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“No, I’ll never be better. I know what I have, but I’m still just as stupid as I always was.” Pushing away from the counter, she rushed up to her room and slammed the door behind her.
Sitting on her bed, she looked out the window at the neighbor’s gray house, letting the hot tears roll down her cheek. Her family had thought that since Lucy had a diagnosis, there was a magic switch that went off and made Lucy all better, that everything had changed when someone told her she had dyslexia. But in reality, nothing had changed. She was still reading at a second-grade level and would never progress beyond that. She had only gotten better and better at covering it up from others.
Her door opened behind her, but she didn’t look up, “Are you okay, Lucy?”
“I’m fine,” she mumbled to her mom and wiped away the tears.
“Can I come in?” Sera asked, but Lucy knew she was already in the bedroom.
“I’m fine,” she repeated.
“You’re not stupid, Lucy. You never were.” Sera sat on the other side of the bed.
“Just different, right?. That’s what they always called it. And I went to classes with all the other different kids. Mabel didn’t, just me. Alone,” Lucy said, letting the tears fall freely.
“Why didn’t you tell me back then? I knew you were struggling, but I didn’t know why.”
“I didn’t know why either. I just thought I was too dumb to figure it out and that everyone else was just better than me. Mabel knew how to read before we started school, but it never made sense to me. For a while, I thought Mom left because I wasn’t smart enough. I thought I was to blame for her being gone.” She admitted her secret, the one she had carried for longer than she liked to admit. Sometimes, she still felt that way.
Sera rubbed a hand up her back. “You know that’s not true. Your mom left for whatever reason, but she was to blame for leaving, not one of you kids.”
“I kept thinking that one day I would just get it, like magic. By the time you showed up, I had given up. I was in special education classes, and kids who were mentally challenged could learn to read, but I couldn’t. Now it’s too late, and I’ll be like this forever. Forever the one making shirts with everything spelled wrong. The joke.” She angrily wiped at the tears still clinging to her cheeks. She didn’t want to talk about her faults.
“You’re not a joke to any of us. We wear the shirts because they are the joke. At the heart of it, we wear them because we love them and you for making them.”
“They’re dumb,” Lucy said, though she was wearing one even as they spoke. They both were.
“How do you do it at work?” Sera asked with interest.
“I have all the documents read to me by the computer. I have Leo’s calendar memorized.”
“What is he doing tomorrow at 3 p.m.?”
Wiping away her tears, she stated, “Marketing meeting from two to four. Before that is a lunch meeting at The Detail. I have it memorized for weeks.” She shrugged. It had gotten easy to keep up with.
“But I text you all the time,” Sera said.
“And I have them read to me. I speak to text back so that you don’t know I can’t read them. Everyone likes to text but me,” she ended in a whisper.
“Do you want me to stop texting and leave voicemails instead? How can I make life better for you?” Sera asked.
“Just don’t tell everyone. They don’t need to know I’m as stupid as I am. I can’t get smarter, but I can pretend,” Lucy said.
“You are not stupid; you have a disability.”
“Try telling that to a waiter when you have no idea what to order. Or the lady in the grocery store when you’re trying to find the box that says, ‘original flavor,’ or your sister who … forget it.” Lucy couldn’t tell her that she knew that her sister had stopped wanting to spend time with her when she had found out. It was why Harper hated her now.
“They all love you, but they can’t understand if you won’t talk about it,” Sera said.
“I haven’t told Leo, so please don’t.” There was no need for him to know she was defective. Better he found out after it was too late.
“You should tell him. I can’t believe he doesn’t know already. But he won’t care because it makes you who you are,” Sera replied and gave her a big hug. “Come down when you’re ready. And I talked to the girls—no fighting until after the wedding. I couldn’t get any more time than that.”
“Thanks. Leo isn’t used to the battles.” Lucy finally smiled. Leo would have to get used to it. She only hoped his kids didn’t pick up on the habit, or she would stop liking it also.
“Hopefully, he doesn’t mind the teasing because you five are very good at that. It’s one of the things I miss the most about not living here.”
“I miss you being here as well, and he’ll have to get used to the Lovelys.” She sighed, knowing he would only have to put up with it for two years. Then it would be over.
Within two hours, they walked into the tranquil bridal store that was usually closed on Sunday. But since no one could say no to her stepmom, and she had spent thousands in the store over the last few months, it was open for them.
As the manager looked through the rows of white dresses, Lucy was able to whisper to her that if she managed to find a great dress that hid that she was pregnant from her mom, she would pay her $500 under the table.
Two dresses in, she had the one. It wasn’t her favorite, but it made her look gorgeous and hid the baby bump she wasn’t ready to tell her mom about yet. So, the group was able to go out to lunch and have a good time, and nobody teased her about getting married quickly. Her mom must have talked to them that morning.
Though she had always loved the teasing and the roughhousing, she was tired of being in the center of it. Being reminded of every single mistake she has ever made was getting old. If she told them she was pregnant it would be just another thing. But she didn’t want her babies to be thought of as another Lucy mess up. They were special if only to her.
