Previously on Recollections of the Heart...
Lois’ heart crumbled into pieces. To know Clark was in deep distress was one thing, but to see him actually weeping over it was heartbreaking. He was so vulnerable she could barely recognize the strong rational man he had always been since they met. He was her safe port, yet she had to admit that even a firm man like Clark could have his weaknesses as well. Funnily enough, she never saw him as a weak man even when comparing him to Superman. Both were equally strong willed and just and their powerful image was just obscured by Clark’s constant modesty, she thought. The fact was that both played key roles in her life. *Stop this, Lois. Why, every time you think about Clark, do you have to compare him to Superman?* She mentally kicked herself. “I’m ready to go.” She sipped on her buttermilk cup and bit the fixed sandwich on the table, trying to act as if she hadn’t noticed his emotional breakdown. It was best not to touch the wounds, she thought.
Grateful for her not digging this one too deep, Clark turned and grabbed the truck keys from the kitchen table. “Okay. Let’s go.”
:::>Chapter 4<:::
The hands of the clock had not touched 6am before Lois and Clark arrived at the hospital. Nonetheless several old friends were in the waiting room, hoping to get information about Jonathan’s state. Clark acknowledged each of them and introduced Lois to the ones who did not know her from her previous visit. One even asked her politely how her novel writing was going, fact she had yet to master not giving them a straight answer to mind their own businesses.
“Did anyone come around with news?” Clark asked Wayne.
“None. Martha came here once but only to take her change of clothes and say goodnight. Since then, she hasn’t come out either.”
“Gonna try to find out what’s going on.” Clark paced to the reception counter.
“I’m coming wit ya.” Wayne hurried to catch up with him.
Lois sat down like everyone else and waited in silence. She was amongst strangers but somehow she felt at ease like she never had before in such a situation. They were all very caring and friendly people, and they even small-talked for a couple of minutes about her professional life and her writing skills. Again, she had been mistaken for Clark’s girlfriend and this time she struggled to deny it. She simply smiled and said they were best friends and that was all there was to it. But was it really?
The sight of Clark weeping over his buttermilk glass repeated in her mind. Many times had she felt like crying on the kitchen table when she was a child but she was pretty sure the kind of memories she had in mind were different from Clark’s. Now, she was taken back to her childhood and could see herself cry, trying to wake her mom up from her addiction to the bottle.
// On the kitchen floor there were two empty gin bottles, and the house was messy everywhere she looked. She could hear her sister crying in her bedroom, and she could tell Lucy was muffling her head with a pillow just like she did every time their parents had a heated argument. Her father would lock himself in his cave while her mom would drink to the point of passing out.
The young Lois walked towards the basement where her father should be, working fiercely on his new prototypes. “Daddy, mother’s not well,” she shouted down, not daring to go anywhere near his workstation. Many times had he disciplined her for breaking something downstairs, usually by locking her in her bedroom, not speaking a word. Her father had never spanked her, though sometimes she wished she could bring him to have any kind of emotion towards her, even if it was anger, anything but the usual apathy and detachment.
She knew her father would come up if she insisted enough. “What is it, princess?” He finally asked, disinterested.
“Daddy, come up! Mother’s not well,” her voice trembling. She would hear him mumble something down there, some excuse, she was certain, not to come up.
Young Lois would stand alone and numb in the kitchen; her mom’s face sticking to the cold marble table in a drunken stupor and stinking of gin. What could she do? One thing was for sure: she would never _ever_ want to end up that way. Poor mom. How many times in her drunken episodes did her mom warn her not to ever fall for the charming types or fall for anyone in the first place? “Love is vicious, Lois, by all that word means.” She used to say. “Hear me out… I had a career, I had a family and just look at us now? Relationships… _love_ altogether makes you weak and vulnerable, Lois. Makes you doubt your strengths and your capabilities. Remember that.” //
That was a lesson she never forgot but she wished she never learnt.
A familiar face sat by her side and clasped her shoulder. “Nothing yet.” His voice showed his apprehension. Poor Clark. She bet he had a wonderful childhood and was a happy kid back on his days. She could feel all the love he bore for his folks and she envied their close relationship. She wished she had perfect parents like he surely did, but fate was not so kind to her as it was to him.
