“Oh, Mom,” Clark moaned, his head in his hands. He sat at his parents’ breakfast table, having finally landed in Kansas after flying all night long. He was now pouring out his confession to his mother, thankful, for once, that his father wasn’t around. The phrase ‘dissect you like a frog’ was already reverberating through his head; he didn’t need his Dad to actually voice it. “I’ve ruined everything. One stupid moment of anger, and I put myself at risk – put you and Dad at risk. How could I do it? Why did I let her make me so crazy...so incredibly furious?”
“Because you love her,” Martha said simply, reaching out to touch his shoulder soothingly.
“I don’t,” he insisted, twitching away from the tender gesture. “This can’t be love. Nothing this…this awful can possibly be love. I admit I thought it was, but it’s not. I wouldn’t love someone like her. She’s...shallow. And manipulative. Heartless.”
“Well, she’s a little shallow, maybe,” Martha conceded. “And everyone’s manipulative at times.”
“Trust me, Mom. Lois takes it to the next level.”
“More than anything, she sounds confused to me,” Martha said. “And like it or not, you share in the responsibility for that.”
Clark looked at her, incredulous. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
She shook her head. “I’m not taking sides, sweetie.”
“Yes,” he insisted. “Yes, you are! You’re my Mom. You’re supposed to take a side. My side.”
“No, I’m supposed to help you see reason when maybe you’re just a little too close to the situation to see it for yourself. You put a lot of effort into convincing Lois that you were two completely different people, and now you’re blaming her for believing it. You confused her, Clark, and you did it deliberately.”
“I confused everyone, Mom! I had to.”
“Maybe so, but Lois is the only one you’re angry at for not seeing through the charade.”
“I can’t believe this,” Clark snapped, scraping back his chair and standing up, preparing to escape.
“Clark Jerome Kent!” his mother said sharply, pointing a finger at him. “We’re not finished here.”
“Yes we are,” Clark said, but he moderated his tone. “I can’t talk about this anymore, Mom.”
“Fine,” she said. “So don’t talk. But I still have some things to say, and you’re going to sit down and hear them.”
His jaw clenched, but out of long habit of obedience, he dropped back into his chair and gave his mother an expectant, if truculent, look.
“Good enough.” Martha rolled her eyes. “Now, here are the facts as I see them: Clark Kent went to Metropolis, met Lois Lane, and decided he was through wandering the world. Only you know how related those last two things might be, but your father and I have always thought they were pretty much cause and effect.” She paused for a response from her son, but he was sitting stony-faced, refusing to give anything away. She sighed, clearly exasperated, and went on. “Then Clark Kent had his mother sew him an outlandish costume and began moonlighting as a superhero, going to a great deal of trouble to make sure that no one would suspect he and Superman are one and the same. The first thing he did as Superman was to save the Messenger shuttle, appearing in glorious red and blue to swallow a bomb and then single-handedly lift the shuttle into space. The second thing he did was to choose one reporter out of all the ones covering the launch and sweep her up into his arms and fly her back to The Daily Planet. Remind me, honey – which reporter was that again?”
Clark gave her a baleful look, to which she responded with a gentle smile.
“Don’t you see, sweetie?” she said, covering his hands with her own. “You singled Lois out – as Superman – from practically the very first minute. You brought this crush of hers on yourself. You’ve never for one second treated her like the other reporters. And I know why, and you know why, but how on earth was Lois supposed to know it?”
Clark shook his head. “I don’t know, Mom. But even though I might have...flirted with her a little as Superman, it doesn’t change the fact that she didn’t know anything about him and threw herself at him anyway. The guy’s an alien! He could have lived in a...a pod somewhere and survived on dead rats for all she knew.”
Martha blinked at him. “That’s...one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard you say, son. But let’s go with it for a minute. Yes, Superman was born on another planet, to another race of people, and I happen to know that one of his biggest fears has always been that he wouldn’t be able to find a woman who could deal with that...could accept his differences, whatever they might be. No, he doesn’t live in a pod or eat, um… rats,” she wrinkled her nose slightly and then went on, “but he does shave with his eyes and float in his sleep and dash off at a moment’s notice to save the lives of total strangers. A lot of women might find that disturbing or, at the very least, disruptive. But here’s Lois, prepared to accept him for exactly what he is...prepared to love him in spite of any of his differences.”
