Hey guys!
As you may have seen, Nancy's back to posting just a bit but I'm still going to post this for her
. I still have... 10? chapters or so I think in my inbox so we've got some time
.
Here goes!
Chapter 23
I knew it would be quiet when I opened the door, but I also knew my parents would never forgive me for not coming by today, and this was the only chance I was going to have.
“I thought that was you,” Mom said as she came in the back door. “I saw you from the window of the barn.”
“And decided it must be your son who was falling out of the sky?” I asked her with a raised brow.
She shook her head at me before continuing on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Your father should be here in a few minutes. He was out in the fields, but hasn’t been in for lunch yet, so his stomach will be guiding him here shortly.”
Mom bustled about, pouring me some juice, coffee for herself, and making sure Dad’s lunch was finished. “Do you want anything?” she asked me.
“No, I ate before…” I trailed off as I eyed the cookie jar. Now that I thought about it, it smelled like my favorite peanut butter cookies in here. “Although,” I said, as I judiciously used my special vision gizmo to confirm that the jar was full.
“Not until after I see your byline,” Mom said with a smile, shaking her head. “It is impossible to keep secrets from you. I made those cookies yesterday in the hopes you wouldn’t be able to smell them today.”
“I thought I saw you, Clark,” Dad interrupted us.
“He sniffed out my secret,” Mom told him and Dad laughed.
“Never try to keep secrets from our boy, Martha. His nose is too strong, his sight knows no bounds…”
“Okay, Dad,” I cut him off smiling. My parents’ ability to joke about my abilities was one of the things I loved best about them. While I had a tendency to see them as signs of why I didn’t quite belong here, they just accepted them and teased me about them the way other parents might tease their kid about their cowlick.
“So, where’s this paper,” Dad said, sitting down and picking up half the sandwich Mom put in front of him.
I pulled the folded over copy of the Daily Planet out of my schoolbag.
Mom took it reverently, and then strangely, turned right to the right spot to see the article.
“Did I tell you it was on page three?” I asked her.
Mom blushed and shared a glance with Dad. “Well,” she said, “it’s not every day your son has his byline in the biggest paper in the world.”
“And?” I asked, not understanding. Mom continued not to meet my eyes and Dad seemed inordinately interested in his lunch.
I decided Dad was the weaker link. It was hard to crack Mom, but Dad just required a little patience. “Dad?” I asked, watching him carefully.
We sat in silence for a moment, Mom looking at the table, Dad continuing his fascination with his sandwich, and me staring at Dad. Finally, Dad cracked. “They sell the Daily Planet in town you know,” he mumbled.
“I thought you wanted me to bring you a copy,” I said.
“We did!” Mom insisted. “We wanted a copy from Metropolis.”
“Aren’t they the same?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Dad said. “But we knew we wanted more than one copy anyway.”
“You know it looks the same in every copy,” I said, although I was secretly pleased.
“We know that,” Mom said, getting up to bring the cookie jar over. “But… it’s your first byline outside of Smallville, Clark. And in such an important paper.”
“We just couldn’t help it,” Dad said, not looking at all embarrassed. “We knew we asked you to bring us a copy, but yesterday it seemed like too long to have to wait for today to see it.”
“Thanks,” I said quietly.
Mom shook her head. “What are you thanking us for? Because we love you? Because we’re proud of you? You don’t need… No. You shouldn’t thank us for that.”
“Now, let’s read that article. We promised ourselves we’d only look at the byline yesterday,” Dad said, pulling the paper closer to him.
Mom moved to stand behind him and they read quietly for a few minutes.
“This is really good, Clark,” she said as she finished.
“Well, you know Billy Norcross and Serena Judd are two of the Planet’s best reporters. They did a lot to fix up my writing,” I pointed out.
“Well, first off, the fact that this Mr. White put two of his best reporters on this shows what a great job you did. Not that it isn’t clear. Bringing this to light could really impact a lot of people’s lives, Clark. Not just the female students at Met U, but also their patients,” Mom said.
