Richard stared at his son. In his mind’s eye Oliver was a baby again, damp curls stuck to his forehead after bath time, a boy who built cities of blocks with the precision of a small architect. He’d noticed the hesitations during homework, the fidgeting. He’d chalked it up to restlessness, to being eight. Had he been… absent? Or simply blind?

Grace drew a worn notebook from her apron pocket and slid it across the coffee table. “We’ve been practicing with rhythm,” she said. “Clapping syllables, reading to a beat. Music helps.” Inside, Richard found neat columns: dates, doodled stars, tiny milestones—read three pages without help, asked for new chapter, spoke up in class. At the top someone had written, in Oliver’s uneven printing, Courage Points.

Something inside Richard loosened. “You’ve been doing all this?” he asked.

“We’ve been doing it,” Grace said, nodding at Oliver.

“The school thought I shouldn’t have fought,” Oliver blurted, as if the confession burned. “But Ben was crying. They made him read out loud and he mixed up b and d again. I know how that feels.”