“It’s not bad,” she went on. Which made me let out a little breath I didn’t know I was holding. “It’s . . . ,” she said. But then she paused for a second, searching through all the teas in the cupboard—picking them up and then setting them down in different stacks. “You don’t have dyslexia,” she said at last.
“Dis-what?” I asked.
“Dyslexia, Albie,” she said, and that time she did sound like she was mad at me, although I couldn’t tell why. “The reading disorder Ms. McPhillips tested you for. Remember?”
I wanted to say that of course I remembered. I was the one who took it. But Mom was mad, and I didn’t know why, and I didn’t want to make her madder. “I don’t have it?” I asked.
She shifted another box of tea to look behind it. “No,” she said.
“So I did good on the test?”
“It’s well, Albie,” she said, slamming the box of tea down. Maybe she was mad at the tea. “You did well. And it’s not a matter of—” She stopped talking and set the mug down on the counter. She closed the cupboard with a soft click. “You do not have a reading disorder,” she said, looking up at me. “That’s the important thing.”
“Oh,” I said again. All of a sudden my insides felt twisted, like I wasn’t sure whether I should be happy or sad. Because it seemed like it should be a good thing, that I didn’t have that long-word-x reading disorder, that my brain didn’t mix up letters and numbers on the page. But I could tell from the look on Mom’s face that she didn’t think it was.
“Maybe I can take the test again,” I said quietly.
Mom closed her eyes for a long time, not talking, and after a while, I started to worry that maybe she had fallen asleep like that, standing up, and that maybe I should try to shake her or something. But then she opened her eyes and said, “Your father forgot to get coffee. I’m going to run downstairs to get some. I’ll be back in a sec, okay?” And she grabbed her purse and her keys, gave me a peck on the forehead, and left me at the table with my social studies homework.
The whole time she was gone, I stared at the page and squinted and shifted my head to look at it, but no matter which way I turned—me or the paper—I couldn’t get the letters to look funny. The d was just a d. The p was just a p. And even when I blinked, faster faster faster, bad didn’t come out looking like dab. I shoved the paper in my backpack and gave up trying. I was never going to get a reading disorder.
• • •
When Mom came back, she put the coffee in the cupboard but left her mug on the counter and said she needed to lie down for a bit. I didn’t tell her that we already had coffee, that Dad had told her yesterday that he wanted to start keeping it in the freezer for freshness. I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t say anything. Because nothing I thought mattered. And I had a test to prove it.
The only thing wrong with my brain was my brain.
things
i don’t know.
I don’t know how to spell “mountain.” Or “business.” Or “especially.” I do the flash cards over and over, and I never get those ones right.
I don’t know how to subtract without a pencil.
I don’t know Mom’s cell phone number without looking it up, even though I call it all the time.
I don’t know the name of Dad’s company he works for. I stopped asking because he rolls his eyes every time I ask and says, “Albie, I told you.” But I never remember.
I don’t know how many nickels in a dollar, or how many dimes. Darren Ackleman says everybody learned that in first grade. Somehow I didn’t.