“And didn’t Billy Norcross tell you that the reason you got the lead byline was because they didn’t do much to change your writing?” Dad asked.
I nodded.
Mom handed me a cookie. “I always envisioned sharing a drink with you to celebrate this type of success. I never dreamed it would happen so early.”
“We could still share a drink,” I said with a smile. “I mean, we know it doesn’t effect me given what happened at Pete’s graduation party.”
“No way. I know alcohol doesn’t effect you, but I’m not going to push underage drinking, young man,” Mom said, but I could tell that she was mostly joking.
“So,” Dad said as he got up and moved the copy of the paper to the counter. “You never had a chance to tell us – have you managed to talk to Maddie and find out what was wrong?”
I sighed. I hadn’t remembered, but in all the focus on my article, I had never told my parents about dinner with Maddie and her cousin. “Yeah,” I said. “It didn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Is she okay?” Mom asked.
I nodded. “She was fighting with her dad as he wanted her to have dinner with a cousin of his when he was in town.”
Mom looked at me curiously.
“He’s not exactly…” I paused while I thought of the words to say, “cousin-ly with her.”
Dad gave me a strange look. “Did you meet him?”
I nodded. “Remember? Maddie asked me to come with her to dinner on Sunday.”
“Right,” Mom nodded. “What do you mean, he’s not ‘cousin-ly’ with her?”
I gave another small sigh. “Dave thinks they are going to get married some day. And sort of behaves like a boyfriend. An ill-mannered boyfriend, I guess.”
Mom shook her head. “You’re not saying…”
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, she says she’s never been alone with him, but the things he does in public… Well, he didn’t really do anything while I was there. Just looked at her funny. But funny enough that I guessed what was going on.”
“You guessed from a look?” Dad asked.
“Remember what you told me? Back when I said I thought Lana had cheated on me with Bob? That sometimes you can tell – there’s a way two people who are intimate look at each other?”
“Oh… Clark…” Mom said, looking anguished.
“Maddie says it never got that far. But he does sort of look at her like that.”
“And I’m guessing Maddie’s father doesn’t know,” Dad said, sounding stern.
I shook my head. “He does. That’s what I meant about the things Dave is willing to do in public. He’s done them in front of her father.”
“And he asked her to see him anyway?” Dad asked starting to sound annoyed.
I nodded. “Maddie says he’s in denial.”
“That’s quite something to be in denial about!” Dad said, and there was no pretense now. He was clearly annoyed.
“Is she…” Mom paused, still looking like she wanted to cry. “…safe, I guess? With him in town?”
“She’s staying with me for the week,” I said.
“Good,” Mom said sounding relieved.
Dad just shook his head. “Some people…” he started but then caught himself and stopped.
“So, that’s the other thing,” I said.
“What other thing?” Mom asked.
“She’s staying with me. So last night, when I went to help out in Florida…”
“You decided to show up as the Boy in Black when Maddie is staying in your room?” Dad asked, and now I was sorry he was annoyed at Maddie’s dad. Or her cousin? Or both? Which ever, he was transferring it to me.
“It was the middle of the night. I figured she would be asleep,” I said.
“But she wasn’t?” Mom asked.
“No. I guess she fell asleep, but then woke up a couple of hours later.”
“This is why you should be limiting the Boy in Black activities for now!” Dad said, and I could tell he was trying to control his anger.
“What should he have done, Jonathan?” Mom asked. “He’s doing that the best he can. Should he have let those people’s homes get ruined, knowing he could help?”
“But Maddie could have figured it out,” Dad said, although he already sounded slightly calmer.
“Did she?” Mom asked. “I mean, she wouldn’t really assume you were in Florida.”
“No, but she was upset with me for being evasive about where I was. I told her I’d gone for a walk.”
“Did that help?” Dad asked.
I gave a somewhat hollow laugh. “Maybe it would have if I was a better liar. But no, it sounded like I was making it up.”
“So what are you going to do?” Mom asked.
“I think it’s fixed for now. Sort of,” I told her. “I ended up telling her about being a foundling and that seemed to give more credence to the story about taking a walk.”
