Martha knew she'd played a bit of a dirty trick on Jonathan to get him to agree to take in Alexander. She couldn't quite feel guilty about it, though. Back at the police station, it had only taken one look at those bright blue-green eyes, the split lip, the bruising around his left cheekbone, and the scrapes covering the right side of his head, and her heart was a puddle.

Alexander's social worker arranged to bring him to the house around dinnertime the next day. Martha and Jonathan made sure to have Clark ready in the living room for when they arrived. Martha had talked to Clark a little about how they were going to have another boy living in the house, but she wasn't sure how he would react when they met—he didn't meet many new people outside of his school, and she wasn't sure if he'd ever met a bald person before.

Alexander held his shoulders stiff as he walked into the living room. A dark blue baseball cap covered most of the scrapes she'd seen the day before.

"Hats off in the house, Alexander," Jonathan said.

Alexander's face turned bright pink, and he took the hat off, lowering his eyes to the floor. He was clearly mortified about his baldness. Martha could have throttled her husband.

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Clark took a step toward Alexander. "You look way better without it."

Martha breathed in to say something, anything, but she had no idea how to make the situation less awkward. She took Clark's little hand, and knelt down beside him. "Clark, this is Alexander."

"Uh, just Lex," the teen said.

"Oh! Okay." Martha nodded and stood. "Lex, this is Clark."

"Hi, Clark," Lex said.

Clark's eyebrows raised. "Are you my new big brother?"

"Uh, no. Just staying here for a little while until my dad gets out of . . ." Lex swallowed.

"Out of what?" Clark scratched at his arm.

Martha cleared her throat. "Clark, why don't you help Daddy set the table?"

Clark's eyes shifted up to the bandages on Lex's head. "Did you get hurt? What happened?"

"Go." She gave Clark a firm pat on the back, and Jonathan a quick nod, before turning to Lex. "Let's get your bandages changed, and then I'll get dinner out of the oven."

"Thanks, Mrs. Kent."

"Of course. But, um, you might be here awhile. Why don't you call me Martha?"

"I'm not gonna be here very long."

Martha didn't know where to go from there, so she left it alone for the time being. "I'm sorry about Clark. He's six, he doesn't have much of a filter. I can talk to him if you want me to."

"No, he's okay." Lex's eyes wandered toward the kitchen. And for the first time Martha had seen, he smiled.