“What if I have a wand?” Nolie bounced on her toes, waving an imaginary wand. “With ribbons!”
Tessa snapped her fingers. “Nolie, that’s brilliant. I love it. Please add it to the list! You know how.”
Crista stiffened, leaning to peer over the kitchen island. Nolie grabbed the whiteboard marker, her face alight with excitement.
But as she turned to write, her hand faltered. She got the first two letters down, “R…I…,” but then she stopped. Bs were always tough for her, and “ribbons” had two of them. Nolie’s brow furrowed. The marker hovered over the board, her small fingers tightening around it.
What about the dots she’d done yesterday? Crista bit her lip to keep from interfering, but didn’t Tessa see the struggle?
Nolie sighed, deflated, and set the marker down. “I can’t do it.”
Crista’s heart squeezed painfully in her chest.
“That’s okay,” Tessa said, casually and without even looking up. “We can try again on your next big idea.”
Was she eventeachingher?
Nolie’s shoulders hunched, and her face fell, and Crista felt it right down to her own toes.
She couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “Nolie, sweetie, why don’t you go play in our room for a bit? Set up your Barbies? We brought the Dreamhouse.”
“We’re storming our brains, Mommy!”
Tessa looked up, a question in her eyes that mirrored the sound of Nolie’s complaint.
“And you can finish soon, but I need to talk to…the ladies.”
With a sigh, she headed upstairs, Aunt Pittypat hot on her heels.
Crista turned and zeroed in on Tessa. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Tessa arched an eyebrow. “Sure. What’s up?”
“I’m going to make a quick call,” Lacey said, disappearing with her phone toward the back of the house, obviously reading the room.
Crista hesitated for a second, then walked to the table.
“I thought you were serious about helping my daughter. I moved heaven and earth to get her out of school and dance, left my husband during our only time without a permanent houseguest, and handed her over to you…hoping for the best. I thought you’d take tutoring her seriously.”
Tessa blinked, clearly taken aback. “And what makes you think I’m not?”
Crista swallowed and gestured toward the mess and the white board. “She can’t read at grade level, and she needs structure. She needs practice, repetition, study materials?—”
“And how has all of thatstructurebeen working for her so far?” Tessa interrupted, her voice level but firm.
Crista’s mouth snapped shut.
She hated it—hated that Tessa was right. The strict tutoring sessions, the rigid study plans—they hadn’t been helping. If anything, they’d made Nolie more resistant, more frustrated. But that didn’t mean that playtime was the answer.
“Look,” Tessa said, leaning forward. “I understand Nolie. IwasNolie. If anything, I had an even harder time. But you know what finally worked for me? It wasn’t drill sessions or workbooks. It was finding ways to learnwithoutrealizing I was learning. I figured out how to read and write because I wanted to do more of the things I loved—not because I wanted to be good at school.”
Crista nodded slowly, getting that.
“And, you know, I do take this little favor I’m doing very seriously. For one thing, I’ve been through it and my…my teacher was brilliant. He knew that I did better when I didn’t focus, so he let the learning happen organically.”
“But she?—”
“And since it’s been a few years,” she continued, “I did some research. Every expert—and by every expert, yes, I mean Dr. Internet—says that movement, multi-sensory activity, and hands-on learning is far better than trying to beat it into her.”
