“ One…open…a tie…”
 
“Once upon a time.”
 
“Ugh!” Mayfly groaned. “This is so hard!”
 
“It won’t be forever. Not with the special tutors we hired to help you,” Ambrosia assured her. “Why don’t you try sounding out the letters?”
 
“Can’t you just read to me, Papa?” Mayfly tried passing the book over to him. “You’re good at reading. Unlike me…”
 
“Hey now, your brain just works differently. That doesn’t make you bad at reading. Unfortunately we have business to attend to, so we cannot read to you tonight.”
 
“Alright…” Mayfly turned to Hawk, who sat by her other side. “Can you read to me, Daddy?”
 
“You sure about that?” Hawk hesitated. “Your Pop’s way better at that than I am.”
 
“Come on, you never read to me!” Mayfly protested.
 
“Yes, love, you never read to her,” Ambrosia pointed out. “We have never once seen you read to any of our children. Is there something you would like to tell us?”
 
“No!” Hawk insisted. They were on to him. He couldn’t let them know how much of an idiot he was, he’d never hear the end of it. So instead, he took the book and improvised a story based on the pictures in a futile attempt to save face.
 
“Once upon a time there was a knight. She fought the bad guy, saved the princess, and they lived happily ever after. The end!”
 
“You didn’t even read it-“
 
“Goodnight!” Hawk put the book down and trotted off, not even looking back at their reactions as he trotted away in shame.
 

 
“What was that?” Ambrosia asked as he and Hawk laid in bed later that night.
 
“What?”
 
“You know what we mean. Your ‘attempt’ at reading to our dear Mayfly. You didn’t even try, it was like you were avoiding it.”
 
Hawk huffed indignantly. “Well I got the job done, didn’t I? I got the idea of the story down.”
 
Ambrosias pondered quietly for a moment.
 
“CAN you even read?”
 
“No—I mean, yes. Kinda. Why does it matter?”
 
“Hawk, if you can’t read, that’s a problem. Tell us, how do you text?”
 
“Voice dictation.”
 
“How do you read important documents?”
 
“I just listen to whatever you say about it and sign.“
 
“Do you ever read or write anything on your own?”
 
Hawk sighed in exasperation. “Look Ambi, I’m just an idiot. Always have been. You can’t fix stupid.”
 
Ambrosia turned to look Hawk in the eye. “Our daughter can hardly read either! Would you call her an idiot too?”
 
“No! Hell no!” Hawk said defensively. “She has dyslexia, she’s not an idiot!”
 
“Have you not considered that you might have dyslexia too?”
 
Hawk froze with sudden realization.
 
“Oh.”
 
Ambrosia raised his eyebrows. “You never even thought of it?”
 
“I didn’t even know what it was until we found out Mayfly has it,” Hawk admitted. “But I’m getting old, Ambi. It’s too late for me.”
 
“You’re barely 40, you’ve got plenty of time to learn. There are plenty of classes for adults and other resources available to you,” Ambrosia informed him. “Don’t you want to read to our foals?”
 
Hawk nodded in earnest. “God, yes.”
 
Ambrosia smiled. “Then, perhaps, an old pony can learn new tricks.”