Part 4 - Rebellion
November 2014
As she slammed the car door, Lois could hear the incessant screeching of the smoke detectors from the driveway. Rushing inside, she called out for Olivia, who should be home. Smelling smoke, she ran upstairs and opened her daughter’s bedroom door. Olivia was curled up on the floor, her hands over her ears. Lois grabbed a discarded garment from the floor, which Olivia seemed to use as a laundry basket, and began waving it in front of the smoke detector in the hallway.
“Liv, open the window,” she shouted. Olivia stood and did as she was asked, then returned her hands to her ears. When the alarm stopped shrieking, Lois stopped waving the t-shirt around and resisted the urge to cover her own ears; it was painful when standing right beneath it.“Are you ok?” she asked, wondering where the source of the smoke was.
Olivia cautiously removed her hands. “That was loud, Mom. That hurt!”
“I know, honey. They’re loud for a reason.” As Lois glanced over the messy room she spotted a water soaked book in the trash can. Picking it up, she watched Olivia’s expression turn from guilt, to anger. “What’s this?”
“Nothing, Mom. I knocked a candle over and it scorched the book. That’s what set the smoke detector off. It was an accident, ok.”
Lois turned the pages of the textbook to find the damaged pages and stared when she found more than she expected. “What candle? This is more than a candle tipping over. Where’s the wax?”
“I dumped the contents of my water bottle on it, maybe it washed it away. Why don’t you believe me? It was an accident, nothing more. I didn’t mean to do it…”
Olivia trailed off when Lois picked up her book bag and emptied it out, a lighter and a pack of cigarettes falling to the ground. “Dad will be home soon. We’ll talk then.” Fighting the urge to copy her daughter and slam the bedroom door, Lois, taking the cigarettes and lighter with her, closed the door softly, and went downstairs to pick up the groceries she’d left in the car.
It was several hours later when Clark arrived home. After kissing her husband, Lois filled him in on what happened.
“It’s not just the smoking, Clark. It’s the lying. Fine, kids experiment, I expected that, but the lying…”
Clark embraced her, cutting off her words, as she began to cry into his shoulder. The smoke alarm had scared her, knowing Olivia was home alone. Olivia had clearly been terrified by the loud alarm, and while she’d had the foresight to douse the book in water, and put it in the metal garbage can in her room, it could have been much worse. She could have been hurt, or… No, Lois told herself. She was not going to focus on what could have happened. Wiping her tears away, she felt Clark’s arms loosen around her.
“I’m glad she’s ok, but I’m angry that she was smoking. What was she thinking?”
“Why don’t we ask her,” Clark suggested, still holding her gently. “I’ll go get her if you want to start some hot chocolate.”
Lois leaned back and raised an eyebrow at him. “Hot chocolate?”
He grinned. “She may carry the name Kent, but when it comes to chocolate, she’s a Lane woman after all!”
Lois laughed as Clark released her, gathering the items needed for the soothing drink. Once the milk was boiling, and Lois was stirring in the chocolate, he headed upstairs to Olivia’s room. Lois had three steaming mugs of hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream, on the table when a sullen Olivia arrived, followed by Clark. Knowing Olivia had skipped dinner, Lois placed some sweet treats on the table for them to share.
“What happened today, Liv?” Clark asked.
“It was an accident, I swear.”
“Your mom found these,” Clark stated as he placed the pack of cigarettes and lighter on the table.
“I told her, I wasn’t smoking in the house.”
“But are you smoking?”
“No. I mean, I tried it. But I didn’t like it.”
Lois was relieved to hear that, despite being annoyed that their daughter had tried smoking at all. It had to be her friends' influence as no one in their family, or close friends, smoked.
“I promise, Dad, I’ll never smoke again. I didn’t know what to do with them, so I left them in my backpack, thinking I could give them away at school.”
“What happened to the textbook?”
“It was an accident. Like I told Mom, but she doesn’t believe me.”
Lois tried to keep her expression neutral as Olivia glared at her, frustrated that she was opening up to Clark, but not to her.
“You told her you’d knocked over a candle, and it burned the book.”
Olivia sighed, and looked down at her hands, fiddling with the empty cup. “I was playing around with the lighter and the book must have been too close or something. It started smoking really badly and then the smoke detector went off. I put the book in the trash can to stop my desk catching fire, and dumped water on it. That’s when Mom got home.”
