Lois watched Kent.
He wasn't going to leave.
Whether he felt their connection or not, whether he was willing to acknowledge it or not, it was real and it would keep him here.
But healing was going to take time.
Lois chuckled as she glanced up to where the sun was halfway to its zenith.
She still couldn't push it across the sky.
But had it been possible, she would have flown up there and given it a little shove.
Because she was yearning to see Diddi again.
And she wanted to see Kent emerge from his grief. She wanted to see him smile. Be happy. Be free to relive good memories without being overwhelmed by the crushing pain of his loss.
She wanted to know the man without the layer of grief.
And most of all, she wanted to know how this bond between them would touch their lives.
Was he a doctor? Would he become a Bangala medicine man? Would they work together?
Would they be friends?
Or something else?
Part 12
Not all of the tools were familiar to him, but with a little experimentation, Clark was able to discern the purpose of most of them. The feel of them in his hands brought back potent memories of his dad, stirring up eagerness to begin this new project.
Armed with the saw, he headed to the sapelli trees. Lois had moved under the tree where she was sitting with the rug spread out in front of her.
She was married.
Even after she'd told him she had a son, Clark had assumed she was single. The knowledge that Diddi was her child through adoption had added weight to his hypothesis.
But she was married. To the chief.
What was the nature of their marriage? Had she been forced into it? Clark didn't think so. Lois didn't seem to be a woman who could be forced into anything. And she'd said that Matymbou was a good man.
Were they close?
The chief had extended the quarantine period by two days. Obviously, he was not impatient to have his wife return to him in the village.
Perhaps separations were an expected consequence of Lois's role as the medicine woman. Perhaps Matymbou trusted her unreservedly. Some men did trust their wives, Clark reminded himself. Some wives were worthy of that trust.
He'd held her. In his arms. It had been -
"Nothing," he muttered fiercely. It had meant nothing. She had been upset; he'd been there. It was nothing more than that.
It could never be anything more than that.
Not with Lois. Not with any woman.
His heart was numb. Cold, like a corpse decaying within his chest.
The fact of her marriage changed nothing. He shouldn't be thinking about it.
Thankfully, he had a diversion. The branches had looked acceptably round when still connected to the tree, but closer observation had revealed a few minor irregularities that needed attention if they were to function as smoothly rolling wheels.
He whittled, compared, measured, and whittled some more. An hour later, when the announcement of lunch came from the other side of the gate, he lined up the wheels in his palm and felt a slither of satisfaction at their uniformity of size and shape.
Clark ate lunch quickly, impatient to return to Diddi's truck. He met Lois's initial questions about his progress with a few evasive comments before admitting he'd prefer she didn't see his work until it was finished.
She accepted that with a grin, and their conversation moved to the food Gislane had provided for them.
After lunch, Clark used the awl to dig out axle holes in the centre of each wheel. It was a long and tedious job, providing scant protection against his memories.
One memory surged to prominence over and over again.
Holding Lois.
In desperation, Clark forced himself to muse over her story about the thugs who had shot her and abandoned her to die in the jungle. Why had they left her? Had they checked to see if she were dead? How could they have missed from close range? Had they intended to maim rather than kill? Had she tried to run away from them and fallen? Had they seen Romaric and fled?
Had they done anything else to her during the time she had been their prisoner? Beaten her? Threatened her? Taunted her?
Clark wished he had been there. He wished he had been able to use his strength and speed to rip the truck apart and sweep Lois to freedom.
But he hadn't been there.
And even if he had, past experience said the most likely outcome would have been less than the glorious rescue that was playing out in his head.
They'd imprisoned her in the back of a -
A truck.
When he'd suggested making a truck for Diddi, she'd said it was a nice idea.
But would it drag back memories she wanted to forget?
Clark couldn't remember her exact expression. He'd been too busy trying to steer the conversation away from a child's interest in space.
