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Author's Note: I honestly wish I could just stay with little Clark forever, watching each step as he learns and grows and figures out that the world can be a beautiful place with beautiful people. However, in the interest of actually finishing this story...I made the decision to do a time jump here. This chapter starts ~three months later, at the beginning of January. Thanks for reading!


14


Three months later . . .

The sun hadn’t quite risen, and only a faint glow of the morning twilight lit up the very edge of the eastern horizon. It was freezing too—a stiff breeze making the January morning even more frigid.

Martha kept one arm looped tightly around Clark’s shoulders as the two stood along the road at the end of their driveway. She could feel him trembling slightly, and she hoped it was just from the cold, not something else.

“Are you excited?” she asked.

Clark didn’t answer right away, but he tore his eyes away from where he’d been watching the road and looked up at her, and she had her answer. She smiled softly at him.

“You know, I was scared on my first day of school too. I think everyone is,” she assured him.

But he still looked skeptical. He shook his head and then looked down at the ground, kicking at the gravel with his shoe.

“I-I don’t want to go,” he mumbled, although his voice was so low she barely heard him.

Her heart clenched, and she knelt down next to him, taking his hands in hers. “My sweet boy, what’s wrong? You can tell me.”

She knew how much he loved learning—he devoured books so quickly they usually had to make two or even three trips to the library each week, and he played games with numbers for fun now. And she’d thought he was ready and looking forward to school, which was why she and Jonathan had worked with Emma to get him enrolled. They had opted to put him in the fourth-grade class rather than the fifth-grade class, but the principal had promised he could skip ahead once he caught up academically.

But now, she wasn’t so sure, and the very last thing she wanted was for him to feel scared or unsure or like he had to do something he wasn’t ready for.

She reached up and touched his cheek, and he lifted his chin to look at her. “You can tell me, whatever it is, sweetie.”

His little face scrunched up, and he looked down and to the side. “I don’t…want to say.”

“Because it’s something from before?” He nodded quickly, and Martha’s heart clenched. “Oh my sweet boy,” she said quietly, and she opened up her arms. He came into the hug quickly, wrapping his little arms up around her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled against her, and she shook her head gently.

“No, no. It’s okay.” She held him tightly, hoping he felt all of her love for him and that it gave him something he needed—strength, reassurance, confidence. “You don’t have to tell me, but remember, sometimes it helps to talk about it, right?”

He nodded again and loosened his arms from around her. She straightened slightly but remained kneeling next to him, taking his hands in hers again. She squeezed, and he looked up at her, his eyes filled with pain and fear.

He bit his lip and then looked back down at the ground. “I’m not…smart. Pa used to tell me that. Ma, too. A-and no one will like me. Wh-what if no one likes me? What if—” His eyes darted back up to hers, and he shook his head again. “I-I’m sorry. I know you and Jonathan are always telling me I-I’m smart. But it’s hard to…remember and—and believe it.”

She opened her arms again, and he stepped into the embrace, leaning into her. His arms stayed at his sides this time, though, and that also broke her heart.

It had been a difficult and gradual process—one she knew they’d be battling for a long, long time. And it was really only recently that they’d started to make progress, she thought, in changing how Clark saw himself and silencing those awful voices of his parents that he still heard much too often—those voices telling him he was worthless, stupid, in the way, badly behaved. His social worker, Emma, visited every few weeks now, and she’d been working with him on reframing the bad things—changing “I’m stupid” into “I’m smart enough to learn what I don’t know.” But it was hard work, especially for a traumatized ten-year-old boy, and Martha understood how the stress of worrying about his first day of school made it more difficult for Clark to do that reframing right now.

She only wished he didn’t even have any reason to need to do it in the first place. But she buried that thought and hugged Clark tighter, planting a kiss into his hair.

“Sweet child,” she murmured, closing her eyes as she held him. “I’m so proud of you, and so is Jonathan. And whatever happens today, I promise you, that’s not going to change. You’re a bright, brilliant little boy, and you’re kind and caring and fun. And remember, you already have at least one friend.”

“Lana?”

“Yep! Remember how nice she was when you met her last week?”

Clark nodded, and Martha pulled back out of their hug to smile at him. His little cheeks were red from the cold, but his eyes shone now, and it warmed her heart.

“Lana is going to be on the bus already, and she’s going to show you around school today and introduce you to all your other classmates and everything.”

Clark’s eyes flickered to the ground and then scrunched closed. “I’m…scared to meet so many people. Ma and Pa said—” He cut himself off, shaking his head hard. Martha wanted to hug him again, but she waited, knowing this was often part of his process. “I’m scared to meet so many people, but I…I can do it…?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her, and she just smiled again and nodded and said, “You can, sweetie.”

Down the road, there was the faint roar of an engine as a bright yellow school bus rounded the curve. Martha stood back up, and Clark quickly took her hand, holding on tightly. The bus started slowing as it approached, and then it stopped, the doors opening with a loud clank. Clark flinched against her side but didn’t hide behind her.

She squeezed his hand and stepped forward, and he stayed at her side, clinging to her. The loud, boisterous sounds of children’s voices from inside the bus probably didn’t help; Clark had a hard enough time when they visited the playground and there were a lot of other children around. But when she glanced down at him, he was straining to look into the bus, curiosity sparkling in his eyes.

Martha smiled and encouraged him forward another step.

The bus driver waved Clark closer, and Martha paused as Clark took a small step away from her. “Hello there, friend,” the driver said, her smile welcoming and jovial. “You must be Clark! I’ve heard you’re going to be joining us today.”

“Th-that’s right, ma’am,” Clark said, and he straightened up tall and squared his shoulders.

Martha’s heart soared with pride.

“Wonderful. I believe Lana saved you a seat right up front, isn’t that right, Lana?”

A young girl wearing a puffy, bright-pink coat and matching mittens stuck her head up over the divider in front of the first row of seats and waved. “Hi, Clark! You can sit with me!”

And somehow, that was enough.

Martha saw Clark grin—a wide, toothy grin, his eyes lighting up. Then he nodded and reached for the railing, taking the first big step up into the bus. He stopped suddenly and turned around, still holding the railing. His smile faltered for half a second, but he recovered quickly.

“Goodbye, Martha,” he said. “I’ll see you after school?”

Martha’s heart filled with pride and joy, and she nodded. “I’ll be right here when you get home. Jonathan, too.”

He held her gaze for a moment, and then he spun back around and launched into her arms. She knelt down to meet him again, wrapping him up in another warm hug. He held her tightly and buried his head into her neck. Then he whispered, “I’ll miss you…I love you.”

Martha inhaled sharply at the deep tug in her chest. She and Jonathan had been telling him they loved him since very early on, but Clark hadn’t ever said those words to her before. She didn’t even have time to respond before Clark let go, jogged back to the bus and up the stairs, and found his spot in the first row next to Lana.

She straightened up, wrapped one arm around her midsection, and wiped a tear from her cheek as the doors to the bus closed. Then Clark waved, and she waved back, glad he wouldn’t see her hand shaking.

The bus pulled away and drove off, and she kept waving until it was out of sight around the next bend in the road. Just in case he was still watching.

Then she stood there for another minute or so, occasionally wiping tears from the corners of her eyes, before she turned and started back down the driveway toward the farmhouse.



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Chapter 15