Color the Sidewalk for Me by Brandilyn Collins

Author:Brandilyn Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Array
Publisher: Zondervan

chapter 31

Friday night I slept poorly. The next morning I felt groggy and tired, having to work much harder than I had the previous day to summon an energetic, cheerful face. Daddy performed his exercises with grim determination but was upset that his abilities were even less than they had been the day before. “It’s okay,” I told him glibly. “This is to be expected. Your muscles are just tired.”

The speech lesson, however, went faster than it had before. Daddy had quickly learned the routine. I began prompting him to put sounds together in short words.

“Say ‘sat.’”

“Ssaa.”

“Uh-uh, no good. You can say that t.”

“Ssaaathh.”

“Better. Say the t by itself.”

“Thh.”

“Raise that tongue of yours a little bit.”

“Tss.”

“Better. Now make it short. ‘Tuh.’”

“Tuh.”

“Yes! Put it all together. ‘Sat.’”

“Ssaaatuh.”

“Great!” I raised a fist in the air. “That was so good, let’s do another one. ‘Day.’”

After ten minutes Daddy grew impatient and I allowed him to stop, wheeling him to the living room to sit with Mama. She and I had continued to keep our distance, our conversations strained.

“Well, William,” she remarked, “sounds like your daughter just about did you in.”

“Yaaa.” He affected a pained expression and she laughed, pecking him on the cheek.

“Want me to read you the paper?” she asked.

“Kaaa.”

My heart softened a little at her gentleness toward him. It seemed a good time to take care of other business I had to attend to. “I’m going out again for a while,” I announced. “Daddy, don’t forget your red ball.”

Mama didn’t respond, too busy reaching for the newspaper. Daddy produced the sigh of a martyr. “Yaaa.”

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