“Why did you tell me it was a candle?” asked Lois, as gently as she could, annoyed at the lie, even more annoyed as Olivia shrugged.
“I lied,” Olivia said haltingly. “I thought a candle would be easily believed to be an accident. I didn’t think you’d believe me and I didn’t want to talk about the smoking. It was just a little lie, it didn’t hurt anyone. Are you going to tell me you never tell small fibs?”
Olivia stonily glared at Lois, a brief moment that unnerved her, but she had no idea what had fueled that last statement. They’d never lied to Olivia, frequently referring to Clark’s absences as Superman as ‘work related,’ which was true, just not clarifying which job it was. Perhaps it was time to tell Olivia about Clark’s other identity as so far she hadn’t inherited any of his superpowers.
Olivia returned to apologizing for the damage, and lying, while Clark assured her it had been an accident, and the next time it would be best to admit what had happened, rather than fabricate a story.
The treats devoured, and the hot chocolate finished, Olivia hugged both of her parents before heading up to her room, Clark following behind to remove the damaged book.
“I’ll call the school in the morning,” Clark stated once he returned. “Explain why she needs a new textbook and arrange payment for the damaged one.”
Turning on the television in the living room, Lois sank into the couch, exhausted. It had been a long day at work, then the panic and anger she’d felt once arriving home had kept her going until now. She curled into Clark’s shoulder as he sat next to her, placing his arm around her.
“Did we miss something?” Lois asked. “We did the dangers of smoking, drinking and drugs, and I know they have those school talks. Is there something we should have done better?”
She felt Clark’s arm squeeze her a little tighter. “No matter what, Liv is going to forge her own path in the world. She’s remarkably like her mother in that aspect. I think the smoking was a one off, something to try. Perhaps a form of teenage rebellion?”
Feeling comforted by Clark’s confidence, Lois snuggled into his arms further, while they watched the news. “Do you think it’s time we told her?” she asked at the next commercial break.
She felt him sigh as he answered. “I was wondering the same thing. Do you think she’s ready for it? It’s a huge responsibility.”
“Maybe,” Lois murmured as she yawned. “We should wait until after Christmas and New Year’s, let her settle into her new school and routine before we throw something this huge at her.”
Unable to keep her eyes open, she heard him mutter in agreement, before feeling the delightful sensation of being picked up and cradled in her husband’s arms.
“Bedtime, dear,” he whispered. “We don’t have to figure this all out tonight.”
****
April 2015
“Mom, I need you to sign this.”
Lois had barely walked through the front door when she was greeted by her daughter, who thrust a piece of paper at her. “Honey, one moment. Let me get my coat off please.”
Olivia sighed heavily before flopping down on the couch and turning the television on, the paper falling to the floor next to the coffee table.
Lois sighed. She couldn’t handle another battle of wits with Olivia tonight. Clark was gone – a prison riot on the other side of the country had called him away earlier that day – and she’d had a long week at work. The latest investigation had required working with another reporter, and Lois felt as though she’d spent more time training him how to properly research instead of doing any actual investigating.
Her relationship with Olivia had remained tempestuous over the last few months as there would be days, even weeks, where Liv was a happy, still somewhat moody, fifteen-year-old, and other days when she felt the whole world was stacked against her, and her parents were out to make her life miserable. It was a delicate balance and Lois felt as though she got it wrong every time.
“What did you need me to sign?” Lois asked.
Olivia made a show of sitting upright on the couch and sliding the piece of paper across the coffee table towards Lois.
Taking a brief glance, Lois suppressed a sigh. “Liv, we’ve already been through this. Your dad and I agreed that you could take your Drivers training next year and we’d sign off for your Learners permit after your birthday.”
“But, Mom, everyone is doing it this year. All my friends are in this class and I’ll be the only one left out.”
“Liv-”
“It’s not fair, Mom. Why not?”
“Olivia, we’ve already been through this. Your father and I don’t have the availability to pick you up from training each week, and the Jeep is not as reliable as it once was. You can take it next semester.”
“I already signed up for the class, Mom. All you have to do is sign this.”
