Jewel’s second letter was slightly better than the first. “Show Pa-pa now.” She lifted the slate and moved around the table.
Torin’s smile to his daughter seemed strained. But he gave her his full attention. With a finger in the air a few inches above the slate, he traced the outline of the letters.
Watching the two heads bent over the slate, their mink-brown hair almost intertwining, caused Ivy’s throat to close up.He’s so good with her.Ivy could only recall her father teaching her from a greater distance.Was he closer with me—physically, emotionally—when I was small?She brought her attention back to father and daughter.
“I like your As, Sweetness. Can you draw some more for me?”
“More Aays,” Jewel happily agreed, moving back to her chair.
Something about the interaction must have assured him, for he rose and moved his chair closer to the window for better light—close enough to observe, far enough to maintain his distance—and opened his book. From the rustle of pages, he was finally attempting to read.
Ivy felt his gaze, but when she glanced over, his eyes were fixed on the page.
Fine.She turned her attention fully to Jewel.
They worked on the A for the better part of an hour. Jewel traced the felt letter, drew it on the slate, and Ivy helped her practice the sound. “Aay,” Ivy said. “A is for apple.” She drew out the syllables. “Can you think of anything else that starts with the A sound?”
Jewel's brow furrowed in concentration. Then her face lit up. “An-mals!”
“Animals!” Ivy clapped her hands together. “Yes, that's right.”
The praise made Jewel wiggle with happiness in her chair.
Brave, who'd wandered in from the parlor, leapt onto the table to investigate the felt letter.
Jewel pushed the slate underneath the cat’s head. “Bave learn Aay, too.”
“Brave is a very smart cat,” Ivy said solemnly. “But cats don’t belong on the table.” She scooped up Brave and deposited her on Jewel’s lap.
The child giggled and stroked her pet.
Brave yawned, showing tiny, white teeth, and curled into a ball in Jewel's lap.
With another giggle, Jewel returned to her slate.
She’s doing so well.The thought filled Ivy with quiet satisfaction. Jewel learned differently than other children—she needed more repetition, more tactile engagement, more patience. But shedidlearn. Every small triumph was hard-won and so very precious.
Ivy wished she could share the moment with Torin, but one glance at his rigid posture and averted gaze told her the wall was still firmly in place. So she swallowed her hurt about him shutting her out and poured her warmth into Jewel instead.
Whatever he's wrestling with, he'll have to come to terms with it on his own. I won't push. I won't beg.
She'd spent too many years trying to win her father's approval to repeat the pattern here.
But, to Ivy’s great relief, by the afternoon, Torin seemed to relax somewhat. He’d sit in the same room but pick up a book and dip into it, reading longer than previously before glancing up.
The first time he went outside to check on the livestock, he returned and walked into the dining room wearing a strange expression. He looked from Jewel to her and back to his daughter. “I usually have to take Jewel with me when I go to the stables, unless I can get there before she wakes in the morning or if she’s napping. And in this past year, not even then because instead of playing in her room or coming to find me, she got away from me—one time going to Hank’s, the other to Brian’s. Scared me out of my wits, she did.”
“I’d imagine so.”
He leaned against the door jamb. “Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about her at night. She sleeps tight. Unfortunately, I’m so worn out by then that I go to bed not long after she does.”
“That’s usually my reading time.”
“I haven’t gotten much of that in the last ten years. Even today, I kept an ear cocked. Kept having to remind myself she was safe.”
Safe.Ivy had never heard a better compliment, not that she heard many compliments at all, outside of Cora and the parents of her former pupils. The warmth of relief filled Ivy’s chest, and she was sure color showed on her face because her cheeks turned hot. “I suppose not needing to be as vigilant will take some getting used to.”
“I suppose it will.”