He cast a surreptitious glance to where Lois was sitting in the shade of the tree, writing something in the book Tsumbu had brought when he'd returned for their lunch plates.
She seemed engrossed in whatever she was writing. She didn't appear to be stewing over his thoughtlessness.
He looked at the wheels again, reluctant to discard a morning's work.
He had promised Lois he would make a truck for Diddi.
She looked up from her book and caught him staring at her. She rose. Clark slipped the wheels into the pockets of his jeans as she walked towards him.
"How's it going?" she asked.
"OK."
"Need anything? I can ask Tsumbu to go to the village."
"No. Thank you. I have everything I need."
She eyed him, unspoken questions simmering. "Sure?"
"It's just … the truck," Clark said, feeling cornered. "I didn't think about it earlier, but trucks … You must have terrible memories."
It took a moment for Lois to draw comprehension from the muddle of his words. "You're worried that making a truck for Diddi will distress me?" she asked.
Clark nodded.
Lois reached over and gently grasped his arm. "Aw, Kent," she said. "That's very thoughtful of you, but I'm fine, really. It was a long time ago."
Now he felt foolish for having made more of it than was necessary. "I … I wasn't sure."
"You're such a kind person." He met her gaze, and she smiled, softly shooting … something … into his eyes as warmth from her hand spread up his arm. She dropped away, releasing him, and turned. "I'm putting on the coffee pot," she said as she began to walk away. "Want one?"
Her compliment had shocked him. Her touch had unnerved him. But her smile … that had been downright disconcerting.
Nalingi yo. The words jumped into his mind, unbidden.
She stopped and turned. "Kent? Would you like some coffee?"
"Ah, yes, please."
"I'll bring it over."
"Thanks."
Nalingi yo.
He liked her. He really did.
And that could only lead to trouble.
~|^|~
Lois enjoyed writing.
It was the one thing that had survived the passage from her former life to her present one.
Her writing had changed. It was no longer an all-consuming job, but a hobby. No longer the centre of her world, but something pleasant to do when she felt the urge to create.
Sometimes, she wrote about her experiences with the Bangala tribe. She wrote of their customs and their values, their celebrations and their tragedies.
Lately, her pen had turned to writing fiction. Specifically, romance novels.
Initially, she had felt silly, crafting worlds and characters she couldn't share with anyone. But then, Sylva had asked about her writing during one of their evenings together and Lois had allowed herself to be cajoled into reading one chapter aloud. One chapter had led to two, and two to three, and three to the entire story, with Sylva proving to be an enthusiastic and insightful devourer of romantic fiction.
Gislane had overheard them laughing a few weeks ago, and since then, she had become a regular in their little literary group.
Lois didn't set her stories in either Africa or the United States, but in an unnamed country that was more about people than place and combined her experiences from both societies.
But today, she was finding concentration difficult.
It wasn't that the story was too insipid to hold her attention or even that she was stuck in the 'set-up' stage and impatient to move the story forward. Her problem was that no story could compete with a mind that was fully occupied - or with the object of her thoughts being just twenty yards away.
Still bare-chested.
Last night, she had massaged the oil into his back. This morning, she had leant into his chest as his arms had surrounded her. Now, she couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to rub oil into the cambers and valleys of his chest.
When they'd been playing with the ball, it had been easy to wind back her focus and appreciate the grace of his whole-body movement. At the river, she'd deliberately kept her eyes averted to alleviate his obvious uneasiness.
But now …
Now, Matymbou had determined the quarantine period would run for another four days.
She needed to get Kent a shirt.
~|^|~
"What do the Bangala use for paint?" Clark asked as he and Lois sat around the fire to eat the dinner Romaric had brought.
As usual, Clark hadn't been able to identify the food with much accuracy, but he guessed they were eating some sort of steak alongside their fresh, crusty breadsticks and salad of green lettuce-like leaves.
"We use paint for body decoration during celebrations," Lois said. "We use linseed oil to preserve and protect wood. Clyde and Ines have big pots of it. Would you like me to send for some?"
