***
The Eyes Have It: Martha Kent
***
Your hands are clasped as tightly together as possible--not with Superman’s strength, maybe, but with all the force of a mother’s love. You’re doing your best to keep a polite smile fixed to your face while your precious boy stands less than a foot away, tense and scared and hurting. You want to shove Lois out of her own apartment, want to slam the door on the world, all so you can just pull your own son into your arms and soothe the tremor you’d heard in his voice--no matter how he tried to hide it--over the phone.
It’s always been hard, to hide the wonderful differences about Clark, to pretend you don’t know Superman more than just as a passing acquaintance made through Clark Kent, the reporter, and a passing encounter on the new subway during an emergency. Never as hard as this, though. Never as excruciating as the stilted act you are all forced to play out simply because of a change of clothes.
Jonathan is doing what he can, your helpmeet, your partner. You know he wants to see Clark--not the stranger standing in his Suit, awkward in his façade before his parents--as badly as you do, but he knows you need it more, so he tugs Lois to the door. His own fear and love and concern are like tangible presences against your back, more witnesses to this whole tedious scene, but all you can focus on are the inches separating you from Clark and the fact that Lois is at least outside her apartment now.
Then the door closes, and he is your boy, and you are holding him. Not quite as easy to do now as it once was, but that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters next to the feel of him in your arms, and the scent of him so near you--different from that scent only small babies have, as he had when he was young, even when you’d just pulled him from a spaceship--but familiar all the same.
You need that familiarity to counter the jarring strangeness of the way Clark stares so blankly in front of him.
Your boy! Your baby boy, so good and kind and full of his own faults, sure, but with such a good heart. You’ve loved him, you sometimes think, even before you met him, as if your fierce longing for children was just the premature love for a baby who had not yet arrived on Earth. As if you could ever not fly to his side when he is in trouble! As if there was any chance at all of you not coming to hold him and wish you had just a little bit of his invulnerability so you could shelter him and protect his vulnerable, compassionate heart.
“Oh, Clark, honey, of course we’re here!” you manage to say, words squeezed out through the vise around your heart and the lump in your throat. “You dad and I love you more than anything on this earth!”
And you do. You really, really do. If his people showed up right this instant and told you they were taking him away, you’d demand they take you too. You’d go with him without a second thought, and even though Jonathan loves the land that has been in his family for generations, you know he would go too.
Because this is your son. Because for all his strength, he is so fragile in some ways. So often in danger. So worth any sacrifice.
Clark, your son, your baby boy, and he is hurting, and there is nothing you can do. It is not a new feeling, but it is your least favorite. It writhes inside you with hated helplessness, and as tightly as you hold onto him, you cannot quite hold on tightly enough.
Then, the same miracle that has occurred countless times since shortly after you found this beautiful boy but one you never, ever take for granted. The miracle you think of when you watch news reports showing a red and blue blur flashing into the heart of every danger, facing every human tragedy, taking on the weight of the world. The miracle you feel and embrace and savor when Clark drops by for visits, to confide in you and ask for advice, or just to sit with you and talk of Lois and apple pie.
This man from another planet, this young man who you have held and loved, leans into you, and his entire body relaxes. Uncoils. And he tightens his own grip on you. So gently, because you know what he is capable of, but so incredibly tightly.
And your helplessness doesn’t matter anymore. Not with him hugging you. Not with him holding onto you. Because you know, no matter what happens, no matter what this world throws at him, he will never let you go.
***