“No,” Clark said bitterly. “She was prepared to love him because of his differences. Because as far as she could see, he was perfect. I mean, it’s great that she’s not prejudiced against me because I’m from Krypton, and you’re right – that’s always been a fear of mine. But being loved only because I’m Kryptonian is just as bad. Is it too much to ask for someone who loves the whole package?”
Martha laughed. “Oh, honey! Of course it’s not too much to ask. The catch is that you have to be willing to show someone the whole package, or you’ll never know.”
“I guess what I wanted was for her to love Clark first,” he said, “and then I would have told her everything.”
“And I can understand that,” Martha said, “but as Clark, you had a lot of strikes against you right from the start that Superman has never had. You told me a long time ago that Lois saw you as a rival at first.”
“Yeah, but we’d gotten past that.”
“But you were still a professional colleague,” Martha said, “and Lois seems like the type that would be cautious about getting involved with a colleague.”
Clark looked thoughtful for a minute. “Yeah. She told me...well, it’s not important. But yeah, there are reasons she would have been cautious about that.”
“So why would she have taken that risk when she could have you as a friend still have the hope of Superman? Hope that you gave her? Honestly, Clark, it’s a darn good thing you are invulnerable, as much time as you’ve spent shooting yourself in the foot.”
Clark glared at her again. “Don’t tell me you’re not taking sides. Is this a woman thing? You just all stick together, even against your own son?”
Martha smiled. “No, honey. I’m just trying to help you see things from Lois’s perspective.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Mom, but that’s a waste of time now. Lois doesn’t love me, and I’ve realized that I couldn’t really have loved her either. It was...infatuation, I guess. The problem isn’t my relationship with Lois – not anymore. The problem is that I just ticked off the best reporter in Metropolis and then, just to make life interesting, told her my biggest secret. And let’s not forget that she could very well be Lex Luthor’s fiancée by now, and he’d like nothing more than to have me at his mercy.” Clark ran his hand through his hair restlessly. “I’ve put you and Dad in incredible danger.”
Martha waved a careless hand. “Oh, nonsense, Clark. Lois isn’t going to expose you. She loves you far too much to do that.”
Clark goggled at her. “Mom, are you crazy? This is Lois Lane we’re talking about. An angry Lois Lane who we’ve established does not, in fact, love me. And I’m telling you that Lois Lane is the least rational person on the planet when she’s angry. There’s no telling what she might do. You’ve got to take this seriously!”
Martha shrugged. “OK, I’ll take it seriously. But what should I do about it? Should your father and I just leave the farm, go into hiding, because of what Lois might do?”
“Well...maybe, yeah.”
She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. Your father and I have known from the time you became Superman that we might all be exposed one day. And if we hadn’t already known it, the situation with that Trask character would have convinced us. But we’ve done nothing wrong, and we’re not going to run away and hide.”
“I’m not sure Dad would agree. You know what he’s always said…how he feels about me being exposed. He’s going to kill me when he finds out what I’ve done.”
“No, he’s not,” Martha said calmly. “In the first place, he’s finally accepted, I think, that you’re a grown man now who has to follow your conscience, even if that means risking exposure. You know, honey, he was terrified, at first, every time you put in an appearance as Superman. We’d see you on the news at night, and even though he was always proud of what you were doing, he was worried to death about you doing it. I think there was a big part of him that wished you’d go back to the way things were before, when you were freelancing and wandering the world.”
“He was probably right,” Clark said miserably. “I never should have stayed in Metropolis.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Martha said tenderly. “Gradually, your Dad accepted what I’d seen from the very beginning – that you were happy in Metropolis, honey. For the first time since you were just a little boy, you’d found a place where you belonged, where you could be yourself, even if you had to turn yourself into two different people to do it. You’d found a job you loved and a woman you loved even more.”
“I wish you’d quit saying that,” Clark huffed. “I’ve told you…”
“I’ll quit saying it when it quits being true,” Martha said with asperity. “You can lie to yourself if you want to, but you can’t lie to your mother. Until you’re ready to see sense, we’ll just have to agree to disagree about that. But what your Dad and I both saw was that you were happy, Clark. And we’re willing to risk a lot for that. We always have been.”
Clark sighed. “I appreciate that, Mom. You know I do. But I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you and Dad because of my carelessness. And right now Lois is a loose cannon. I don’t know what to expect, but I think you and Dad should be prepared for the worst. Lois wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt you, but she doesn’t always think things through all that well, and she refuses to believe that Luthor is dangerous. If she trusts him with this...with my secret...then you really might have to go into hiding. I’m not sure there’d be any other way to keep you safe from him.”
