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“I’ll be on my best behavior and I won’t embarrass you in front of the super cool dude or Nico.”
At the mention of her best friend—and person she was convinced her daughter had a crush on—Emery blushed. “Nico knows you’re weird, they expect nothing less from you.”
“So I can’t embarrass you in front of Mr. Kelley.”
“God, you’re going to be insufferable.” Emery grabbed her lunch and stomped to the front door. Micah chuckled and packed up her bag for work, knowing that any minute now, she would stop and turn around. The stomping ceased and she looked up to find her daughter smiling wide. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, kid. You’re the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Damn right I am.”
She blew her daughter a kiss and smiled to herself as Emery grabbed her sticker covered helmet and walked out the front door. When silence enveloped the house, her mind wandered to Fletcher again. Which was silly, because even though she’d listened to The Rescuers for years after their one night stand, she hadn’t really thought about the man himself too much. He was a part of her history, but that’s all he could ever be. A checklist on her life list—have the most epic one night stand with a famous person.
And that’s all he can ever be.
Six hours into her work day, with all thoughts of her former lovers and partners erased from her mind, Micah opened her office door to let her eleven year old client in. His mother offered her a small wave from where she was seated in one of the reception chairs and Micah smiled in response before closing the door behind Dexter.
“Good afternoon, Dexter, how are you?”
He smiled and then inhaled deeply, steeling himself before he released his breath and said, “I’m g-g-good.” Dexter nodded and she did the same, gesturing to the other chair. He sat down, fidgeting until he was comfortable. “I visited my grandparents last week.”
“They have horses, right? Did you go for a ride?”
He nodded excitedly, flashing Micah his teeth and when she laughed, he pointed at the gap in the front. “I fell off the p-p-po-pony—” Micah nodded at the soft sound that accompanied the word before Dexter continued, “She left me there!”
“Did she take your tooth with her?”
He giggled. “She did! So, no money from my fairy godmother.”
“We can’t have that!” She grinned and held out the bowl of candy she kept for her younger patients. Dexter’s smile widened, flashing his missing tooth, and he took a few minutes to decide which candy he wanted. Once he was settled back in his chair, Micah reached for the picture book from her stack of children’s books. “You up for some reading today or do you want to tell me more about your visit?”
He hesitated and took the book from her, flipping it open to the first page. The table beside where they were seated was stacked high with books for different age groups. So no matter which client came in, she had something for everyone to read. Because of Dexter’s stutter, she always had him read easier books. He had already graduated into books with bigger words that had more consonants and syllables, but the progress was slow.
“We’re not in a rush, okay?” she said, reminding him that there was no time limit to how fast or slow he needed to improve. “You read at your pace. Take the time to sound out the words in your head, repeat them as many times as you need to.”
Dexter nodded firmly, gripping the open book. “I can do it.”
“Do you remember how many pages you read last time?”
“Four. Today I will re-re—” He huffed in frustration and tried again, “—I will read five p-pa-pages.”
“Great. Whenever you’re ready.”
Cautiously, Dexter started reading the book about the unicorn and the mouse. His finger traced the words as he said them out loud. She was glad that even though he’d read the first four pages many times already, he didn’t assume that he was ready for the more advanced pages.
Watching, listening and guiding Dexter made her think about her own struggles with her speech when she was a young girl. Her parents moved to the States from South India when Micah was five and she already had a stutter, struggling to get what she wanted to say out in a timely manner. Combine that with her still learning how to speak English properly—she’d been raised in a house with grandparents who only ever spoke in Malayalam—and Micah was made fun of, bullied and mistreated in the neighborhood and then at school.
Like a lot of South Indian parents, Micah’s didn’t believe that you needed to get tested for speech disorders, so she suffered silently. Her mother would always say ‘you’ll get over it’ or ‘try and focus on your words before you speak’ like it was that simple. It was her English teacher in the fourth grade that finally encouraged her parents to see a speech therapist.
Years of sessions, reading slowly, being taught how to sound out words in her head and then out loud helped her learn the best way to overcome her stutter. It didn’t go away completely, but she’d finally learned how to ease herself into it. By the time she was in high school, Micah had become the student body president and could give speeches without problem. But there were always kids who remembered what she was like in middle school and had no qualms being assholes about it.
She continued meeting with her speech therapist all the way through college, where she studied Audiology and Speech Language Pathology. The decision wasn’t made lightly, no matter what her parents said, and she worked her ass off to graduate. She was applying to schools for her Masters program when she found out she was pregnant, so Micah put that on hold and spent the three years she was married raising Emery. Once the divorce was finalized and she was able to find people to help out with Emery, she went back to school and followed through with her clinical hours. It was a lot of work and hours she spent away from her daughter, but Micah did everything she could to be a present mother. By the time she got her certification, she was ready to sleep for an entire year. But she got so lucky when she met with Haven Williams, founder of the Haven Clinic which was outside the town limits of Sirena Beach.
The clinic housed therapists that provided different services and often one client saw multiple people in the clinic. But the whole place was started by and run by queer women, making it an extremely safe place for queer folk to come by without the fear of being judged. Within twenty minutes of meeting Haven, Micah was hired. It took her a few years to build a reputation and a client list, but now she was well known for her skills, no matter the age of the person visiting her.
“The mouse p-p-poi-pointed—” Dexter huffed and looked up, she nodded for him to continue. “The mouse pointed at the rainbow and the unicorn sm-sm-smiled.”
When he slammed the book shut, she leaned back in her chair and waited for Dexter to go through the emotions he was feeling. She remembered how frustrating it had been to struggle through books she usually had no trouble with. While she was fluent most of the time, there were situations where she still stuttered. Micah was working towards showing her younger clients that it was absolutely normal to have moments like that.
