Chapter 6 #2
My mouth drops open, but no words escape. I don’t know what to say. I’m a little bit of a pushover, I’ll admit. I look to Colter, who takes one look at my pleading eyes and concedes. One brisk nod is all I need to turn back to Ben, smiling. “You know what, I’ll move things around this one time.”
“Because I’m your favorite?”
“You know I don’t have favorites,” I tell him gently, refraining from rolling my eyes. It’s a question I get frequently from my students, and my answer is always the same. I don’t have favorites. I mean, obviously, I do, but the kids will never know that.
“Why don’t we show Ms. Carson inside, Ben?” Colter urges his son, trying to get the whole tutoring session back on track.
“Okay!” Ben takes off, leaving me behind, and I have to chuckle a little at his excitement. I guess I’ll just show myself in.
Reaching into my backseat, I grab my tote with all my tools, and I take the opportunity to look over the ranch. A traditional white farmhouse stands to the left of the dirt drive, towering over me. A front porch wraps around it, with what looks like a bed hanging right beside the door.
My Malibu is parked alongside a long line of large trucks, all with the same logo printed on the side.
Down the driveway, and hidden off to the side, is another house, this one more modern.
It’s tucked behind trees, but I see enough to know it’s a black Scandinavian style.
While the farmhouse looks like a fixture of the land, it’s clear that the black house is a new build.
“We take our shoes off.” Colter holds the swinging screen door open for me, and I’m led into the front entryway.
To the left is a sunken dining room with a large wooden table.
To the right is a living room with fancy-looking sofas.
A large wooden staircase stands tall in the center of the foyer, with hallways on either side.
The character of the house is still beautifully intact, with wood accents and rich colors. It looks exactly like something you’d see in Rancher’s Digest. This may be Colter’s house, but I have a hard time believing he decorated it.
Colter nods down to his socked feet, patiently waiting for me to finish analyzing his house and take off my own shoes. I wiggle my toes in my sneakers, instinctively worrying about whether or not my toenails look nice. I’m not wearing socks. Actually, I never wear socks.
I hate socks with a passion.
“Right.” My feet slip easily out of the sneakers, I don’t even have to untie them. I step on my own foot, almost standing like a flamingo, purely out of awkwardness, and I wait for his comment about my bare feet. It never comes.
“Thanks. Ranching’s a messy job.” Ben is nowhere to be seen, and Colter starts walking further into the house, so I take that as a sign to follow. We walk past the stairs, and at the end of the hallway, and down a step, it looks like a whole other house has been added on.
It's more modern, open concept, and huge. There’s a whole other living room, a little breakfast nook, and a kitchen built from a professional chef’s dreams. It’s still all rich colors, wood accents, and wainscotting that keep the traditional elements, but it’s clear that this part of the house has been updated, if not a completely new addition.
“Wow,” I can’t help but breathe the words, taking in the gorgeous house. My tiny little apartment would tuck nicely into the breakfast nook.
“What?” Colter asks, tossing a set of keys onto the island countertop.
“Your house is gorgeous.”
He looks around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh. Thanks.” What a typical man's response. I shake my head, rolling my eyes.
“What do you want to eat tonight?”
“Are you sure it’s okay if I stay?” With Ben mysteriously missing, it’s the perfect time to see if I should wiggle my way out of dinner tonight. “I can make up an excuse to get out of it?”
“No,” Colter gruffs. “Don’t want to disappoint the boy.”
“Okay,” I pull my bottom lip into my mouth. “Thank you.” He stares at me, not saying a word. I shift uncomfortably.
“So, dinner?”
Oh. Right. “What’s easiest for you to pull together?” I don’t want to be a bother.
“I have pasta, or we can do burgers and hot dogs?” Considering I typically have pasta, cause it’s cheap and easy to make, the burgers are calling my name. It must show on my face because before I can even answer, Colter is nodding his head decisively. “Burgers and hot dogs it is.”
“Thank you,” I smile faintly, staring down at the granite countertops.
“Where do you want to set up?”
“Um.” For a moment there, I forgot that I’m here for a reason. “Probably the dining room. Fewer distractions.”
“Ben!” Colter’s baritone voice shakes through the house as he calls for his son. “Time to get started!”
“Holy,” I grab my chest, trying to calm my erratic heartbeat. And here I was being proud of my teacher's voice. “That’s one way to wake me up.”
