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“You? Cry? I don’t believe it.”
“Ha-ha,” I say wryly. “I was three. Anyway, it wasn’t until we moved in with my father that I learned what was going on.”
“Dyslexia?” Riley asks.
“Yeah. It runs in families. My father is also dyslexic. He taught me it’s nothing to be ashamed of and that it meant I just needed some extra help. He started with teaching me the fundamentals of reading. I had tutors and special accommodations in class for tests and lectures.”
“Eve doesn’t have any trouble reading.”
“I know,” I agree with a nod. “But dyslexia isn’t the only type of brain disorder in my family.
“My youngest sister, Stasi. She was diagnosed with ADHD when she was in the third grade. One of my uncles and a few of my cousins are also diagnosed with it. It tends to be diagnosed more in boys over girls.”
“Why?”
“Girls mask better than boys.”
“Masking? You mean like cover up or hide their true selves?”
“Pretty much. Girls adapt more than boys. But Stasi has always moved to the beat of her own drum. Some of Eve’s tendencies remind me of my little sister. She can get hyper-focused on one thing, and talk about it for hours. But then a task as simple as cleaning up after herself will take days because she’s constantly finding something else to do.”
“Eve can be that way,” she concedes. “And she always wants to please others. Do you think that’s why she masks?”
I shrug. “I’m not a child psychologist. I don’t have the credentials to label her officially with anything. But it feels similar to what I’ve seen in my family.”
“How did I not see this?” Riley’s eyes start to water.
When her bottom lip begins trembling, I can’t keep my hands to myself any longer. I take her by the shoulders and squeeze. Though the urge to touch her a hell of a lot more intimately than this overcomes me, I restrain myself.
“How would you have known if you had no experience with it?”
“I just thought some of the things were her own little quirks. Yes, her untidiness drove me up a wall sometimes, but I thought it was just her being a kid. I thought it would get better.”
“It can get better. Having ADHD doesn’t make her defective by any means.Ifit’s true that she in fact has ADHD, there are strategies that a psychologist can help you and her put in place. There’s medication also, if you want to go that route. More so, there are tens of thousands of people living successful, happy lives who are diagnosed with ADHD.”
Riley nods. “I know. I just hate that I didn’t realize this could be going on with her. Why didn’t I help her sooner?”
“Why couldn’t my mother, who's a librarian, help her son to read?”
She meets my stare.
“I don’t know a damned thing about being a parent. But it looks to me like being a good one isn’t about being perfect. Or always knowing the correct answer at the right time. But more importantly, knowing where and who to go to ask for help. To give your kid what they need. My father was probably the only one who could’ve gotten through to me when I was that young and hated reading.
“If you love Eve, and there isn’t a doubt in my mind how much you do, then it’s okay to love her enough to ask for help.”
Riley stares into my eyes for a long while. There’s total silence in the room for what feels like forever. I start to wonder if I’ve overstepped. Then I recall the devastation on Eve’s face when she realized she’d made a mistake while cooking our dinner.
She went from excited and joyous to self-hatred in a matter of seconds. Seeing that expression on her face, and hearing the words she’d overheard the leader of her dorm say, tore at the inside of my chest.
Riley wipes away her unshed tears. I release the hold I have on her shoulders, surprised at how difficult I find it to do so. I want to touch her.
“I-I don’t even know who to contact. I don’t know where I’m going to send her to school. I could probably start with the local school district. But I want to look into their rankings to find out—”
“We have an appointment tomorrow morning at ten a.m. with the principal of Excelor Academy.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Excelor?”
“It’s the school my entire family attended. Including my parents and my uncles. They have a stellar reputation. And they’re familiar with the name. My father only had to threaten to buy the whole school and shut it down once before they got their shit together.”
