After they worked together to do the dishes and clean the kitchen, she curled up beside him on the wide wooden swing on his porch and they watched the neighborhood bustle with life on a beautiful fall morning. Everyone who passed waved or stopped to say hello, and after yet another cheerful greeting, she began to giggle.
Clark pulled back to look at her quizzically and she lifted her head from his shoulder and smiled at him, then reached up to stroke his cheek. “Is there anyone in this town who doesn’t adore you?”
He rolled his eyes and laughed. “They all just want a glimpse of the pretty girl who came for the corn festival. They are far more interested in you than me.”
In the distance, the church bell chimed ten times and Lois tensed automatically. He tightened his arm around her shoulder, and she rested her head against him again, trying not to think about the ticking clock.
“It’s only five weeks until Fall Break,” he said quietly.
She nodded. She was holding back the tears through sheer force of will, and there was no way she would be able to speak without her voice cracking.
“I don’t want to pressure you,” he said slowly. “You can come any time in November. Anytime…at all. You’re always…. I always want you here. But you should think about Thanksgiving. My mom wasn’t kidding about wanting to have you. And I would really love that.”
She was quiet, his heartfelt invitation prompting another wave of tears prickling at her eyes, swelling the already thick lump in her throat.
“No pressure,” he repeated. “We haven’t really discussed holidays. I don’t know what you usually do.”
“I usually just work,” she admitted quietly. When he didn’t respond right away, she took a breath and continued. “A few years ago, Lucy and I went to my mom’s place in New York for Thanksgiving. It was miserable. Every year since, she pretends to invite us, and we pretend we can’t come because we have to work. And then she goes on a cruise, and Lucy…does whatever Lucy does, and I work.”
“What about your dad?” he asked quietly.
She shrugged. “My dad barely bothered to show up to Thanksgiving even when he lived with us. I haven’t seen him in person in years. He’s working at Cedars-Sinai now, and….” She shrugged again. Los Angeles was about as far as he could get from Metropolis, and it might as well have been another planet.
“I called him last year after I won the Pulitzer,” she said. “I thought maybe… I don’t know. He seemed happy for me. Perry was hosting a reception. I thought maybe… I was in the middle of inviting him when something happened in the lab, and he had to hang up abruptly. He said he would call me back, but….” She shrugged, not bothering to finish the sentence just as he hadn’t bothered to call back.
She gave a brief mirthless laugh. “It must have reminded him to have his new secretary start sending us birthday cards again though. I got a card from him in May.”
She could feel him stiffen in confusion. “Your birthday-”
“Lucy’s birthday is in May,” she said.
He took a deep, slow breath and she lifted her head to look at him. She had avoided this discussion because she didn’t want his pity. But this wasn’t pity, it was fury. She watched him consider and reject multiple responses.
“Please come for Thanksgiving,” he said finally, calm again. He held her gaze, “I want you to come so badly. It’s always so much fun, and it will be better if you’re here.”
She hesitated for just another second – imagining a louder, more crowded version of last night – and then nodded.
His face lit up with a smile. “Really?”
“Yeah,” she said, all the disappointment and loneliness of past Thanksgivings melting away.
He kissed her, and she laughed at the unabashed joy on his face. She had never known it could feel so good to make someone else happy. And she had never imagined that her presence could be the thing to make someone so happy.
She laid her head back on his shoulder, and they rocked in silence for a minute.
“Oh, here we go,” Clark said suddenly, clearly amused.
She lifted her head to look at him, confused, and he jerked his head toward the intersection just north of his house, where Lana and Pete and their kids were turning the corner.
The kids spotted him immediately and started waving and jumping up and down. Their parents held onto their hands long enough to get them safely across the street, and then released them. Untethered, the children took off, sprinting past three houses. Sophie pulled ahead and Lois heard Caleb whine, “No fair! Wait for me!”
Sophie had no intention of waiting though and cut across Clark’s lawn, making a beeline for the porch steps.
“Uncle Clark! Uncle Clark! We’re going to the playground! And Daddy said we could come this way and say hi only if you were on the porch! No knocking on the door because you might be busy! And Mommy said there was no way you were going to be on the porch! But you are!”
Every sentence was punctuated with an exclamation mark, and Lois was fairly certain it had all been expelled in a single breath. She raised an eyebrow at that last sentence, and Clark laughed.
By the time Sophie had made it up the stairs and into Clark’s lap, Caleb was halfway across the yard.
“Mommy said there would be no way we would be on the porch, huh?” Clark probed, giving Lois a wink and a grin over Sophie’s head.
“She said Lois has to leave soon and she was sure you had better things to do than sit on the front porch. But here you are!”
“Here we are,” Clark echoed, and Lois could see him struggling not to laugh as Caleb launched himself onto the swing as well.
They listened as both kids talked over one another, chattering about the park and the corn festival and the pancakes they’d had for breakfast. Lois listened quietly, and she watched Clark engage with them, responding with appropriate shock and awe to all their pronouncements.