He stares down at me, something unspoken sparking in his eyes. “I can think of others,” he mumbles, voice dropping a few octaves.
I pull at the neck of my sweater. Why am I shivering when it’s so hot in here?
”Ms. Carson! Look! My Dad and I made this during Spring Break for his birthday.” Ben comes barreling around the corner holding a bright green tractor of some sort made out of Legos.
“Whoa, you made that?” I gasp, intercepting the firecracker of a child and grabbing onto the tractor before it goes crashing to the ground. “No way, you must have paid someone.”
“No! I did it!” He wiggles excitedly, watching me take in his project.
“Excuse me?” Colter scoffs behind me.
“Okay, Dad helped me a little,” he sighs and crosses his arms, a total mini version of his father.
“Well, you two did an amazing job. Are you going to be using it out on the fields?”
“No, Ms. Carson, don’t be silly,” Ben giggles. “It’s a toy.”
“Oh, of course,” I nod seriously, smiling down at the giggly boy. “Why don’t we put this somewhere all your guests can see when they come over?” I gesture to the wood mantle of the stone fireplace.
“Dad doesn’t have people come over.”
“Ben!” Colter looks shocked by his son’s easy betrayal. “We have people over.”
“Who?”
“Uncle Jake, Uncle Finn, Uncle Wyatt.”
“They’re family. They have to come over,” Ben crosses his arms accusingly.
“Go show Ms. Carson where the dining room is,” Colter grumbles, waving us away, clearly unimpressed. Ben smiles triumphantly, oblivious to the steam coming out of his father’s ears. He takes my hand and guides me back down the hallway to the dining room table.
“Do we really have to do math?” Ben asks, climbing up onto one of the ornate dining room chairs. I set my tote on the cherry-colored wood, smiling sympathetically.
“Sorry, Ben, but math is really important.”
“That’s what my mom says.” He places his face in the palm of his hand, looking sullenly at the tabletop. His fingers trace over the polished wood grain.
“But I promise, once you get this, you’re going to fly through all the homework,” I try to cheer up the sad little boy. Unfortunately, the best encouragement I’ve got that a little boy will understand is less homework, which in an 8-year-old boy’s brain somehow translates to more work.
“I don’t want to do this,” the mini-me of Colter pouts. His head drops down into his arms, and he hides himself away, refusing to look at the worksheets I’ve just pulled out.
“Ben, I know this doesn’t seem fun, but it’s really important,” I try to reason. Sometimes kids are willing to listen and are really understanding. They’re smarter than we think. And sometimes, they just don’t have it in them, but that’s okay. They’re just kids.
“No.”
“Ben,” I use a stricter tone, hoping the authority behind my voice will pull him out of his funk.
“I don’t want to.”
“Okay, I have an idea.” He peeks one eye out, curiosity getting the best of him. “If you work well today, then I will bring a game to play next week.” I feel a little mean tricking the poor kid, but you have to do what you have to do.
I was always planning on bringing a game next week, and while I’m sure Ben thinks I’m going to bring Sorry or Candyland, I actually have a math game for him to play.
He most likely won’t even notice he’s doing math, and if he does, then he’ll be happy it’s fun math and not just a worksheet.
I would have brought it today, but it’s currently in a mail facility somewhere in Utah.
“A game?” Ben asks, both eyes visible now.
“A game. But only if we get through what we need to do today. Does that sound like a plan?” He hesitates, not fully willing to commit to my deal.
It’s like he can smell the betrayal. I cross my legs under the table, waiting patiently for him to come to his own decision.
It’s important that he knows this is in his hands.
“I guess,” he grumbles, much like his father.
“Cool!” I smile at the little boy. “So, here’s what we’re going to do today. I want to see how you do your addition and subtraction.”
“You want to see?” He wrinkles his nose, clearly confused.
“Yeah, so if you have 20 and you want to subtract 5, show me how you do the math. You can either write it down or explain it to me using your words.”
“Um,” he looks at the paper where I’ve written the equation and nibbles his lip.
“What is the first thing you do?”
“I write it like this.” He reworks the formula so that the 20 sits on top of the 5.
“Why?”
“Cause that’s what Mrs. Cannon told us to do.”
“Okay. Well, then what do you do next?” He stares at the paper, little brows furrowing in concentration. His pencil taps against the paper, but he doesn’t actually write anything. “Ben, would it be easier if you drew the equation?”