“Are you…” Mom trailed off as she looked at me closely. “Are you thinking of telling her the truth?”
“He can’t!” Dad said, just as I said, “I can’t!”
Mom shook her head. “Why can’t you tell her the truth?” she asked me.
“This has to remain a secret, Martha!” Dad answered her.
Mom sighed. “I seem to recall that the reason Clark is such a bad liar is that we taught him not to lie.”
“That was before we knew…” Dad started.
“Knew what?” Mom interrupted. “That it’s not always a good idea to be one-hundred percent open with others? We already knew that. Clark has learned that, too. But he’s an adult now, Jonathan, and it’s time for us to trust him to decide when he needs to be open. I have to say, I’m not really comfortable with the idea of it being okay to lie.”
Dad sighed and I had the impression that they had had this discussion before, and Dad had lost then, too.
“Mom, you can’t really think it’s a good idea for me to be honest with Maddie,” I said.
“Why not?” she asked.
“You want me to tell her my secret?” I was thoroughly confused.
Mom sat down again, placing a hand on top of mine. “Do you love her?” she asked even though I had already told her that I did. I nodded. “Does she love you?” I nodded again.
“He can’t know that!” Dad interjected.
Mom fixed him with a look. “Don’t you know that I love you?” she asked.
“That’s different. Clark is just a boy. He doesn’t…”
“Jonathan,” Mom cut him off. “Are you trying to tell me you didn’t know I loved you when we were eighteen? You proposed to me that year.”
Dad sighed. “We were…”
“What?” Mom asked gently. “Older than Clark? Clark, who has seen more tragedy than we have seen even now? Has seen it as he chooses to? Do you really think Clark is younger at eighteen than we were?”
Dad didn’t answer at first, sighing. “It doesn’t matter. Even if she does love you…”
“She does,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to tell her either, Dad, but I know she loves me.”
Mom squeezed my hand gently. “Clark, you can’t live your life in fear. Do you really think Maddie would expose you?”
“No,” I said quickly. I couldn’t really imagine her doing so. “But still… I can’t believe you’d want me to…”
“I’d want to meet her first,” Mom said. “Maybe she could come home with you for Thanksgiving. I mean we’d have to buy you a commercial ticket which might be a bit expensive at this late date, but we could. And then Dad and I could get to know her.”
“And if we decide we don’t trust her?” Dad asked.
“Then we could reassess,” Mom said. “But do you really think that we wouldn’t trust her given that Clark does?”
“No,” Dad admitted. “But that doesn’t mean…”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said quietly. “I’d love to bring her here. Have her meet you. But I’m not ready to tell her.”
Mom nodded. “I understand that. But Clark… Think about this carefully. Maddie has shared something personal with you. She trusted you. What do you think is going to happen when she realizes you aren’t doing the same for her?”
“I’m going to lose her,” I said quietly. It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought of it before.
“Are you okay with that?” Mom asked me and I shook my head. I had thought of that, too.
“I don’t want… I love her,” I said.
Mom squeezed my hand again. “I’m not pressuring you, Clark. I’m just telling you to stop worrying about everyone not accepting you for who you are. If Maddie truly loves you, she will. And at some point, she’s going to ask you to make a choice. You can either lose her or tell her.”
“Or stop being the Boy in Black,” Dad said.
“I can’t do that either,” I answered quickly.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Mom said. “That would only make it easier to keep your secret. At some point, she’ll still figure out that you have one.”
“I don’t really like the idea of Clark telling anyone,” Dad said quietly.
“So, what’s he going to do, Jonathan? Get married without telling his wife? Wait until their children are teens and start flying around their house?”
We all laughed. “I’m not ready to propose to Maddie,” I said.
Mom smiled. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. I’m just saying, you are going to have to tell someone someday. Maybe that’s not Maddie, and that’s fine. But if you continue to live in fear that no one will accept you for who you really are, you’re going to end up alone.”
She put her hand on my arm to soften the words, but I knew she was right. Not that that made me any more ready.
*****
TBC