“Do you like pancakes, Lois?” Caleb asked her suddenly, scooting onto her lap.
She was stunned for a moment, not expecting to be anything but an observer to this interaction.
“Sure,” she said finally, smiling at the little boy’s expectant face. “But you know what I like even better? French toast. That’s what Uncle Clark made us for breakfast today.”
She was immediately met with a chorus of whines and shrieks of “no fair!”
“French toast is our favorite! We always have it on sleepover nights,” Sophie told her, and then turned to Clark. “When can we have another sleepover?”
“Yeah! Sleepover!” Caleb agreed.
Clark laughed. “Maybe next weekend. Go ask your parents.”
The kids were out of their laps and down the stairs in record time, nearly colliding with Pete and Lana who were coming up the front walk.
Clark turned to her and smiled sheepishly as he slid his arm back around her shoulders. “Sorry, I didn’t know-”
“Don’t apologize,” she said, resting a hand on his thigh and squeezing gently. “They’re fine. They’re adorable.”
Lois generally had very little use for children and honestly never gave them much thought as long as they weren’t personally inconveniencing her. But it was impossible not to be charmed by Lana’s children, particularly when it was so obvious how bonded they were to Clark.
“Sorry to intrude,” Pete said as he climbed the stairs. “I told them we could walk this way, but I didn’t think you’d actually be out on the porch.”
“Yes,” Lana said slowly, her appraising gaze moving back and forth between them. “We thought you’d be otherwise occupied.”
“Well, we were enjoying a nice quiet conversation before your minions descended on us,” Clark teased. Said minions were running amok in the yard, shrieking about the sleepover their parents had apparently agreed to.
They made small talk for a few minutes, and then just as Pete and Lana started making noises about leaving and heading to the playground, Sophie appeared on the porch needing to use the bathroom. Since they were going inside anyway, Clark volunteered to grab his copy of In the Lake of the Woods for Lana, who was dying to read it after listening to Lois and Clark banter about their theories at dinner the first night of her visit, leaving Lois on the porch with Pete and Caleb.
“Did you have a nice visit?” Pete asked, once they were alone.
She nodded immediately. “It was great. I can’t believe it’s over already. It went by so quickly.”
“You’ll have to come again,” Pete said with a quick smile.
Lois hesitated, then smiled nervously. “I’ll be back for Thanksgiving.”
Pete raised an eyebrow, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Okay, then. That’ll be nice.”
Before she could think of anything else to say, Mrs. Murphy pulled into her driveway next door and gave a quick wave. They returned her wave, and Pete greeted her by name. When he saw her open the door to the backseat and begin to pull out bags of groceries, Pete turned to Lois.
“I’m going to go help her with those. Are you okay?” he asked, tilting his head toward Caleb, who was on his knees at the top of the steps rummaging in Lana’s oversized bag.
“Of course,” she said. “Go ahead.”
Pete jogged over, calling to Mrs. Murphy to wait and let him help, and Lois couldn’t help but smile. It was no wonder he and Clark were such good friends. They had the same quiet kindness about them.
Caleb emerged victorious with an obviously well loved book. He looked up and glanced around, and Lois could tell he was just realizing that both his parents were gone.
“Your dad just went next door,” Lois said, pointing. “He’ll be right back.”
“Will you read my book?” he asked, holding it up, apparently not at all worried about his dad’s disappearance.
Lois nodded, happy to grant an easy request rather than fill the silence with awkward conversation. Caleb came over to the swing, and climbed up, settling himself in her lap again, and she laughed softly at his innocence.
He handed her the book, and she smiled at the cheerful collection of barnyard animals. “I remember this book from when I was a little girl,” she said.
“Really?” Caleb asked.
“Sure, it was one of my little sister’s favorites. I used to read it to her all the time.”
“It’s my favorite too! My Nana and Papa have a red barn just like that! And they have horses too. I like to feed them apples and carrots.”
“Really?” she said. “I’ve never fed a horse before.”
“You have to be real brave,” he said solemnly, twisting to face her. “And you have to do your hand like this,” he added, taking her hand and turning it over and palm up and stretching the fingers out flat. “So the horses don’t accidentally nibble you.”
She looked at his sweet, serious face and his big brown eyes and was suddenly completely smitten with this little boy. “Maybe next time I visit, we can feed the horses. Uncle Clark took me to his parents’ barn, but they didn’t have any animals.”
Caleb shook his head in pity. “Yeah, they only got chickens. My Nana and Papa got horses and goats. When Sophie gets big enough, she’s gonna get her own baby goat for 4H.”
“And you too?” Lois asked. “When you’re big enough?”
Caleb shook his head. “Uh uh, I’m getting a llama.”
Lois stifled a laugh, and Caleb twisted back around and setted his back against her chest, and she held the book in front of him.
“The Big Red Barn. By Margaret Wise Brown,” she read softly. She opened the cover and continued. “By the big red barn…in the great green field…there was a pink pig…who was learning to squeal. There was a great big horse…and a very little horse…and on every barn…is a weather vane, of course – a golden, flying horse.”