Lois felt the last hold on her anger slip. “Olivia. No. We’ve given you our decision and if you’re not mature enough to recognize and respect that, you’re not mature enough to be driving.”
“You guys are the worst parents,” Olivia cried, snatching back the permission form and scrunching it into a ball. “You won’t let me do anything, you don’t trust me at all.”
Biting her tongue before she shouted back, Lois watched as Olivia stomped upstairs, still clutching the ball of paper, and winced as once again the bedroom door slammed closed.
A month ago, Lois would have picked up the phone and called her mother, warning her that yet another argument had occurred and to expect a visitor. She recalled the first time Olivia had taken this course of action - the first time she hadn’t returned home from school, the day following a disagreement over her refusal to get a haircut. After a short, but frantic, search, Ellen had called to let them know Olivia was safe with her and could stay the night while she cooled down.
Olivia using her Nana’s house as a place to escape had become a regular occurrence over the winter months. Lois, while surprised, didn’t force Olivia to return home. She knew her mother enjoyed having Olivia over, especially as she was becoming more frail, and as Clark pointed out, Olivia was warm and safe there instead of who knows where.
When Ellen passed the month prior, Olivia had lost her place of refuge, though thankfully she hadn’t attempted to run away since. Lois, exhausted from dealing with her mother’s estate, work, and Olivia’s turbulent teenage moods, struggled to hold onto her emotions when confronted with her daughter’s anger on a regular basis; the most recent had been Olivia’s refusal to visit Dr. Klein anymore and the fiasco with her hair.
The disagreements, which had exploded in ferocity and frequency over the winter, had prompted Clark and Lois to talk to a child psychologist – without Olivia, who had refused to attend. The professional had suggested their daughter was finding her place in the world after dealing with the deaths of both grandparents on her mother’s side, her Poppa’s heart attack, and changing schools. He’d also suggested that as the child of two famous journalists, and multiple award-winning writers, Olivia might be struggling to find her path in their shadow. That comment irked Lois, and she knew it had bothered Clark. The question of sharing the family secret with her was not in consideration. Both parents, in discussion with Jonathan and Martha, deemed it too much of a risk to both the secret, and to Olivia. If their daughter was struggling with everything changing in her life thus far, adding one huge secret to that burden wouldn’t help.
As the door slammed on this recent argument, Lois ran upstairs when she heard something falling, only to burst into tears when she saw a piece of the doorframe lying on the floor. How had their daughter’s life become so full of anger?
****
October 2015
“Mom! Dad!”
Lois looked up from her laptop and winced as the door slammed. Clark grinned as Olivia barged into the kitchen, dumping her backpack on the floor.
“Look!”
Olivia dropped several papers on the table, beaming. Lois, taking this latest mood swing with a surge of hope, glanced at the forms.
“I need you guys to sign this. The school needs your permission, though why, I’m not sure. It’s not like I’ll get into any trouble writing.”
“This is great, honey!” Clark exclaimed.
Picking up a pen, Lois signed the release, permitting Olivia to participate in the school paper. “Well done, Olivia,” she said, reaching out to hug her daughter.
The past few months, especially over the summer, had been a wild rollercoaster of emotions, which Lois had felt she’d borne the brunt of. For some reason she couldn’t pinpoint, Olivia took most of her anger out on her, and not her father. Clark agreed with Lois’ perception, and remarked it was their similar temperaments clashing, and to not take it personally. It had been hard to not take it personally when Olivia had requested her mother to stop using her nickname Liv, and use only Olivia.
A month at the Kent farmhouse over the summer had helped put some distance between them, but the visit had been cut short by Jonathan’s second heart attack and subsequent bypass surgery. Olivia had returned home more subdued, and less feisty. As school had begun, her old group of friends had gradually been replaced by a smaller group, and Olivia’s spark had started to return. While she was uninterested in any sports activities, she had rejoined the drama team, and now the school paper. Lois’ eyes welled up as her daughter returned the hug, before releasing her, Olivia eagerly describing her first assignments.
Perhaps they’d made it through the worst of the teenage years.
****
November 2015
“How did it go?” Lois asked Clark after he arrived home in the early hours of the morning.
“Not bad. No injuries, just took some time to help with the clean up.”
“Not that. Earlier.”