"That would be good. Thanks."
"When do I get to see your masterpiece?" Lois asked with a smile.
"Not yet."
"Tonight?"
"No."
"Tomorrow morning?"
"No."
"Tomorrow afternoon?"
"No."
Her grin was growing bigger with every question she fired at him. "The next day?"
"No."
"Arggh," Lois said. "I'm really not good at waiting. Diddi's going to be so excited when he sees it."
"I won't make you wait too long," Clark said. It came out softer than he had intended, sounding more like a promise than the exclamation mark rounding out their quick-fire exchange.
"Thanks," she said, her grin relaxing into a sweet smile that made him glad he had thought of building the truck. Glad he had asked for the tools. Glad he had pushed through his doubts to follow up on his idea.
Glad he had stayed.
He was glad he had stayed.
But as her smile faded, his misgivings flooded back.
A few days with one member from a village didn't constitute a new life, and Clark still wasn't sure he actually wanted the new life that seemed to have claimed him.
Should he have gone? Why had he stayed?
Because Lois had been crying.
Going into the hut rather than walking out of the gate had led to him taking her into his arms. Holding her slight, feminine body against the bulk of his chest. Breathing in her cinnamon essence.
"Did you ask Tsumbu about Diddi?" he asked. "Is he doing OK after the scare this morning?"
"Yeah," Lois replied. "He spent the day with Gislane. Romaric checked on him a few times. Matymbou did, too."
That surprised Clark. Despite the positive things Lois had said about her husband, Clark had gotten the impression that the chief was too busy running the village to spend time on a small boy who wasn't his son.
"I don't understand why Diddi didn't become Matymbou's stepson when you and he were married," Clark said.
"There's no big story," Lois said. "The Bangala don't have a concept of step-families. Matymbou has a daughter from his first marriage, Lioli. She's twelve."
"But she isn't your stepdaughter?"
"No. She's Matymbou's daughter."
"What happened to her mother?"
"She died just a few days after Lioli's first birthday," Lois said.
"I'm sorry," Clark said.
"One thing that is hugely different here is that when people get sick, we don't always know the reason," she said. "In America, there's usually a diagnosis, and then often, there is a treatment to either fix the problem or, at least, alleviate suffering. Sylva monitors symptoms and attempts to treat them, but the harsh reality is that, without diagnostic equipment and modern medicine, a lot of sickness leads to death."
"Don't you ever feel tempted to bring what you know of the bigger world to the Bangala?" Clark asked. "When someone gets sick, don't you wish you had access to the medical advances you know exist out there? Perhaps save a life?"
"Of course I've thought about it," Lois said. "But there would be a cost. Not just in terms of money for doctors, equipment, and transport, but it would threaten the way of life of the Bangala tribe. These people are happy. They lack some of the sophistication of the modern world, but they also live free of the greed and violence that has infiltrated many so-called civilised societies."
"You don't think there would be a way to take the best of both societies and combine them?" Clark asked.
Lois sombrely shook her head. "I know Sylva often wishes she could do more," she said. "She's been the main medicine woman for over twenty years - ever since her father died. In that time, she's lost a lot of patients … and friends."
"Her father was a medicine man?"
"Yes."
"You don't know why Matymbou's first wife died?"
"From what Sylva has told me, I guess it might have been cancer."
"Poor Lioli," Clark said.
"She's a sweet little thing," Lois said with evident fondness. "And she's the light of Matymbou's life."
Lois wasn’t the light of his life? Clark searched her face for signs of discontent, but found none. "It's nice that Matymbou has a daughter to remember his first wife," he said, wondering if Lois and Matymbou were hoping to have a child of their own.
Lois smiled in agreement. "Her name was Kibibi. Sylva has told me stories of how Matymbou doted on her. And how inconsolable he was when she died."
Matymbou had doted on his first wife. Their daughter was the light of his life.
