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“Listen, Rowan.” It’s my turn to whisper. “Can I ask you something about him?”
“About Asa?” Rowan glances his way, that frown melting away when his gaze swings back to me. “Of course you can. It will make a change from him talking my ear off all about you.”
“Me?”
Rowan nods. “Because you’re his favourite teacher.”
“I’m not?—”
Rowan rolls his eyes. “A real teacher? Try telling him that. In fact, come in, and I’ll show you why he thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread.”
He heads for the gate at the end of the fence and holds it open for me.
“Look,” my softly-spoken ex-housemate orders much more forcefully than usual. “Tell me you didn’t teach him how to do this.” He points out the log disc that Asa hammered his name into. It has pride of place on a table with other oddments. “This is their achievement table. Where they put the work they’re most proud of. The work they value the most. Do you know who never puts anything on here?” He goes ahead and tells me what I can already guess. “Asa. Not until today. Who do you think that is down to?”
“But—”
“But nothing.” Rowan marches over to a drying rack before I can explain that anyone could show a kid how to use a hammer safely. All it takes is patience and some small adjustments to stop them from hitting their fingers. Like using a pair of long-nose pliers to hold the nails in place the way Dad first taught me. I follow him to say that, only Rowan holds up a sheet of paper daubed with still-wet paint. “He wouldn’t have done this without you.”
The painting is a mess of random splodges until I focus. “Ah.”
“Ah,” Rowan agrees. “That’s his name in paint dots, over and over. So many times it’s hard to read it, but he knew exactly what he was doing, Hayden. He couldn’t stop making his mark once he got back from your morning session. He hasn’t stopped since.” Rowan isn’t done yet either. He points at Asa, who is still too engrossed to notice us both watching. “Now look really closely.”
I do, and it takes a moment before what Asa is busy doing registers with me. Then it becomes harder for me to see for a whole new reason. For a third time today, I have to blink away a sudden blurring, and this comes out thickly. “He’s writing.”
He is.
That’s Asa’s name on the sheet of paper in front of him.
Not in dots.
He’s joined them.
He’s done that on the chalkboard too, his name there in a rainbow array. Rowan turns me to face another corner of his outdoor classroom where Asa’s name is also scrawled in crayon. That’s where Rowan says, “Charles told me that children making their mark is vital for them right here.” He doesn’t touch his temple like I more than half expect. He touches his chest in the same spot mine has been aching for the last few hours. “He said that if I could only do one thing with his children while he was busy with his babies, it was to help them make their markin any way that mattered to them. In song. In story. Inside the classroom, or outdoors. Communication is everything. Without it, they’re stuck. Asa was, even though he always looks so busy. Now he can’t stop making his mark because he’s joined dots up here.”
He does tap his temple now, in a reminder of Rae back at the stables. Rowan is also flushed as pink as he was, if for a different reason. He’s passionate about Asa’s progress. “He refused to try to write at his last school. Now he’s asking everyone how to spell their names. How to spell anything at all. He can’t stop now he’s found enough focus to make a hand and brain connection.”
That leads me back to why I stopped here in the first place.
“Listen, Rowan. You mentioned focus. Do you think that’s because he might have?—”
“ADHD?” Rowan makes a weighing gesture with both hands and names what Rae described while in bed beside me, and what my subsequent Googling suggests could be a textbook example of it going undiagnosed in adults. Rowan discusses a much younger candidate. “Asa might have ADHD. He might not. He could just be a very busy boy. It’s too early to slap on any kind of lifelong label.”
He echoes what my Googling also told me.
“Do that too early and negative opinions can become the only mark that lingers.” He’s serious about this. “Plenty of people put any kind of neurological difference down to not trying hard enough to fit in. To be normal.” He straightens his shoulders. “Asa doesn’t need to hear that, or see himself as having a problem. Later, if he is assessed and does score highly, there are other strings he can add to his bow.”
“Like medication?” That was what Google listed, linking me to story after story of people who found it turned a key in a lock for them after years of struggle.
Rowan is less certain. “Maybe, but like I said, it’s early days. The assessment ball is already rolling in the background, but up until a formal diagnosis, the whole team will keep teaching him the way he can learn the best, right? Set him up to feel capable, like you have. We’ll watch for chances to extend his skills when he’s ready for more challenge.That’steaching, Hayden. Watching and adapting and extending, like you’ve been doing.”
He includes me as part of that teaching team.
So does Asa, who spots me, and yeah, I still need to catch up with Rae before he leaves, but Asa runs over and looks up to me. His little face is smudged with paint and success as he asks, “How do you spell Novac?”
I tell him.
He scurries away before running back to me. “Want to watch me write it?”
