“I know the game,” she said, moving the cursor to put the finishing touches on her PicMonkey-created flyer. “Let’s do…” She looked up at the top. “Wedding Fashion Show.”
“I can, I can!” Nolie let out an excited squeal and jumped into position in the middle of the living room.
Their little game had become a favorite of hers, a way to practice spelling that didn’t feel like work. Each letter had a movement—a kick for W, a twirl for E, jazz hands for D, and so on. It was active, engaging, and, most importantly, it worked.
Tessa finished the flyer, while Nolie called out each letter and did her dance, her face alight with joy. As Tessa saved the file, she looked over her laptop at the little girl, Vivien’s kind words echoing in her head.
Dad would be so pleased. He’d always played games like this.
“This issooomuch fun. I wish we could stay in Destin forever!” Nolie suddenly dropped onto the couch and swung her legs over the armrest. “I never want to go back to stupid school!”
Tessa’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. The words hit harder than she expected. She felt exactly like that seven-year-old child. Who—if she couldn’t do her quick number groups—would be gone in a day or two.
“All right,” she said, standing up. “Get the white board and my notebook, Figsworth. We have a new project.”
Nolie perked back up. “Oh, yes! What did you call it? The map?”
“An event map is extremely important, especially when we have to set up groups of chairs.” She went to the white board and drew two long parallel lines down the middle. “This is the boardwalk.”
“Our runway!”
“Yes,” Tessa said on a laugh, marveling at how bright the child was. “And these are where we are going to have to put chairs.”
She made six large circles, three on each side. “We should have about forty people in the VIP tents, so we need to mix them into groups. We could divide forty by six.”
“I can’t do that,” Nolie said softly, coming closer.
“No one can, Figsworth! But, we can figure out how many of these…” She drew a figure that looked like a lower-case H. “Pretend this is a chair.”
“It’s a little H.”
“Excellent. For our purposes, it’s a chair,” she said. “We need to put forty Hs in these six boxes, but we don’t want it evenly divided. Some should have five, six, or seven.”
Now, if she could get Nolie to help put these chairs in circles, they’d be on their way to learning…what was the word? Subitizing?
She handed the marker to Nolie. “You want to give it a shot?”
Nolie’s eyes widened. “Um, can I spell out letters some more?”
“But I need you to do this,” Tessa encouraged. “Just take your time.”
Nolie studied the board, chewing on her bottom lip. She started pointing to the tables, mumbling numbers under her breath.
“Let’s do it this way,” Tessa said, picking up another marker. “We could?—”
“No, no, no.”
“No, you don’t want to try?” Tessa guessed, not sure what she meant.
“No, I don’t want help,” Nolie said, a determined frown furrowing her baby-smooth brow. “I want to do it myself.”
Tessa smiled and put a hand on her shoulder, her whole body aching for how easy it was to love this child.
Yes, she thought with a wistful punch of sadness, she would have been a good mother. She might have been?—
“Your phone’s ringing,” Nolie said on a whisper as she stood in front of the board.
“Oh, I didn’t even hear it.” Tessa turned and picked up the vibrating device, gasping when she saw the name.