They read and rocked, snuggled together in the warm autumn sun. Lulled by the gentle cadence of the book and the swaying of the porch swing, Lois forgot for a moment about her impending flight and leaving Clark and her investigation and all the wonderful but scary changes in her life, and just let the innocent story unfold.
She heard the front door open and expected Sophie to burst out and interrupt the story, but no one said a thing, and Caleb didn’t turn, so she kept reading. “And there they were…all night long…sound asleep…in the big red barn. Only the mice were left to play…rustling and squeaking in the hay. While the moon sailed high…in the dark night sky.”
The story finished, she turned and looked to the doorway and found Clark standing alone, watching her. “Hi,” he said softly, when her eyes met his.
“Hi,” she replied with a shy smile.
“I see you made a friend.” His eyes were full of affection and longing, and she saw him again, standing in the kitchen doorway watching her the same way as she sat at his kitchen table with her investigation before her. Her stomach fluttered, imagining the future he was seeing; equal parts thrilling and terrifying.
She smiled and rested her cheek for a moment against the little boy’s sandy brown curls.
“We were just doing a little light reading,” she teased. “A little research. On barns. And the animals that are supposed to live in them.”
She closed the book and held it up, and she watched Clark’s face as he processed her words and his eyes drifted to the cover and took in the collection of farm animals standing in front of the barn. He threw back his head and laughed.
The door opened again, and Lana and Sophie stepped out. Lana looked from Lois to Clark. “What’s so funny?”
Clark shook his head, but Lois lifted the book in Lana’s direction. “I have it on good authority that barns are supposed to contain pink pigs, and big and little horses, and sheep and donkeys, and geese and goats. But Clark acted like I was an idiot when I was surprised by the complete lack of farm animals in his parents’ barn.”
Lana laughed. “He offered you a tour, and you were expecting fluffy sheep and fat little piglets?”
“Yes!” Lois replied. “I got cheated. It was just a bunch of machinery.”
Caleb patted her on the arm, and turned to look at her. “Don’t worry. You can come to my Nana and Papa’s barn next time.”
“Thank you,” Lois said solemnly, Then she turned to Clark and grinned at him. “At least someone around here knows how to show a city girl some real farm action.”
Clark and Lana both laughed, and Lana reached for the book, replacing it in her bag and sliding the strap over her shoulder. Pete emerged from the house next door and headed their way.
“Time to say goodbye,” Lana said. “Caleb, say thank you to Lois for reading your book.”
“Thank you!” Caleb said automatically. Then he twisted in her lap and threw his arms around her neck, hugging her tightly. Lois froze for just a second, caught off guard again by his impulsive affection, before returning the hug.
He pulled back, and she released him, but he didn’t immediately hop off her lap. “Will you read me more books when you come back next time?” he asked, big brown eyes full of hope.
“Of course,” she said with a smile.
“Will you come next week for the sleepover?” he asked eagerly.
Lois felt the lump return to her throat as she shook her head regretfully.
“Not next week,” she said. “But soon. I’ll see you at Thanksgiving.”
“Okay!” he said, hopping down. Over his head, she saw Lana look up at her in surprise, and then smile.
Lois stood, joining the general bustle of activity on the porch as Pete and Lana tried to herd the kids away to the playground. Pete nodded a quick goodbye in her direction, and led Caleb down the steps by the hand, Sophie hot on their heels.
“So,” Lana said when it was just the three of them. “Thanksgiving?”
Lois nodded, a flutter of nerves in her stomach. And then Lana’s arms were around her in a tight hug, and Lois was laughing, understanding exactly where Caleb’s impulsive affection came from.
“Good,” Lana said, when they separated. She rummaged briefly in the bag she was carrying and came out with a small notepad and a purple pen. She handed both to Lois. “Give me your email address. I’ll email you when I remember the name of that book I was telling you about. And you can keep me up to date on your travel plans since some people obviously cannot be trusted with that task.”
She shot Clark a dirty look, and Lois laughed wondering how long it would take her to forgive him for neglecting to mention this visit. She wrote her email address on the notepad dutifully and handed it back.
Lana hugged her quickly one more time and told her to have a safe flight, then told Clark she would see him the next day, and trotted down the steps and out to the sidewalk to catch up with her family. Caleb twisted around one last time and called out a final goodbye to Lois, and Clark chuckled.
“Is there anyone in this town who doesn’t adore you?” he teased, and she laughed, reveling in this foreign feeling of belonging.
She reached for him and he kissed her gently. When they pulled apart, he held out a hand to her, and she expected him to lead her back to the swing. Instead, he tugged her toward the door.
“We need to go inside,” he said, his voice low and intimate, quickening her heart automatically.
“Why?” she asked, allowing him to lead her toward the door.
“Because I need to kiss you in a way that will scandalize my neighbors,” he said, reaching for the door knob, and she laughed with delight and anticipation as he dropped her hand and pressed his palm against the small of her back, ushering her into the house.