“Drew?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you draw 20 circles for me?” He does as I ask, quickly drawing a number of wonky circles on the paper before looking at me expectantly. “Okay, now cross out five.” He counts aloud, crossing out five of his misshapen circles. “How many are left?”
“One, two, three,” he counts all the way to fifteen and then turns to me expectantly.
“Exactly! Good job, Ben!” We do it a few more times, and I watch as Ben slowly becomes more and more comfortable with the process. “Okay, I want to switch it up.” I grab his pencil, drawing a number line from 0 to 30 on his paper. “What if I ask you to subtract 7 from 25?”
Hesitantly, he puts his pencil on the line above the number 25. I nod encouragingly but don’t say a word. And then—because he’s always known what to do, just not how to do it—he starts to count backwards, all the way down to 7. “Eighteen?”
“That’s awesome, Ben!” I tell him, smiling encouragingly. “Do you think having this number line with you during your tests and homework would help you?” I ask him, putting the power in his hands.
“I think so,” he nibbles at his lip some more, looking down at the mess of papers we’ve scribbled on.
“We can try it, and if it doesn’t help, then we can find another solution,” I offer.
“Will the other kids make fun of me?” His brown eyes stare up at me expectantly, and he looks so small in the huge chair.
“If they do, then I will deal with them,” I promise him.
I’ve had my suspicions since early on that there was a reason Ben was struggling so much in math.
His assignments never showed any effort to get to the answers, only ever random guesses.
It’s not his fault that he needs the visual aid to understand the question, and no one should ever be made fun of for the way they learn.
Glancing at my watch, I notice that it’s already been roughly 45 minutes, a long time for a little kid to sit and focus.
While we’ve practiced subtraction and addition during that time, Ben still has a long way to go to be able to catch up to his peers.
I feel like while I am tutoring him to catch up, I’m also using this time to actually pay attention to how he works, and it’s slowly confirming my suspicions.
“Hey Ben, why don’t you go grab your Dad for me, while I clean this all up?”
“Do we get to play a game next week?” He asks, perking up.
“Do you think you deserve it?” He nods enthusiastically, and I can’t help but giggle. “I think you’re right. I promise to bring the game next week.”
“Sweet.” In socked feet, he takes off through the arch in the dining room wall, an arch I haven’t gone through and have no idea where it leads. I can only hope it leads back to the kitchen where Colter has been cooking dinner.
My stomach growls at the smell of burgers, and my mouth waters. Have I been eating properly since moving to Montana? Probably not. But boy am I going to eat well tonight.
Striding into the room from the archway, Colter is wiping his hands on a dish towel. The domesticity of the scene has my ovaries screaming at me, and I scream back, reminding them that he’s the father of my student.
“How’d it go?” He asks, standing at the end of the table.
“It was good, I think we’ve found a method to help him out for the time being.”
“Oh yeah?” His eyebrows perk up in interest.
“He’s definitely a visual learner, so we’re going to use that to our benefit,” I lift the page with the number line and pass it to him. He studies it for a moment, nodding to himself, then passes it back to me.
“Is he going to be allowed to use that in the future?”
“As he gets older?” I ask to clarify, and he nods, what I’m learning to be his typical brisk nod. “Definitely. Teachers encourage showing your work, and this is just another method of doing that.”
“Okay.”
“He’s further behind than I initially thought, though, Colter,” I sigh, pushing my hair out of my face. “I don’t know if one session a week is going to be much help.”
“So what? More tutoring sessions?”
I chew my lip, considering my words. “Ben might need help from someone with more area of expertise in his line of learning.”
“His line of learning?”
“I want to be totally honest and upfront, but I don’t want to sound the alarms too early. Ben is showing symptoms of dyscalculia, though, and I think it’s worth looking into.”
“Dyscalculia?”
“It’s like dyslexia, but it’s specific to numbers and sequences,” I explain. Colter rubs his hand over his beard, nodding along. “Like I said, it could be nothing. It could just be that he needs a visual aid. But it’s better to catch it early on if that is what this is.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“Well, I think we should follow through with the original plan for the next month. I’ll continue to work with him, and we’ll see how he progresses. I’d like to set up a meeting with you, Mandy, and Sylvie at the end of the month, and we can discuss it all then.”
“In a month?”
“Yes.” He studies me, and I can tell he wants to argue, but he must think better of it because he doesn’t say a word, he just changes the subject completely.
“Are you ready for dinner then?”
“Yes, please.”
And it’s as simple as that.