For a few weeks every autumn, during the harvest, Jonathan was not only unable to invest as much time as he wanted into his family—he was unable to give them any time at all. The little time he did spend with Clark and Martha was mostly while doing chores. So as soon as things started to slow down, Martha made a point in setting up an evening play date with Clark and Pete at the Ross's house, so that she and Jonathan could go on a much-needed date. This would be their first dinner out alone in years. And the afternoon before their dinner out, Jonathan spent some time with Clark.

He took him on a walk out to the creek, letting him jump in piles of fallen leaves and splash in puddles before meandering along the side of the rushing water. One nice thing about parenting Clark was that Jonathan didn't feel the need to warn his son against getting too close to the water. He didn't have to fear that Clark would trip and get himself scraped up, and he never worried the boy might fall into the water and drown.

Clark bent down and picked something up from the side of the water. "Look, Daddy! This one's shiny!" He held up a smooth little grey rock.

Jonathan smiled. His eyes skimmed along the edge of the water—some different colors of rocks caught his eye. He walked forward a few steps and picked up a couple of green rocks, taking them back to Clark and holding them out. "Look at these ones."

Clark wrinkled his nose and took a step back. "I don't like those ones."

Jonathan shrugged. Five-year-olds could be so opinionated. He tossed the rocks into the water.

Clark sped ahead—a little faster than Jonathan would have allowed if there was anyone watching, but they were alone—and picked up a handful of bright red rocks. "Look at these!"

"Those are neat."

"They're my favoritest."

Jonathan chuckled. "Well, do you want to take some home?"

"Yes!" He picked up a few of the rocks and stuffed them in his pocket.

Something about that small action seemed to bring out an energy in him that Jonathan had never seen before. He started leaping from one boulder to the next, crossing the creek and coming back again.

Even knowing Clark couldn't be injured, Jonathan couldn't help calling out, "Hey, be careful."

"I don't have to be." Clark laughed.

Jonathan considered chiding the boy for contradicting him, but it wasn't important enough. He could choose his battles. This was precious time with his son. "I guess that's true," he said.

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When they got back to the house, Jonathan sat down with Clark for a minute while Martha was finishing up making Clark something to eat before going over to the Ross house. Clark had his little red pebbles on the table, and he was stacking them up into little piles and knocking them down.

"I like these," he said. "I'm gonna show Pete."

"That's fine," Jonathan said. "Now, look at me."

Clark sighed heavily and scooped up the rocks, putting them in his pocket.

"Son, you're going to be well behaved at Pete's house and do everything Mr. and Mrs. Ross tell you to, right?"

For the first time Jonathan had ever seen, he rolled his eyes. "You always give this speech."

Jonathan raised his eyebrows. "You wanna try that again, without the attitude?"

Clark's voice softened a bit. "I won't show anyone my secrets, okay?"

Jonathan tousled his hair, choosing to let it go for the time being. "I know you won't."

"So I can have cookies, right?" Clark raced over to the kitchen at full speed—he was little more than a blur—and climbed up onto the counter to grab the cookie jar.

"Hey." Martha put down the spoon she'd been using to dish up his dinner and took Clark's arm. "Dinner first."

Clark grinned. "I'll just eat these for dinner."

"No, you won't." She snatched the cookie jar from him. "You need something healthy. We have leftover casserole from last night."

"Eww. You're not good at making casserole." Clark jumped off the counter and raced over to foot of the stairs.

"Clark!" Martha's voice caught.

Jonathan stood from the table and called after him, "Clark, you come right back over here and apologize to your mother."

"Why?"

"Because you hurt her feelings."

"That's not my fault. She's the one who made gross casserole."

Jonathan felt his pulse in his ears. He had anticipating possibly having to deal with this kind of behavior when Clark was a teenager, but he had not expected to have to deal with it from a five-year-old. "That's enough. No more cookies for the rest of today. If you don't come apologize to your mother now, you won't have any tomorrow, either."

Clark giggled. "You can't stop me. I'm fast!"

Jonathan and Martha exchanged a glance—that was new.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Clark," Martha said, "go up to your room and get a jacket. We're leaving for your playdate."

"I don't get cold," Clark said.

Jonathan crossed his arms. "I've had enough of your arguing. Do as your mother says."

"Fiiine." Clark trudged up the stairs, clicking together the rocks in his pocket all the way up.

Shaking his head, Jonathan turned over to Martha. "Is he acting up because I've been so busy?"

Martha frowned at the staircase. "No, I don't think so. This is the first I've seen him act like this."

"Well, he'd better figure it out," Jonathan said. "No son of mine is allowed to treat his mother this way."

Martha stepped into Jonathan's arms, and he wrapped his around her. He'd forced his voice to sound firm and confident, but when it came down to it, he had no idea how he was going to handle his son's newfound rebellious streak.

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When Martha and Jonathan came by to pick up Clark, he was jumping on Pete's bed. Abigail Ross claimed that everything had been alright during Clark's visit, but she looked frazzled and she was out of breath and sweating a little, and they were barely out of the door when they heard her starting to scold Pete.

Jonathan waited until they got in the car to begin with Clark. "Clark, did you do everything Mrs. Ross asked you to do tonight?"

"Maybe," he said. "I wasn't really listening to her."

"Were you supposed to be jumping on the bed?"

"It was fun." Clark stood up on the backseat of the truck and bounced.

"Sit down and put your seatbelt back on," Martha said.

"No, I don't wanna."

"Do as your mother says,"

"No."

"Clark," Jonathan warned, angling the rearview mirror to look at his son. "I've had it with this behavior."