Lois looked at him and saw a weak twitch on his lips – he was hopeful, thank heavens. *What was all this about anyway?* She shrugged her old memories away and smiled back. Clark was a wonderful man and he deserved her unconditional attention given the circumstances. *Given the circumstances…* Gosh, how she hated the new meaning of that sentence.
The gloomy atmosphere lifted when Martha walked into the waiting room together with Dr Jenkins, both with a smile on their faces. “Jonathan woke up,” she informed everyone, relieved.
“Can I go see him?” Clark quickly stood up and smoothed the wrinkles on his pants. His heart rate was accelerated, his hands shaking in anticipation for a go ahead.
“The cardiologist I told you about yesterday is with him right now, running secondary tests. He’ll be out in a few and you can go see him,” Dr Jenkins explained, seeing Clark’s frustration.
Adjusting his glasses, Clark used his enhanced vision for a peep – his father was in bed while the doctor carefully studied the bleeps of the cardiac monitor, grimacing and shaking his head. Clark froze. Whatever the man was seeing there did not look good. He spoke to his patient about it, but there were too many voices around to pick up what they were saying.
A bony hand waved between him and his aim. “Clark, I know you want that door to open, but, staring at it, won’t turn the knob,” Lois commented jokingly to ease his tension. She too was nervous but her defense mechanism was either sarcasm or humor; the last one seemed more appropriate.
When the doctor finally left the room, Clark was too impatient to wait for him to come to them and decided to meet him mid-way. “Doctor, hi. I’m Clark Kent.” He shook the man’s hand. “How’s my father doing?”
Doctor Carl Johansson was much taller than average and even taller than Clark. He was of a slim figure and his white slick hair and beard emphasized his crystal pale blue eyes. His white skin together with his cloak made him look awfully pallid. When he spoke, his thick European accent stressed his words. “Your father is awake and stable. I have been checking on the X-rays and ECG taken overnight and his cardiac monitor now. I am requesting a second and more specific blood test to evaluate the extent of the damage of the heart tissue; without it, it is just far much too soon for me to give away a precise diagnosis.”
“Damage?! Doctor…” Clark paused. “…I know he is just one patient of many… but he is my _father_. I need to know if…” he appealed with a lump on his throat.
Doctor Johansson curved his lips upwards and tapped Clark’s shoulder, interrupting him and suggesting, “You should go see your father now. He is waiting for you.” The doctor left for the waiting room.
Clark faced the direction to be taken, eyes fixed on the intensive care unit door, breathing shallow, hands shaking, and his heart pumping so hard he was positive anyone else around could hear it. He walked slowly and unsurely through the hospital corridor. The doors and entrances open throughout the hall let the first dawn sunrays brighten the white flooring and gradually illuminate his path. The morning nurses passing through brushed by him, talking lively and saying their good mornings to the night shift personnel. He was so focused he barely nodded his compliments every time a passing one would acknowledge him. His steps echoed until he reached his last obstacle. His fist raised and knocked on the door unsurely, and when his ears captured his father’s faint welcome, he stepped in. His eyes widened in the presence of his father’s fragile figure laying stiff on the hospital bed and wearing a green disposable robe that made him look disturbingly pale.
The whole apparatus around Jonathan was discreetly blipping away and an oxygen tube was safely placed in his nostrils to help him breathe. Clark gulped down the dry lump on his throat and slowly made his way closer to his father’s bed. Jonathan’s bruised arms were slightly extended, hands were over the bed rail, reaching out for his son. He looked sleepy and tired but Clark blamed it on the drugs – whatever they were giving him was either working or killing him slowly, he thought. “Dad… Are you okay?” It was the lamest sentence ever but the first one Clark could manage given his shock.
“Had better days, son.” Jonathan ruefully smiled.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” His broken heart could only be mended by his father’s answer.
He covered Clark’s hands with his. “Yeah… Promise me you’ll take care of your mother,” he uttered serenely.
When Clark’s legs could not support him any longer and were about to give in, he sat down on the chair next to his father’s bed, his words forged with difficulty. “Always, Dad, but I think there’s plenty of time for you to do that yourself.”
He squeezed Clark’s hand the hardest he could and their eyes locked. “Son… son…Time is relative… time is moody… one day he is your ally, the other your worst villain. A second to one is just one more of many… a second to another could be his last breath. The time is always now and never the future… Procrastination is the will of Apathy.” He breathed in deeply and continued. “Think I’ve told you that before.”
