“This is the first time since you began the Superman Foundation that you have opened your home to the public.” The reporter, James Olsen stared up at him.
“My wife worked for the Daily Planet in the past, and she convinced me that they’d be the best people to cover some of the new activities the Foundation is planning. People have been very generous, and the Foundation is moving beyond its initial work in health and education to expand into other fields where we can make the world a better place.”
“Some critics say that you and your wife are trying to turn the world into some sort of unrealistic Utopia.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Clark asked. “All that means is that we are trying to make the world the kind of place where everyone can be happy, healthy, and safe.”
As one of the servants opened the door for them, Clark said, “Thank you, William. How is your daughter?”
“She’s getting better.” The man said quietly. “The new treatments are working better than we’d hoped.”
Getting rid of his old staff and treating the new ones like human beings had been one of the better decisions Lois had pushed on him.
“There have been several breakthroughs in health and medicine,” Clark said to Olsen the reporter. “Many of them have come about through studies in tissue regeneration and further studies of Superman’s physiology performed by the pioneers down in Pueblo.”
Giving the doctors who had saved his life as much cooperation as he could had seemed only fair. The benefits had been unexpected.
As they stepped through the hall, Clark said “I’m going to let you speak with someone who has a closer relationship with some of the research.”
They entered Joshua’s room, where he was sitting, looking over reports on the computer. He glanced up at them and smiled.
Slowly, he stood up and shook the reporter’s hand.
Although Joshua still needed a cane to walk, Clark had fulfilled his promise. Joshua had been the first to push for clinical trials for some of the new treatments and although he was still being treated, his prognosis was bright.
“Six months ago I was confined to a wheelchair,” Joshua told the reporter. “But through the work of the Foundation I am able to walk again.”
Clark smiled as he stepped out of the room. Joshua had told his story many times to professional journals, but the mainstream press required a little dumbing down. He’d do fine.
He stepped out of the room and headed for his office.
Lois was already there.
“How is it going?” she asked.
“He’s fresh as a new penny,” Clark said. “He’ll do fine.”
Lois smiled. It was one of the things he loved about her, the sense of kindness. She’d forced it on him until it was becoming a second nature to him and he was discovering that it also came with unexpected benefits.
His wife had gotten over her fears of being the lesser partner by demanding to be treated as an equal. She was a major force behind the work the Foundation was doing, and she was a major part of the reason he was changing.
She pushed him into becoming a better man. For all that he resisted, he loved the person he was becoming, and it was all because of her and Lisa.
“It was good of you to give him a chance.” He said. Once again he felt the old attraction, one that hadn’t abated at all over the past four years.
“He was good to me when he was just starting out,” she said. “He deserves it.”
“Have you heard from Lisa?” Clark asked.
Lois scowled slightly and said, “I haven’t heard from her since this morning.”
“Do you want me to take a look?”
Lois shook her head. “She’ll be back when she’s ready.”
Sometimes Clark wished for the hero worship Lisa’d had for him in the early days. She’d treated him as though she was afraid that if she said anything wrong he’d leave.
But somewhere down the line something had changed. She’d finally started to realize that he was going to be there for her for the long haul, and with that had come something unexpected.
She’d developed her own opinions.
Although she was in some ways more level headed than either of her parents, there were things about Lisa’s life that Clark didn’t approve of. She’d been educated far too early in things that children shouldn’t see, and though her ability to selectively hear or see had finally developed, the damage had been done.
There was a certain cynicism to her that shouldn’t exist in a seventeen year old. Clark recalled his own childhood as having been a little more protected than hers had been, and perhaps he’d been more naïve even despite being raised in the foster care system.
She was going to turn his hair prematurely white. If he didn’t know that she carefully considered the risks of what she did, he’d have been even more worried.
Where she’d gotten her political views he’d never know. She was even more liberal than her mother, and some of the political arguments around the dinner table were heated.
Clark may have been trying to be more compassionate, but he was a businessman at heart. He knew what was good for the economy and some of the things she was pushing for were ill advised.
Going to protests for half a dozen different causes, spending time with people who would have been hippies back in the sixties but now weren’t half as respectable…
Sometimes it felt like she did it just to vex him.
At least she didn’t bother with sex as far as he could see. Her observations about human nature had left her too cynical to fall for the lines that teenaged boys tended to use. Plus, the thought that daddy might be listening in might have had a factor.
The main thing was that she was too level headed to be seduced.
He relaxed a little as he heard the sound of a distant motor.
Getting her the motorcycle at 15 had been a mistake. It made her all too mobile and gave her exposure to people he didn’t particularly care for. It didn’t help that she refused to wear a helmet. She didn’t actually need one, and Colorado law didn’t require it, but Clark felt she was setting a bad example for the others.
She’d be eighteen in a couple of months and she’d be going off to college soon. It didn’t help that she seemed to have no interest in going into either of the family businesses. She didn’t feel there was room for two super people, and Foundation work bored her.
“She’s on her way,” he said. “About ten minutes if I don’t miss my guess.”
“Do you think we should tell her?” Lois asked, putting a hand on her still flat stomach.
“She’ll know the moment she hears you,” Clark said.
The rapid beating of the second heart under her ribcage would be glaringly obvious to Lisa, even if she did usually choose not to hear things her parents were doing.
He kissed Lois deeply and passionately. The promise of their early meeting had been more than fulfilled. With her he’d found passion that he hadn’t ever experienced before, and joy.
**********
Lisa ran up the slope of the hill as she had so many times before. This time was different. This time she had news of things that were going to change her life.
Her parents were waiting for her, as they always were, at the top of the hill.
Lisa threw herself at her father and hugged him. Even after all this time she acted surprised.
“I did it!” she said. “I flew!”
He gaped at her for a moment and then grinned. This was something the both of them had been waiting for, the last thing they could do together that no one else could.
Flying with him had been wonderful, but flying on her own was indescribably better. Especially since it had happened after…
“I met someone,” Lisa said.
The color drained from her father’s face.
“He was my arresting officer at the sit in down in Colorado Springs,” she said cheerfully.
“You’re interested in a police officer?”
“A police detective,” she said. “The youngest they’ve got on the force. I’ve invited him to my birthday party.”
It was the clearest way she knew to let him know that she was old enough for a relationship and no longer a minor.
Her father scowled, but her mother put a hand on his arm and he quieted down.
Lisa hugged her mother, then frowned, looking downward. “Mother?”
“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” he mother said gently.
For all their arguments and contentiousness, they were a family. Lisa was happy with the person she was now, and she knew both of her parents were as well. It wasn’t the life she’d envisioned when she was a child wondering about her father.
It was better.