Where did that leave Lois?
Not upset or offended, apparently.
Was it possible Lois was unhappy in her marriage? From her demeanour, it didn't seem so. And yet, something was missing. There was warm affection in her voice when she spoke of Matymbou, but neither of them seemed to mind being apart for a week.
Perhaps they had entered a season of marriage where their love was more about contentment and comfort than fiery passion.
Whatever the situation, Clark shouldn't be thinking about Lois and Matymbou's marriage - certainly not with regard to passion, fiery or not. He lurched to his feet. "I want to keep working on the truck while there's still some light," he said as he hurried away.
~|^|~
Darkness fell quickly, and less than half an hour later, Clark was forced to return to the fire where Lois was drinking an after-dinner cup of coffee.
Throughout the day, he had become accustomed to the tools, and he was pleased with the progress of the truck. Earlier, he'd checked out the table and beds in the hut, wanting to copy techniques. He'd been impressed with the skills of the Bangala carpenters, but he didn't think his work was glaringly inferior to theirs.
He felt keen to share his progress with Lois. To show her the cabin and tray. The axles with wheels that rotated freely. The slide-in-slide-out back. The attachable ramp.
But he packed away the not-yet-finished truck with the tools, not really understanding either the strength of his desire to share with her or his ultimate decision to remain secretive.
Possibly, it was an instinctive strategy to avoid disappointment if her reaction didn't match his hopes.
Or, perhaps he was wary of her appreciation. Her excitement. Her approval. That smile. He could feel himself wanting more of those. And that put him in a precarious position.
He could so easily slip into caring about what Lois thought of him.
For nearly a decade, he'd been a slave to Lana's approval. He would have done anything to win and secure her love.
But Lana had never really loved him - that had become brutally clear. She'd grown tired of his anomalies. She'd viewed their marriage as more of a cheap trinket than a lifelong commitment to love and faithfulness.
Inevitably, the novelty had faded and she'd replaced it with something real.
But Lois …
Lois was nothing like Lana.
And in that, lay his greatest danger.
Lois was married. He would cling to that. It would be his lifeline.
He wished he wasn't interested in Lois and her life with the Bangala. He'd fought it, but it was still there, driving him to find out more about her.
She was young, capable, intelligent, and caring.
She was human. She belonged.
Yet, she had traded her home and her people to live among African natives somewhere in the Congo Basin.
She lived in a place where she was different from everyone else. She'd said she hadn't had a choice, at least initially, but Clark found it difficult to believe that she couldn't have returned if she'd really wanted to.
She had married here. Perhaps that made the difference.
But he had married, too. And, for a time, it had made him feel less alone.
Clark glanced sideways. Lois was staring into the fire, the hint of her smile suggesting she was remembering something pleasant.
"Do you ever think about the life you left?" Clark blurted out.
She didn't answer. Not verbally. She looked at him with such intensity that it seemed she could see into his soul. "It will get easier," she said. "I promise."
But this wasn't about him. "There must be something you miss," he persisted. "Friends. Family. Your career." Belonging. Being just like everyone else.
"It was incredibly difficult at first," Lois said, shuffling a little closer to him as she spoke. "I thought I was happy with my life. I thought I had everything I'd ever wanted. I spent a long time - days, weeks - ranting at the unfairness of life and infuriated because everything had been stolen away from me, leaving me feeling helpless and without any control over my life. But after some time, I was able to take my eyes from all that I'd lost and begin to appreciate all that I'd gained."
"You're truly happy here?" he asked, knowing a smattering of disbelief sounded in his question. "Even though you're different from everyone else?"
"I don't feel different," she said. "And yes, I am happy. I have so much."
It seemed to Clark there was an unspoken qualification dangling from her statement, and he couldn't stop himself from asking, "What do you lack?"
She seemed a little taken aback by the directness of his question. After a moment of silence, she chuckled. "At the moment, I lack heat," she said. "Are you cold?"