Clark wrinkled his nose. "You're bein' dumb."

"Do you want your hand slapped?" Jonathan barely refrained from wincing as he made the threat.

"I don't care. It doesn't hurt."

Jonathan had no idea what to say to that.

They failed to get Clark to go to bed that night. He sped away whenever any of them came near him; he wiggled away the one time Jonathan did manage to catch him, wrenching Jonathan's arm painfully in the process. For the first time, though, when Jonathan told Clark that he had hurt him with his strength, Clark didn't show any remorse. He just said a quick, "Sorry!" and went back to running around the house.

At one in the morning, Jonathan told Martha to go ahead and go to bed. Jonathan stayed up to try to get his son down—chasing after him, imploring him, begging, threatening, bribing, appealing to reason and empathy and affection and anything else he could think of, even shedding tears once or twice. Clark just kept laughing and running away.

Finally, at three in the morning, Jonathan gave up. He went to bed. When he trudged up the stairs, he left Clark jumping on the couch in the living room, a half-eaten cookie in each hand.

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Jonathan woke after less than three hours of sleep with an aching back and neck and heavy eyelids. He stepped down into the living room to find Clark drowsily laying on his stomach in the living room. He had those little red pebbles out in front of him, and he was rolling them into each other as if they were marbles.

Taking a deep breath, Jonathan came to stand over Clark. "You're going to put those away and go to bed. Now."

"No."

Jonathan was done with this. In one motion, he scooped up the handful of rocks in one hand and lifted Clark up onto his shoulder with the other arm.

"Hey!"

Jonathan didn't know exactly what he was doing. He just knew that for a short time, he had an advantage—his son was exhausted. He walked out of the house and headed toward the barn.

Clark slammed a hand into Jonathan's back.

Jonathan sucked in a breath through his teeth, but managed to keep from stumbling. "Clark, that is not okay."

"Give me my rocks!"

"No."

"Daaaad!"

"You know you're not supposed to hit people."

"But they're my rocks!"

"I don't care." Jonathan acted on impulse—he shifted Clark on his shoulder and threw the rocks away from himself as hard as he could.

Clark was silent. He struggled weakly for a few seconds.

Then he erupted into tears.

Jonathan could have kicked himself. No matter how Clark had behaved, this was not the kind of parent he wanted to be.

Once they were in the barn, he let Clark down and placed him down on a hay bale, kneeling in front of the boy. "Son."

"I'm sorry Daddy."

Jonathan blinked. Somehow, he had finally gotten through to his son. He was in such uncharted waters, he had to take any opportunity he could to speak to the child. "You've been very disrespectful these past couple of days. You hurt Mom's feelings and you wouldn't apologize, you disobeyed us over and over, you misbehaved at the Ross house, you broke the rules about bedtime and about eating dessert before dinner, and you hit me."

Clark's eyes widened with each offense Jonathan listed, his jaw dropping. It was almost surreal, as if Clark hadn't realized what he was doing until just now. "That was really bad!"

Jonathan frowned. "What do you think we should do?"

Clark's lower lip trembled, then he tucked his face into the crook of one elbow and held the other hand out to his father, palm down. His face scrunched up in a deep wince, and his shoulders shook.

Jonathan swallowed hard—somehow, the guilt must have been shredding the boy. Still, he couldn't help but say, "Thought you said that doesn't hurt."

"It hurts my heart. So bad." Clark said into his arm, keeping his hand held out.

"Oh, little guy." Jonathan made a silent vow to himself never to threaten his son in that way again—it had far too great an effect on the child, even if the effect was delayed. He took the little hand offered to him and kissed it, then wrapped it in both of his own. "Let me put it a different way. What do you think you should do?"

Clark sniffled and took his arm away from his face. "Say sorry to Mommy and make her a picture?"

"I think that's a good start." Jonathan gently stroked the back of his son's fingers with his thumb. "How about for Mrs. Ross?"

"Say sorry too?"

Jonathan nodded. "I'm going to take you over there later today to apologize, but you're not going to get to play with Pete or have any cookies this weekend."

"Aww." Clark looked down. "But can I have my rocks back?"

"Do you think you should get them back?"

Clark wiped at his eyes. "No."

Jonathan ran a hand through his son's hair. He felt bad about that part, but even if he wanted to cave and give Clark his rocks back, he wasn't going to be able to find them again.

"I'm sorry." Clark yawned.

"You're also going to take a nap."

Clark held up both arms, and Jonathan lifted him, cradling him gently against his chest and walking back toward the house.

The whole situation had been strange, to say the least. One moment, Clark had been a perfectly sweet, happy kid; the next, a spoiled little tyrant. Then, less than twenty-four hours later, back to his usual, good-natured self. Jonathan had to wonder if he'd eaten something that had disagreed with him, somehow, or if he was going through some kind of alien mood swings.

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"I did really, really bad stuff."

"I know." Jonathan rubbed the boy's back as he walked. After the night they'd had, part of Jonathan felt like Clark was getting off awfully easy. Jonathan's instinct was to pile on punishments, forcing the boy to feel the full weight of his wrongdoing, but for some reason, he didn't need to—Clark understood. Besides, he was all of five years old, and he was usually an exceptionally good kid. He was entitled to a bad day every now and then. A few natural consequences of his actions would be more than enough to nudge him back on the right track. "I forgive you."

"Are you mad?"

"No, I'm not."

It was quiet for a moment before Clark asked, in a small voice, "Do you still love me?"

Jonathan tightened his grip. "I love you very, very much, little guy. I always will."

"I love you too, Daddy." His soft, damp cheek rested on Jonathan's shoulder, and his breathing evened out.