Kimberly and Leila live a normal life - until Kimberly meets a girl trespassing on the playground of the elementary school she is employed at. Kimberly knows Nova is too old to be a student at the school. She figures her to be a preteen or in her ve...
Leila and Nova, who was out of headspace right now and had been for a few hours, were setting the dining room table when Kimberly got home that evening. Nova was still sick but was feeling much better than yesterday. When she heard Kimberly coming in, she went to greet her.
"Hi," Nova told Kimberly.
"Hi! It's good to see you out of bed. Are you feeling better?"
"Yes. I'm not one hundred percent yet, but I'm a lot better."
"That's great."
Nova followed Kimberly to the kitchen sink and chatted with her about her day as Kimberly washed her hands.
"Did you get the beer?" Leila asked, entering the room after finishing setting the table.
"Hi to you, too," Kimberly chuckled, drying her hands. "It's right there on the counter."
"I'm sorry. I've just been a nervous wreck all day."
"Why are you nervous?" Nova asked.
Kimberly jumped in to distract the girl. Nova didn't know anything about Todd's deal, and both her parents wanted to keep it that way.
"Mom's okay," Kimberly lied. "She's just a little worried about being out of work."
•••••••••••••••
Dinner was quiet. Leila barely ate as she sipped beer and silently second guessed her decision to pass up the deal. And Nova, who was still under the weather, wasn't eating or talking much either.
"Do you feel up to your lessons tonight?" Kimberly asked Nova as the meal was coming to an end.
Nova nodded. She'd been too sick yesterday, but today she wanted to.
"Good, because I have a surprise for you and Mom."
"What is it?" Nova asked.
"You're going to read your first word today!"
"How?!" Nova exclaimed, just as excited as Kimberly expected her to be.
"Well, do you remember how I told you that we read words by putting the sounds of each letter together? You've got some of the sounds down so well that I think you're ready to start actually reading. And I thought Mom might want to join us so she can see it, too."
Leila smiled. "Yes, Mom would love to see that."
"Good," Kimberly said, also smiling. "I've been waiting for the perfect time for this. I wanted you to be out of headspace for this because I know how proud of yourself you'll be when you first read, and I wanted big you to have that."
Nova's formal education had been going on for only a little over six weeks now, so she still had a lot of work to do. Mathematically, she was still learning numbers up to one hundred, which included not only visually recognizing those numbers but also counting quantity and rote counting that high.
As for literacy, Nova hadn't memorized the sounds of every letter by heart yet, but she had mastered a lot of them, including the letters in the word Kimberly wanted her to first read. So tonight, instead of the usual printing letters or going through the flashcards to memorize letter sounds, Kimberly would teach Nova how to read her first word.
•••••••••••••••
After they cleared the table and Kimberly went to retrieve everything she needed for Nova's lessons, the family sat back down in the dining room, and Kimberly introduced the newest tool in Nova's education - wooden block letters.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