Clark tipped his head to one side, something of a recent habit when he was considering his words.
“It was ok. Strange, but ok.”
Lois waited, somewhat impatiently, while Clark paused. Today, Superman had done an interview with a new reporter for a local high school paper, which in itself wasn’t out of the ordinary. He often made himself available for the younger generation to encourage their ambitions, and answer their questions. This time, the reporter was their very own daughter. She’d sent a formal request through the Superman Foundation, which had been approved. Clark, while his Superman schedule was always available for him to preview, hadn’t been aware of the interviewer until the previous day when he’d taken a look at the request.
Meeting Lois for lunch later that day, he’d shared that he would be interviewed by Olivia Kent the following day. In accordance with both the school’s and Foundation’s guidelines, the interview would be held within the school, in a room with the door open and a chaperone present, a procedure Superman was well-acquainted with when working with minors.
Clark had been hesitant to be that close to his daughter as Superman, but Lois pointed out he could hardly refuse unless something came up. Barring any emergency, he would be on time.
“Initially she was distant, almost curt, bordering on rude. She started by asking about the history of Superman in Metropolis, questioning why the rescues had decreased over the years. She was very interested in why Superman’s activities became scarcer fifteen years ago.”
Lois found herself holding her breath. Their daughter was a smart young woman; had she figured it out? As Clark joined her under the sheets, he continued talking softly.
“Once she warmed up a bit, she did ask a few questions that concerned me though. One was about being different from everyone else, if I, as Superman, felt lonely. She did ask if I had a wife, or kids. Not unusual questions from other high school reporters.”
“But…”
“There was something behind her questions. Maybe she’s being picked on at school? We just went through a wild year or two, perhaps there was more going on then that we weren’t aware of.”
Lois pondered his words. Towards the end of middle school, Olivia’s group of friends had been quite large. Some of those friends had moved to the same high school, and now at the beginning of eleventh grade, Olivia rarely had contact with any of them. There was a basis for Clark’s train of thought.
“What about a boy?” Lois asked. “At her age I went from one crush to the next.”
“We can ask her about it,” Clark suggested, yawning. “Isn’t she staying after school tomorrow for the drama rehearsal?”
“Yes. We can take her out for a bite to eat, make it our family date night.” Lois trailed off as Clark’s breathing evened out. He’d had several late nights this week, tonight being the latest, and she knew he was exhausted. Curling up to him, Lois drifted off, wondering how she was going to ask her daughter if she had a crush.
****
Lois sat in the Jeep, watching as the students left the school. She spotted Olivia chatting with a young man, laughing, before exiting through the glass doors at the entrance. Averting her eyes, not wanting Olivia to think she was being spied on, she fiddled about with the vehicle’s controls, making sure the seat warmer was on for her daughter, and the radio turned down. Getting rid of her old Jeep had been very challenging; however, the seat warmers had certainly helped sever the emotional ties.
“Hi Mom. Where’s Dad?”
“He had to work late.”
“Oh,” Olivia’s expression fell.
Neither she nor Clark had mentioned to Olivia the potential for a meal out that evening, merely that they would give her a ride home after rehearsal. “There’s not much at home for dinner. How about a burger?” Lois smiled as Olivia’s face lit up.
“On a school night?”
“Unless you have hours of homework for tonight, we can make an exception,” Lois laughed. As a family, they rarely ate out during a school week so this was quite a treat. They settled on the food court at the mall, giving them a variety of options for dinner. While they ate, Lois asked Olivia about the production, knowing her daughter was thoroughly enjoying herself assisting with set design.
After finishing their meal, Lois suggested dessert, spotting the Fudge Castle in the corner of the food court. Once seated again, with dishes of ice cream in front of them, Lois asked Olivia if everything was ok at school.
“I knew the ice cream was a ruse,” Olivia accused.
“Any excuse for Fudge Castle,” Lois shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant.
“What is it you’re really asking, Mom? You don’t have to beat around the bush and ask all your fancy investigative questions. Just ask.”
“How are you doing, really doing?”
“I’m fine,” Olivia answered, scooping up the last of her ice cream.
“This last year has been a tough one, on all of us, and I know we’ve had our differences.” Lois paused while Olivia snorted. “You’ve had a good start to the school year so far, making some new friends, trying new things. Your dad and I are proud of you, and I hope you know that.”
