Sam and Ellen Lane arrived earlier than announced.
“There’s my girl!” Ellen reached for Martha immediately, scooping her up. “Look how big you’re getting.”
Sam followed more slowly, newspaper tucked under his arm, trying and failing to look unaffected by the way Martha’s face lit up at the sound of their voices.
“We’ll bring her back around eight,” Ellen said, already bouncing Martha gently. “Fed. Happy. Spoiled rotten.”
Lois hesitated, watching her parents. They moved differently now. Less concerned with being right, more focused on just being there.
“Call if you need anything,” Sam added, and he meant it.
When the door closed behind them, the brownstone felt strangely quiet.
Clark glanced at Lois. “First time they’ve taken her for a whole day.”
“Yeah.” Lois stood there a moment longer, processing. Then she shook her head. “We have that story to finish. Let’s not waste the time.”
Clark smiled. “Right behind you.”
***
That evening, after Martha was home again and asleep, Lois reached for the advent basket.
“I didn’t know my mother could babble,” Lois said, handing Clark the bag. “She spent the entire handoff cooing at Martha like she was narrating a nature documentary.”
Clark grinned. “Now we know where you got it from.”
“Excuse me?”
“You babble. Like a brook, remember? I’ve mentioned it once or twice.”
Lois swatted his arm. “That’s different.”
He opened the bag and lifted out a small wooden staff. He raised a brow. “The shepherd’s staff?”
She grinned. “Finding twenty-four distinct pieces wasn’t as easy as I thought.”
“Fair enough.” He turned it over in his hands. “What’s the story?”
Lois unfolded the note and read:
She found her place beside him, not behind and not ahead. Not as decoration. Not as competition. As a partner. Someone who challenged him, matched him, pushed him to be better. And when their daughter arrived, she learned something new:that partnership expands. That family isn’t something you stumble into or inherit fully formed. It’s something you build, day by day, choice by choice, with patience and mess and compromise and love. She’s still learning. They both are. But they’re building it together.
Clark was quiet for a moment, then looked at her. “Your parents are changing too.”
Lois nodded. “We all are. Just learning how to hold things differently.”
“Think they’ll keep this up?”
“I hope so.” She paused. “I think they will.”
Clark placed the staff among the other pieces on the mantel. Just another support for what was already growing.
He pulled her close. “You’re doing a good job, you know. At all of it.”
Lois leaned into him. “So are you.”
They stayed like that for a while, quiet and together.
