Over the next few days, Jonathan found that it was very easy to forget that Clark was an alien.

The child slept, no problem, but he woke up in the middle of the night, crying or running around or jumping on his bed or theirs. He ate human food, but turned up his nose at everything but cookies for the first day, preferring to drop most of his food on the floor and giggle. He ripped the toilet paper off its roll and streamed it through the house, pulled the eggs out of the carton and smashed them on the kitchen floor, and drew on the walls with his crayons.

On second thought, it wasn't so hard to imagine that he was an alien. Jonathan didn't know much about kids, but he couldn't imagine a human child being so much work to care for. And he couldn't understand how anything so small could contain so much energy.

And for that matter, how someone so small could be so intent on getting himself killed. He climbed up on the countertops, and even managed to clamber on top of the fridge once, then he would try to jump off, and they'd have to catch him before he landed. He reached for electrical outlets constantly—Jonathan suggested they try slapping his hand away, but Martha insisted he was too young and delicate for physical discipline. Jonathan worried she was coddling him too much—if Clark was too fragile for a light slap on the hand, he was definitely too fragile for 120 Volts across his body, and that's what he was going to get if they couldn't keep him away from the outlets. Martha insisted they just had to keep a closer eye on him, but it was difficult when the child ran faster than seemed fair for a toddler, and never got tired.

Martha did most of the work taking care of Clark, but that meant she couldn't help out as much on the farm, and it meant the house was in a permanent state of disarray. Every time Jonathan came into the house, Martha's hair was disheveled, she was out of breath, her cheeks were red, and she looked exhausted.

On the other hand, Jonathan had never seen Martha looking so happy. She had been serious about wanting a child, and she hadn't been under any false impressions about what it would be like.

Jonathan wanted to feel what she felt, but he didn't feel like the child was his. Not yet. He worried about whether he would ever feel like Clark was his "real" son, and he even checked out a book from the library about adoption. It said that it was normal for those parental feelings to take time to arise, especially for adoptive fathers. Jonathan was trying to be patient with himself, but he was hesitant about letting Martha know how much trouble he was having.

But he helped as much as he could. He worked on legalizing the adoption, and he got up to try to settle the child down every other time he woke them up in the middle of the night—they took turns. He helped with potty training, which was the one thing that had been mercifully easy—it only took a couple of days. And on top of taking care of the extra farm chores that arose when Martha couldn't help him out, he helped her with indoor chores that had usually been hers ever since they'd been married.

He knew all of this should make him feel like a dad. Instead, it just made him feel tired. It didn't help that the kid didn't talk at all. Laughed and cried, screamed and shouted, babbled and cooed, stomped and clapped, but didn't speak.

"Mama," Martha said to the boy one morning at breakfast time. He sat in his high chair, a small pile of Cheerios on the tray table in front of him. It had been about two weeks since they'd brought him home. "Can you say Mama?"

Clark blinked.

Jonathan sipped his coffee, leaning against the counter. "Has he spoken at all?"

"Just those little noises he makes. I haven't been able to hear any words yet." She turned back to Clark. "Mama."

The child made a little gurgling sound.

Jonathan didn't want to say anything, but he wasn't sure the child was going to be able to speak. Instead, he said, "It's probably normal, sweetie, I'm sure they didn't speak English on his planet."

Martha turned back to Jonathan and put her finger over her lips. "Don't say that in front of him," she whispered.

"Say what?"

"You know, about his planet." She mouthed the last word

Jonathan set down his coffee mug. "The kid knows he's an alien."

"Shh!"

"Martha—"

"I want our son have a normal life, and he's not going to have it if he knows about where he came from. Yes, he knows now, but he's a toddler. He's going to forget as he ages, if we don't talk about it. Then we can tell him about it when he's ready."

Jonathan clenched his teeth. He knew she was probably right, and that even if Clark didn't understand them now, it was best to get in the habit of not mentioning where the boy had come from. Still, it felt so weird to avoid talking about the elephant in the room just because a toddler might be listening to them.

Martha turned back to the baby. "Mama," she tried again.

"Lara," Clark said.

Martha gasped and jumped up from the table, turning to face Jonathan. "He said his first word!"

"Lara?" Jonathan wasn't sure that was a word.

"Yeah. It's a name."

Jonathan raised one eyebrow. "Who's Lara?"

"I don't know." Martha's eyes widened. "Maybe she's his birth mother!"

What kid's first word is their mother's first name? Jonathan thought it, but decided against saying it aloud.

Martha shrugged. "Well, maybe Mama is too hard to say."

'Lara' is harder. R's and L's were supposed to be difficult for babies. Once again, Jonathan held his tongue.

Martha turned back to the boy. "Can you say Dada? Look, see?" She took Jonathan's arm. "This is Dada."

He fought to keep from rolling his eyes. Even though the adoption paperwork was being finalized, he hadn't started thinking of himself as a dad. Not by a long shot.

Clark smiled up at Jonathan, the skin around his eyes crinkling. "Da da da da da . . ."

Against his will, Jonathan felt his insides go soft.