"Not really."
"I am." She stood. "Be back in a moment."
When she returned, she was carrying a blanket, which she draped around her shoulders as she sat next to him.
The polite thing to do would be to change the subject, but Clark's questions were still clamouring for answers. He wanted to understand why someone who'd had everything he yearned for had given it up so easily and now didn't appear to regret its loss. "When you said, 'I have so much', it seemed as if there is something you don't have. Is there something you miss? Something specific from you old life?"
She didn't seem offended by his persistence. "I didn't have much to miss," she said. "I was never close to my family. My parents are divorced; my sister took herself as far away as possible. My friends … The truth is that I never had any really close friends."
"You sound as if you were lonely," he said.
"Lonely. Afraid. Isolated. Ambitious. Blind."
"And now you're …"
"Not alone. Not afraid. Not isolated. Not particularly ambitious, although I'd like to become the best Medicine Woman and the best mother I can be. And, I hope, I'm not blind anymore, either."
"I was lonely," Clark said, leaning forward, elbows on knees, as he stared into the dirt. "I was afraid. I was isolated. I had totally unrealistic ambitions. And I was so, so blind."
"About what?" she asked.
Wasn't it obvious? "I thought … I believed …"
"That you were young and therefore immune from tragedy?"
No. That being an alien didn't automatically disqualify him from love and family.
"So did I," Lois said, taking his silence as agreement. "Which was stupid considering the prevalence of shootings and murder and violence." She reached over and put her hand on his arm. "How did Lana die? Was it sudden?"
"She didn't die," Clark said dully, speaking before he had time to consider whether it would have been wiser to allow Lois to continue to think his loss had been outside everyone's control and not the result of his deficiencies.
"She didn't?"
"She left me." He'd said it. The words … the truth … his shame … reverberated into the cool African darkness.
"She … left … you?"
"Yeah. She walked out because she found someone who could be the husband she needed."
"Oh, Kent." Lois shuffled closer and put her arm across his back, partially covering him with the blanket. "I'm so sorry. I … I thought …"
"You thought she'd died?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because …" Her arm tightened around him. "Because I couldn't imagine any woman leaving a man like you."
"You've known me for three days," Clark said. "How can you know what sort of man I am?"
"I just know," she said after a short pause. "I can't explain it, but right from the start, I knew you were a good man."
He was neither good nor a man. "But I was so rude," he said. "And ungrateful. I pretended I didn't understand English."
Her soft chuckle vibrated against his side. "I knew you had good reason for not wanting to interact with me."
"Good reason?"
"I thought you were mourning the death of your wife."
"Now you know I didn't have any reason. I acted like a boor."
"You acted like someone who was suffering unbearable pain," Lois said. "I think your wife choosing to leave would hurt as much as a death. It would feel like betrayal. Particularly when …"
"When she went to another man." The bitterness of his words assaulted his senses - hearing, taste, touch.
Lois laid her head on the curve of his back, just behind his arm. She said nothing, but words would have diluted the poignancy of her gesture. Clark sat, unmoving, as her understanding and support slowly infiltrated his cordon of isolation and pain. The pain of being different. The pain of being found lacking. The pain of losing everything he had loved.
Lured by her closeness, her warmth and tangible acceptance, his hand crept across his lap and found her hand where it was lightly gripping his side.
Her arm pulled him closer, huddling them together under the blanket.
He wasn't strong enough to break away.
All his life, he had searched for a place to belong.
And now, he'd found it.
With Lois.
He could see so clearly now. Everything he'd had with Lana had been superficial. Pretence, born of desperate hope.
But this …
It would only last a short time. Five minutes … perhaps ten. And then she would stand, smile, and remind both of them that he was a stranger and she was a married woman.
He would accept it. He would be grateful.
And he would always remember that, for a few moments, it hadn't mattered that he was the only Kryptonian living on this foreign planet.
