Chapter 12 #2
“Pretty.” Jewel pressed the bloom to her nose. “For Papa.”
The child had a generous spirit. She was always gathering things for Papa, never for herself. Pebbles, feathers, flowers, leaves, interesting sticks.
Torin received each offering with the same grave courtesy, as if his daughter had handed him a bar of gold.
He displayed them on the mantel in the dining room, swapping out the collection when the new objects threatened to overwhelm the space.
He stored them in a basket he kept under his bed, to be brought out and carefully examined and discussed on days when the weather kept them indoors.
Just about the time Ivy planned to return to the house, she saw Torin quietly joined them.
Unnoticed by Jewel, he watched from a few paces back, his expression soft in a way he probably didn't realize.
He'd taken to walking slightly apart from them during their outings, close enough to observe, but far enough to give Ivy room to teach.
She'd come to understand it wasn't distance Torin sought, at least not the defensive distance of those first difficult days. He wanted perspective—one he hadn’t had much of a chance to use before, when he always had to be so physically close to Jewel.
I’m so glad I can provide him with a different viewpoint.
Sometimes Ivy’s spirit quailed when she thought of all the changes she and his friends wanted him to make so he could come out in society. Patience, she reminded herself. Just like with Jewel.
But the truth was, she had far more confidence in her pupil’s open-hearted growth than she did for Jewel’s closed-off father.
As April eased into May, and May crept toward June, the wildflowers arrived in earnest. Shooting stars—delicate pink blooms on slender stems—dotted the meadow near the lake.
Glacier lilies appeared on south-facing slopes, bright as drops of liquid sunshine, their petals curving backward like tiny dancers.
“Fair-ees!” Jewel declared when she first saw them, cupping one gently in her hands. “Fair-ee flow-ers!”
Ivy couldn't argue with the uncanny resemblance. “Fairy flowers,” she agreed, falling into whimsy. “At night, they must leave their stems and go dancing under the starry sky. What sound does fairy start with?”
“Fuh! Fuh for Eff!”
Where snow had been were grasses reaching for the sun, spangled with the first brave wildflowers—buttercups and shooting stars and the tiny white blooms Ivy had learned were called spring beauties.
Bitterroot crept along the rocky ground in shades of rose and white. Lupine filled the clearings with purple spikes that attracted bees and butterflies, sending Jewel into raptures of excitement and giving Ivy an excellent opportunity to practice the letter L with her.
Each new bloom became a lesson. Each walk, a classroom.
The forest was more than a textbook. Nature offered an experience that engaged all of Jewel's senses—the rough bark of the pine trees she liked to touch, the sweet fragrance of the glacier lilies she buried her nose in, the bright colors that made her clap her hands in delight.
The felt letters accumulated on the shelf Torin had built in Jewel's room—a growing rainbow of colors and textures that told the story of the girl's progress. Only Y and Z were left.
Each evening before bed, and often during the day, Jewel would stand before the shelf and touch each letter in order, reciting the sounds with the solemnity of a child saying her prayers.
“Aay. Bee. Cee. Dee….” All the way through to whatever letter they'd reached that day, her small finger tracing the shapes.
I was for Ivy. When she learned that letter, Jewel had looked at Ivy with such sweetness that Ivy had to turn away to compose herself.
Some letters came quickly, usually mastered by nighttime. Others required days of patient repetition—Q was particularly vexing, and X might as well have been a foreign language.
But Ivy knew from her years of tutoring that frustration was the enemy of learning, and when she recognized Jewel’s struggles, she simply shifted to something the girl could succeed at, circling back to the difficult letter later. Some letters needed many circles.
“You really have the gift of patience. More than I ever did,” Torin said one evening, looking up from his book to watch Ivy guide Jewel through yet another attempt. “I would have given up on Q days ago.”
“Patience isn't a gift,” Ivy replied, not looking up from where she was positioning Jewel's chalk on the slate. “It's a skill, learned by breathing through your frustration, reaching deep down inside so as not to snap or give up, and then forcing yourself to use a calm voice.”
“By those terms, I guess Jewel has taught me a great deal of patience.”
She looked up with a smile. “And Jewel is teaching me as much as I'm teaching her.”
He was quiet for a moment, fingering the edges of the page he’d been reading. “What is she teaching you?”
Looking down at her pupil, Ivy considered.
“That the speed of learning doesn't determine its value. That the child who takes a week to learn a letter might understand the meaning more deeply than the one who grasps it in an hour. That joy is its own kind of intelligence. To savor the little victories.”
When she glanced up, she saw Torin staring at her with an expression she couldn't quite read—something between wonder and pain, as if she'd put into words a truth he'd always felt—and her traitorous heart fluttered.