“Just once or twice,” Clark mocked, hoping to lighten his own spirit.
A shy thump on the door diverted their attention to the incoming visitor. Lois stuck her head inside the room and lit the atmosphere with a shy smile. “Uh…hi.”
“Lois, come on in.” Jonathan welcomed her, slightly propping himself up on the bed and adjusting his body into a more comfortable position. When Clark attempted to help him move, he shook his head, mutely assuring his son he could manage. “It’s good to see you. How are you?”
“I’m fine, but more importantly, how are _you_?” She grinned and brushed her hand over his.
“What do you think? Alive and kicking!” Jonathan humored, abruptly moving his arms upwards and showing his once-muscled biceps covered in sparadraps and the IV shunt of morphine sulfate mixture hanging.
Lois tried to hold but instinctively guffawed. Clark, although resisting for a second, succumbed to it as well. The room was quickly filled and lit with cheer and the former felt a lot better.
Lois inhaled deeply and remembered while drying an unshed laughter tear. “Anyway, Clark, your mom’s calling you outside.”
Clark got up, looked at both of them and asked, holding his breath and pointing two fingers in their direction. “Are you two kids going to behave?”
Lois and Jonathan stared at each other for a second and burst again in laughter.
Shaking his head and miming disappointment, Clark left the room. When the door closed behind him, he paused for a second, and started laughing so hard his stomach hurt. At times like these, he could only be thankful for being constantly surrounded by genuine nutcases.
:::><:::
The air outside the hospital filled her lungs as she walked out of the entrance to the parking lot. Lois asked Rachel if she could give her a ride to the square next to City Hall where all the local shops were open to business at that time in the afternoon so she could buy something else to wear, get toiletries and something to eat. When her shopping was done and she had everything she needed for a week or so, she stopped by Maisie’s and ordered the house special.
When the waitress left, Lois smiled, recalling her visit to Jonathan that morning and their sharing. She felt a lot better when she saw him smiling away his problems and she wished hers could only be solved that easily. Would everything ever be the same in her mind? In heart?
Lois didn’t think so. She sighed and called Perry while waiting for her food and told him what had happened with Clark’s father and how it seemed like they wouldn’t make it to the Daily Planet re-inauguration in five days time. Another incoming call rushed her to disconnect just leaving enough time for a quick question. “Has anyone seen Superman yet?” She frowned with the negative answer and switched to the other call after assuring Perry she would keep in touch.
“Lois, it’s Clark. Where are you?” He sounded preoccupied.
“I’m at…” she looked around in search for the menu to check for the name of the place. “Maisie’s. Why? Something wrong?”
“I don’t know. Dr Johansson passed by and said he’d like to talk to the family after he came back from lunch. We’re waiting here just me and my mom; everyone else left just after you.”
She sensed it as a request for her to come over for support. “I’ll be right there.” She hung up, paid for the food and thanked Maisie.
“Wait. You haven’t had your food yet.” The middle-aged waitress reminded her.
“I need to get back to the hospital. Clark’s waiting for me.” She adjusted her purse and her shopping bag on her shoulder. *Right. With all those rides we keep getting from the Kents’ friends, I forgot I don’t even have a rented car here.* She damned her own stupidity. Well what was done was done and now she would need to fetch a cab on the street. She looked both ways on the main street and whistled. When she realized nothing happened, she whistled again louder. And another time. She was whistling for the fourth time when a horse stopped in front of her. She stared it dumbfounded. It was a horse drawn carriage and its conductor took his old hat off, paying his respects. “Going where, pretty lady?” she heard him say.
She could only stare and tap the side of her head, wishing she would wake up. “I need a cab to take me to the hospital. My friend Clark is waiting for me there.” She explained still staring at the horse who was staring right back.
“Clark? Clark Kent, right?” With a nod he continued. “You must be Lois then. Martha told me about ya. Tell ya what… I was gonna visit Jonathan anyway later, but now is just as good. Hop on!”
Could she believe what was happening? Well, there were not many choices around with no cabs and Rachel gone. She climbed up tentatively and blushed to redness when Maisie came out of the restaurant and waved them goodbye.
TBC.
