understand. Daddies like it when mommies do this . . . His voice is not a whisper, just quiet. There is a flash, a blank of time, and then comes a sequel to this tiny scene, clearly still the same setting, likely only moments later. My father is out of view now and my mother is emerging breezily from the bathroom, as young as I can picture her. Her long, wet hair is twisted up in a striped towel, her body wrapped in a pink shin-length plush robe with matching sash. Her lightly freckled skin is freshly moisturized, and she is bright and happy with little creases at the corners of her eyes. I feel as if I should speak. But I am only three or maybe four and I don’t have the necessary words. In many ways, I will stay frozen in the power of this moment for the next twenty years.

***

TWO DAYS AFTER MY FOURTH BIRTHDAY, MY SECOND SISTER WAS born. April 15, 1996, is the first anchor placing me firmly in time, the first instance of knowing exactly where and when I was in vibrant detail. These memories are everything the previous ones are not: sharp, exact, full of bold sounds and hurried commotion.

I remember being lifted by my wee armpits toward the textured ceiling and perching unevenly on my grandmother’s bony shoulders to reach a board game kept on the top shelf in the hall closet. Behind my parents’ bedroom door, only a few feet away, a balding doctor was helping my mother through an intense home delivery. I had just grabbed hold of the soft and tattered Chutes and Ladders box from the closet when the bedroom door suddenly swung open wide. For a brief moment I was given a bird’s-eye view of the events taking place inside. I saw my mother straining and sweaty, knees propped up with her heels digging down deep into the mattress, the doctor working at the foot of the bed, and numerous bunches of darkly spotted rags and towels, used and pushed aside in haste. The door closed swiftly, and my grandmother whisked me away to the living room.

Later, I would hear that my sister Jet was born blue and floppy, weighing in at a whopping twelve pounds and six ounces. But that was only after I had seen her for myself and knew she was okay, that extra-chunky, velvet-soft little human wrapped up tight and snuggly. It took a while for Mommy to recover, and I can still picture her being carried across the living room by Daddy and his friends in a giant unzipped sleeping bag after she fainted a few hours later.

MOMMY CONSISTENTLY MAINTAINED SHE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT SHE was getting herself into when she married my father. She would usually deliver this line to her audience with dry humor, slightly widened blue eyes, and a small shake of the head.

She grew up in the henhouse, as she described it—with just her mom, Joann; her grandmother; and younger sister in a little brick house on the South Side of Chicago. Her father, Johnny, was a hell-raiser who’d left his young wife so early on that my mother had no relationship with him until she was an adult and went to college in Florida. Joann rarely said a bad word about Johnny, moved back in with her parents, and put herself through night school to become a nurse. Though they divorced, she would never remarry. My mother, Brenda, framed her childhood as sheltered but loving. Sometimes it felt like I was in a cage, she told me when I was young, but my friends were allowed in the cage with me. Unwilling to let bitterness toward her absent father define her, young Brenda was a bright and high-achieving student, popular with both peers and teachers at her conservative Christian high school. There, the students adhered to strict modesty codes in their uniforms and had to sign a statement swearing off movies, rock music, drugs, and alcohol. She said her goal was to be the best Christian wife and mother ever, and she prayed for God to bring her a brave man, like Moses or King David, whom she could help as he worked to fulfill some great mission. By the time she left for Pensacola Christian College to study teaching, she had met my father, Toby.

MOM AND DAD ALWAYS KEPT THE NEWEST BABY IN THEIR BED FOR a while to make for easy nursing during the night. Dad told Mom to do so from the beginning, saying he wasn’t getting up to help warm up milk in the middle of the night; she should get over her nervousness about smothering the baby and do the natural thing— breastfeed. He was the son of a pastor, the second oldest of nine children. After the first three oldest kids in his family had been born, there was a gap of nine years before another six younger kids followed. My parents taught me that the Bible said children were a heritage from the Lord and that using birth control was a dangerous decision that kept one from enjoying God’s blessings and fulfilling man’s responsibility to be fruitful, and multiply.¹ Homeschooling, attending church, and having lots of kids were all things we believed were important and right in our home. Six kids would be born in Chicago in less than ten years: Jess (me), Jair, Jen, Jet, Jack, and Jedi.