“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“I guess so,” Clark conceded with a sigh. “But I’m going to hang around here for a few days if that’s OK. If someone were to come out here sniffing around about me, I want to be close by, not all the way in Metropolis.”
“You’re always welcome here – you know that - but I still think you’re overreacting.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Clark said stubbornly.
“Well, suit yourself,” Martha said, standing up and transferring some breakfast dishes from the table to the sink. “Your father can always use the extra help this time of year.”
“Where is Dad?”
“He got out early this morning. Working in the south field, I think. Why don’t you go find him?”
“I will. Might as well get his lecture over with.” Clark scraped back his chair and handed his mother his coffee cup. She took it and put it in the sink before opening her arms to him.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said softly, pulling him close. “I’m so sorry you’re hurting.”
She felt him shudder slightly against her as he allowed his head to drop to her shoulder. Superman’s invulnerability was the biggest myth of all, Martha thought tenderly, as she smoothed her hand over her boy’s dark hair. She’d played devil’s advocate a little and told Clark some things she believed he’d needed to hear, but there was a corner of her maternal heart that fiercely resented Lois Lane for the pain she’d caused. Yes, it had been unintentionally done, but it didn’t make the hurt less real for Clark. No one had ever stolen Clark’s heart before, and for Lois to do so and then to hand it back to him so cruelly…well, that would take some time to get over – for all of them.
“I’d better go,” Clark said, his voice muffled in the fabric of her jogging suit.
“OK,” Martha said, turning away quickly so that he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
_______________________________________
The farm was a living miracle in the springtime. It had always been his favorite time of year, and as he made his way toward the south field, he took his time and breathed deeply of the sweet air, imagining that it had the power to purify him of all the anger and frustrations of the previous day.
How he wished he had been meant for this life. How he wished it could be enough for him to pour his soul into the fertile Kansas soil, to arrange his existence around the simple rhythms of planting and harvesting. To return each night in sweat-stained clothes to a small frame house with a squeaky screen door. To sit quietly in the evenings on a darkened porch, watching the fireflies dance. To awaken each morning to the smell of strong coffee, knowing the new day would follow the same soothing pattern as the one before.
It wasn’t to be, of course. As much as he loved the farm, he knew that if he stayed there long enough the restlessness would eventually come to claim him, would grow until it became a fierce itch to be out in the world. The farm soothed him, but it was people - people in all their flawed humanity – who fascinated him, who inspired him, who endlessly beckoned him into their midst. They touched him and amused him and sometimes horrified him, and then they seemed to whisper in his ear when he sat at his keyboard and tried his best to tell their stories. It was the people of the earth who made him feel there might be a reason a baby had hurtled through millions of miles of cold, dark space and landed unharmed in a twilit Kansas field. The farm had never had the power to do that for him. Of all his “gifts,” the two he valued the most were his ability to fly and his facility with languages. The former allowed him to explore the world, every nook and cranny of it if he chose, and the latter helped him to truly get to know the people he encountered along the way.
It was no coincidence that when he had finally settled down, it had been in a bustling city. His work as Superman still took him all over the globe, but he always returned happily to Metropolis. It had felt like home from practically the moment he’d gotten off the bus with his battered suitcase in his hand, and even after a year there, he hadn’t felt the slightest hint of wanderlust. He loved the pace of the city. He loved the variety of people he encountered there every day. He loved that he was actually paid to learn their secrets and tell their stories, and he even loved that he had a silly blue suit that gave him the freedom to help them when and where he could.
But as usual, his mother was right when she said that Lois Lane was the reason Metropolis had so quickly felt like home. He’d settled into orbit around her from practically the moment they’d met, and until very recently, it had never even occurred to him to try to break free. He’d known women in every corner of the globe, but he’d never before met one he found so endlessly fascinating. He’d never met anyone who was such a delightful mix of strength and vulnerability, feistiness and tenderness. She was brilliant and foolhardy, talented and defensive, generous and self-centered, and a thousand other conflicting attributes, all wrapped up in a package so lovely that she had left him tongue-tied and stammering like a schoolboy when they’d first met.
Well, no more. He was wise to her now, and he flatly refused to be held in her thrall any longer. He was the strongest man in the world, and he was certainly capable of conquering his own heart. As he caught sight of his father, a rotund figure atop a tractor, obscured by a cloud of dust, he renewed his vow to keep his distance from Lois Lane.
