My earliest memories are of smiles. Smiles are strange things, so the same, but so different. A smile is defined as a facial expression characterized by an upward curving of the corners of the mouth and sparkling of the eyes. While this is true as a blanket fact, there are many kinds of smiles. The genuine smile of the truly happy, the awkward smiles of those with something to hide, the silly smiles that everyone gets around babies, the worried smile parents get when they recognize their child’s independence, the self-satisfied smile of someone who has just gotten what they wanted, and the forced smile that never quite reaches the eyes. These are just a few of the many smiles I’ve seen, and things get really confusing when there’s more then one smile on the same face. There’s one smile though, that haunts me. It comes to mind when I least want it to, it invades my dreams at night. The smile my step-father would give. So contented…so open…so…chilling.
My earliest memory with any clarity is of flying. Not the free-of-gravity boundless flight I enjoy now. Not even the secure feeling of being held tight by my dad above the clouds. No, I remember gravity-defying jumps, the grip on a cold metal bar, the thrill of a flawless flip, and the decent. My impact ripped the mat, I didn’t learn why until years later. I was only four years old, competing against children twice my age in gymnastics.
I won, of course. What else do you expect from a Luthor-Lane? Of course, I’m a Kent as well, so I distinctly remember telling Lex we needed to pay for the mat I broke. Even then I understood that everything costs money, a lesson I learned very well from my step-father before I could even walk.
Growing up, I was always a little stronger, a little faster, and a little smarter then my peers. ‘A little better’, Lex kept trying to tell me. I never believed him. How could I believe I was better than Danny Phelps? Danny, who stood outside LNN in all kinds of weather, selling candy, so his soccer team could get transportation to its games? Danny, who was my only friend growing up. I’d buy a candy bar from him every day and store it in the freezer. Then, when Christmas came, I’d give them all to the orphanage. Well…most of them, anyway. Lex never could stand my altruistic nature, so he always made me eat a few. I didn’t object, of course. What five-year-old girl objects to chocolate?
Or what six-year-old girl; or seven-year-old girl; or eight-year-old girl?
When I was nine, Danny stopped selling candy. To this day, I don’t know what happened to him. He was only three years older then me, so he was twelve then. He probably stopped playing soccer. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I don’t like thinking about the other possibilities.
On the other hand, Lex was never really quite so bad. At least, not to me. Of course, I think by the time he was nine he knew I could hurt him if I wanted to. I don’t quite remember how old I was, but when I was still very little, Lex and I would wrestle. My mom, Lois, would always tease him about letting me win so realistically. I was eavesdropping the night he told her that he’d stopped letting me win almost a month ago. Lex stopped wrestling with me a few days later. That was when he started me on his ‘special games’. Oh, nothing inappropriate or anything like that. Just…he’d have me run around this track as fast as I could. Sometimes he’d put obstacles in my way to see how well I maneuvered them. He’d make me lift things for him, heavy things. Every time the thing stopped feeling so heavy, he’d have me lift something heavier. It was like that for…well…all my childhood basically. Mom never found out until I was an adult.
Even though I was taught by a private tutor, I spent all the regular school holidays with my dad. He’d lived in Metropolis for a while, worked at the Daily Planet with mom. Oh yes, we went over that last time. Now it was different, dad had gone back to Smallville. He worked on the Smallville Gazette. I still have some copies of the articles he wrote for it. I still remember the pride in his voice the day he scooped the Daily Planet. Of course, he felt guilty too. I later learned it was because he used his superpowers to get the story.
Like every kid my age, I grew up hearing about Superman. ‘If you get lost, first scream for Superman, then blow your whistle for help’ ‘Superman helps everyone’ ‘Did you hear about Superman bringing in that airplane?’ ‘Don’t yell too loudly when you have nightmares, it might make Superman come.’ That last was what Lex always said to me. I went through a phase when I was about seven where I kept having nightmares. I got over it quickly. I didn’t know the truth about Superman though. Not yet, anyway. It was the summer I was about to turn ten that my life crashed in around me. Or…rather, the kitchen floor in Smallville crashed in UNDER me when I started jumping up and down for excitement over Grandma Martha’s cookies.
It was that summer that I learned my daddy was Superman.