Olivia didn’t answer, instead blushed lightly, and stole the remainder of her mother’s bowl of ice cream.
“You know if you need anything, or have any questions, you can talk to either of us, anytime.”
“Mom, you’re fishing. Just spit it out.”
Lois took the plunge. “Any boyfriends? Or girlfriends?”
“Mo-om,” Olivia drew out the syllables.
“You don’t have to answer. Just, we’re here. Any questions…”
“There’s guys at school, they’re cute, but I’m not really interested in dating anyone right now. When did you start dating?”
Lois grinned at the quick deflection, slightly curious that Olivia hadn’t tried to change the topic. “I had a few dates in high school, never really had a steady boyfriend though. I was too focused on finishing school, but you already knew that.”
Olivia nodded, scraping the last of the now liquid ice cream from the dish. slurping the last of her soda through the straw. Lois watched her, wondering what was on her mind. Remembering Clark’s comment about potential bullying, she pondered the idea that it wasn’t friends, but perhaps a guy, that was part of the problem.
“In university I wrote for the school paper and I stumbled across a great story, which I hoped would impress the editor. His name was Paul; he was a senior and I was a sophomore. I had a huge crush on him, probably my first big crush, and I thought this breaking story would finally get him to notice me.”
“What happened?” Olivia asked as Lois fell silent.
Even though several decades had passed and the betrayal didn’t sting as sharply, the memory wasn’t a pleasant one. “A friend at the time stole my story, submitted it as hers, and he fell for her.”
“Aw, Mom,” Olivia added sympathetically. “That sucks.”
“They dated, well, not so much dated as, well…. Fooled around.” At Olivia’s embarrassed expression, Lois knew she wouldn’t have to expand on what was implied. “It didn’t last long. He graduated a few months later and dropped her before the end of the semester.”
After a pause, Lois continued. “Then there was Claude. I was just finding my feet at the Planet, a junior reporter, still stuck getting a lot of the fluff pieces no one else wanted. Claude was a seasoned reporter, a bit of a ladies man, and I fell for him. He complimented my work, my appearance, was an overall nice guy; it wasn’t over the top, and he was like this every day, to most of the women. I was just another woman in the newsroom until I stumbled across a story, with potential to be an award-winning story, and suddenly he was very interested in me. He took me out for dinner, gave me flowers, and after a few dates, we slept together. I woke up in the morning to find him, and my story, gone.”
“What happened?”
“He won an award for it. I never said anything. I had no proof as he’d stolen my story, and was too new a reporter to feel comfortable speaking up. It wasn’t until I met your dad that I told anyone what had happened.”
“Mom, that’s awful. I guess the moral is to not be a reporter?”
Lois looked quizzically at her daughter, unsure if she was teasing. “Liv…”
“I’m joking, Mom. What happened to Claude?”
“He won the award, and got job offers for a few different papers. Several years later he dropped out of journalism, never able to duplicate the success of his one and only Kerth.” It had been Clark who had discovered that information shortly before Olivia was born.
“And then you met Dad?”
“You know that story. I know he’s told you a dozen times.” When she was younger, Olivia had begged Clark to tell her how he and Lois had met repeatedly. Lois would find them curled up on the couch as Olivia listened with rapt attention. “We worked together for almost two years before we started dating. I did date a few other guys during that time, but nothing serious.” Most of the stories they’d told Olivia omitted Lex. Lois was happy to keep it that way.
“Did he ever steal a story from you?”
“Once,” Lois laughed, and at Olivia’s incredulous look, expanded. “It was retaliation. I had stolen one from him before.”
Olivia laughed, and Lois gathered her coat and purse. “We should get home. It is still a school night after all.” She was surprised as Olivia hugged her briefly before they left the food court.
“Thanks, Mom, for telling me that stuff.”
“Anytime, sweetheart. Just remember, some people use sex to get what they want. Others enjoy the variety. Some of us get hurt and feel used, and I don’t want you to find out the hard way.”
“Don’t worry. There’s no one I’m that interested in.”
Olivia released the hug and walked towards the exit. Lois, grateful for the opportunity to have a frank conversation with her daughter, followed.
****
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