Page 34 of Just Ten Seconds

I listen with admiration for this little girl. I can count on my hands the amount of days I’ve known her, and yet I feel like she is someone I’ve known since the moment she was born.

“Why are you crying?” she asks me when she’s finished singing.

I didn’t realize I’d shed a tear. “That was beautiful.”

“I know. I told you I could sing.”

I cover my face with my hands and lean back with a laugh. Running my fingers through my hair, I laugh a little more. This kid …

“I want you to try those lines again. The ones with Ariel and her father.”

“Okay.”

She gets up and closes her eyes. If I’m right, she’s taking herself back to the beach, to the place she just had ice cream with her mother.

“Father, you don’t understand …”

She recites the lines, and I feed mine back to her. This time, instead of just reading them off, she’s punched with emotion. I believe this girl, this mermaid, wants to be a human more than anything in this world.

When she’s done, I’m in awe.

“I’ve never tutored anyone in acting before, but I’d say, you’re a natural.”

“Really? That was better than before?”

“So much better.”

“Can we do more? Because there’s a sixth grader who’s been in commercials.”

“We can rehearse as many times as you’d like.”

“Excellent!” She walks to the fireplace and stands on the hearth as if it were a stage. “Now, this time, when you play King Triton, can you put a little more acting into it? I wasn’t feeling like you were yelling at me.”

I rise from the couch with mock chagrin. “And the student becomes the master.”

As I’m about to say my lines, I look to the entrance of the living room, and the man leaning against the entryway. Dean smiles appreciatively.

And then he walks back into the kitchen.

After another hour of rehearsing lines with Amanda, I let her know she’s ready to audition. She’s more than excited to drop the packet of papers onto the coffee table and bounce out of the room and up the stairs to play with her video games before dinner.

I straighten the throw pillows and grab the packet off the table. Dean is in the kitchen, standing over the stove with a large red Dutch oven on the burner. The delicious scent of home cooking permeates the air.

“Smells good in here,” I say to his back.

He looks over his shoulder as he speaks, “Garlic and oil. My mother always said there was no better way to get my father up from the basement than with a little garlic simmering in a pan.” He takes a small bowl of chopped onions and adds it to the hot pot. “You done for the day?”

I take a step further into the kitchen. “Working with Amanda is fun. She’s very talented.”

“She has a good coach.” He lowers the heat, and the onions turn down to a simmer. “That sensory memory technique was great.”

I clench the rolled-up papers in my hand, grasping them tightly as I take a purposeful step forward. “I should have asked first. I didn’t mean to upset her.”

He turns around, giving me his full attention. “Remembering her mother doesn’t upset her. My fear is always that she’s going to forget her.” He puts the wooden spoon on the counter and rubs his hand with a rag. Leaning back against the counter, he crosses his arms and reflects, “You know, that’s the first time in over a year she’s had a real memory of her mother, not just repeating back to me something I said about her. You did us a favor.”

I rub my chest at his understanding tone. “The beach was real?”

“Yeah. It was the hardest and most beautiful time in our lives.” He looks back at me with a grin, his chest rising with a deep inhale. “Her mother was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer in the lungs. The crazy thing was, she wasn’t sick at all. She felt a lump in her neck and went to get it checked. The scan lit up. The doctors gave her six months to live.” He bites his bottom lip and squints his eyes, and then he spits out a curse, “Fucking doctors.” He shakes his head and runs a hand up to his temple. “Sorry. It’s something we’re still fighting. She should have had more time, but the hospital screwed her over.”