***

I WAS A VORACIOUSLY VOCAL AND BOSSY CHILD. IN PHOTOS AND fragments of grainy home-video clips, I see an overconfident little bundle of sass and curiosity, whose idea of a smile was to grin so wide and intensely that my neck flexed and teeth locked in what could only be described as a grimace. My eyes were green, my hair blonde. I loved grown-ups and their attention, reigning over the younger subjects of the home with a know-it-all air. Though my recollections of these early times admittedly blend together, I remember the days as always being full of stuffed animals, wooden blocks, picture books, and animated playmaking with my siblings.

Picturing my mother in this time, I can see her with a soft and ready smile on her warm face, eyes lit with a lovely spark, her hair a dark chocolate color with bangs frothing above her nose. She is holding up large, colorful phonics charts, patiently sounding out consonants with rhyming vowel accompaniments listed vertically on a ladder. I endeavored to make her proud with my growing ability to enter the world. I still hear her voice, expressive and inviting, reading to us constantly, explaining stories from the Bible and beloved picture books as we listened, sprawling across the carpet and fidgeting in our growing bodies. She was our constant companion, the one who shaped our daily lives and told us of the greater world beyond.

Dad, on the other hand, left early on the weekday mornings— even the extra-cold ones when the dirty gray snow buried and crusted everything—and took the train to work where he did important things on computers for a big company. Our time with him, together as a family, happened during the after-dinner hours and weekends.

I have hazy recollections from the edge of my consciousness of times when he would sit down at the piano I had once peed under in some other older home. As we were drifting off to sleep at night, or sometimes waking slowly on Saturdays, I would hear him playing his favorite classical pieces. He wrote a few songs of his own too. They were simple melodies, but I knew which one he had written for me, and I loved falling asleep listening to Jessie’s Song. If he ever played when we were awake and about, I loved to sit on his lap and lay my hands on top of his, pretending I was playing the notes. Even stretching as wide as I could reach, the tips of my fingers barely reached to where his first knuckle bent down toward the keys.

There was one particular piece we knew only as The Tickle Song. Whenever Dad began to play it after dinner, an instantaneous frenzy descended upon us kids, and we dropped everything to go squealing around the house, racing to find a hiding spot before the suspenseful melody ended. He started with a slow tempo, exaggerating the minor intervals and speeding up each time the song repeated. We knew from previous experience that Dad would come hunting for us when he reached his lightning-fast conclusion and whomever he found would be pinned down in vigorous tickle attacks until we couldn’t breathe for the laughter. I remember his fingers locking my skinny wrists against the ground, pulled straight up above my head, and though I bucked and writhed from side to side, I knew what I was about to feel. As I pleaded for mercy, his grinning face would loom above mine. Dad’s bottom teeth were slightly crooked, his stiff dark hair cropped in an extra-close buzz cut that made people assume he was in the military. He frequently wore glasses, and his thick caterpillar eyebrows—which I would eventually inherit—spanned wide above the rims. His eyes were a hazel green and slightly on the small side, like mine. He would fake right, then left, then right and left, weaving like a cobra until he finally plunged his square chin down into one of my open armpits to elicit a shrieking giggle that went breathlessly silent before it came to an end. I loved him.

***

MY CHILDHOOD NICKNAME WAS KANGAROO, AND I CAME BY IT honestly. One day, Dad brought home a pair of tiny purple boxing gloves, and I quickly claimed them as mine. He had a big black-and-white pair for himself, squishy and easy to shake off when he kept his blows light. I bounced and bobbed with enthusiasm, zinging with the energy I felt after each pop of impact. He would kneel and put up his gloves as I feigned little strikes and lunged to connect with his face or ribs. I remember him being roundly pleased I would engage with such a feisty spirit; he had to be the one to say the skirmish was over. I often would not heed the conclusion,