“Stop crowding me, Mom!”
“I’m not crowd—”
“I’m going flying whether you like it or not!”
“Sweetie, skipping school isn’t the way to get permission to—”
“Screw school! None of those people understand what I’m going through!”
Lois sighed. “I do, Catharine.”
“Oh, sure! You got your super-powers at fourteen and you’ve just been hiding them from the world like Dad hid them from his kids! And just because I’m the youngest I found out last! It’s not fair!”
“We weren’t sure you were ready to handle that information.”
“So you let me walk in on you while you were dancing in mid-air? Is that how you told my siblings about him? And all those veiled hints and wink-wink nudge-nudge conversations at dinner make sense now! I’m furious with both of you, but at least now I know you didn’t cheat on Dad with Superman!”
Lois almost snapped back at her daughter. But she paused to think of what to say and realized that she had to change her approach. This one clearly wasn’t working.
She turned and sat down on the couch, then patted the cushion beside her. “Sit with me, Little Kitten. I need to tell you a story.”
“Right.” Catharine put her hands on her hips and all but snarled at her mother. “Is this the one about the first Intergang story you and Dad wrote? Or about the two of you bringing down Lex Luthor and how he never saw it coming? Or the time Dad saved you from some wanna-be druid? Or maybe how he busted you out of jail when you were going to be executed for a murder you didn’t do?”
Lois shook her head sadly. “No,” she replied softly. “It’s about how you got your name.”
The girl stopped ranting and stared at her mother. “How I got my name?” Lois nodded. “You’ve never told me any stories about that. I just assumed – I always thought you two just picked it out of the air. Or got it from a baby name book.”
“No. You’re named after a very special person in our lives, someone who died before you were born. You were named Catharine Margaret to honor her.”
Catharine was intrigued and she perched herself on the chair opposite her mother. “Is this why you sometimes call me Little Cat? Or Kitten? Or even Mags?”
Lois smiled. “Yes. You were named after one of the bravest people I’ve ever known. Her name was Catharine Grant, and she gave her life to give you yours.”
Little Cat’s eyes bugged out. “You mean – she donated an organ or something?”
“Something like that. It’s kind of a long story, though. Are you sure you want to hear it now?”
“Yes! You can’t lead with something like that and then not follow through! I want to know what happened!”
Lois smiled. Like mother, like daughter.
“Okay. To start with, you remember that I told you I was in the Army?”
“Yes. You had to leave the service because you were wounded, right?”
“That’s right. But I’ve never told you how that figured into Cat Grant being my best friend, or how it affected the way I met your father.”
“Then start talking! I’ll try not to butt in with dumb questions.”
*****
Almost an hour later, at the end of the long tale, Catharine had moved to the couch beside her mother and was nestled in Mom’s embrace, weeping openly, her tears mixing with her mother’s as Lois stroked her daughter’s hair. “It’s not fair,” sobbed Catharine. “What happened to her wasn’t fair.”
“No,” Lois sniffed. “It wasn’t. But Cat Grant sacrificed her life so that I could live and have you and your brother and sister. She knew she was putting herself in danger, she knew she wasn’t bulletproof like your dad, she knew she didn’t have my training or skills, but she still did her best to save someone else’s life.” Lois paused to wipe her eyes. “I still love her more than anyone except your father and all our children.” She sniffed and tightened her hug. “And I will always miss her.”
Little Cat returned Lois’ embrace for a long moment, then lifted her face to her mother. “It’s funny. I never met her, never had the chance, never heard of her until today, but somehow I miss her too.” The girl buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. “I really wish I’d known her.”
Lois stroked Catharine’s hair. “You would have liked her. And she would have adored you.”
“Even more than Aunt Lucy does?”
Lois laughed. “As much as your Aunt Lucy loves all of you kids, I think you and Cat would have been best buddies. In fact,” she said as she leaned back, “I probably would have had to limit your time with her. She might have been a corrupting influence on you. In a good way, of course.”
“Oh, of course.”
They shared a teary laugh, then Catharine asked, “Mom – would it be okay if I visited her grave with you the next time you go?”
“Of course, sweetheart. How about this Saturday afternoon?”
“I’ll be there. Uh – will my sibs come too?”
“I don’t know why they would. Neither Larry nor Rhonda has any direct link to Cat Grant. If they want to come, we’ll take them next time, okay?” She smiled and gently tweaked her daughter’s nose. “This Saturday will be our private time together.”
“What about Dad?”
“Well, you can ask him if you want to. I think he hasn’t gone there with me very often because he doesn’t want me to get the wrong idea about his relationship with her.”
“Oh.” Catharine turned her head and spoke too casually. “If Big Cat had lived, do you maybe think – is it possible that – that Dad might have married her?”
Lois paused, then said, “That’s an interesting question. Anything’s possible, Kitten, but remember that your dad asked me to marry him, and I accepted his proposal, before Big Cat died. So, yes, it’s possible, but the probability is extremely, extremely low. Besides, she was pretty determined not to be a mother by then. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to be who her kids would've needed her to be. She probably would have gotten married eventually, but kids? No, unless the guy she married already had some of his own.”
Lois felt Catharine relax a bit. “Okay. Hey, do you think she would have minded being called Big Cat?”
Lois laughed again. “I think she would have preferred Auntie Cat instead, but if you had insisted, she would have let you call her anything that was affectionate.”
“That’s a good thought. Hey, do you think she and Aunt Selina Cat would have gotten along? Or if you just yelled out, ‘Hey, Cat,’ would they both answer?”
They shared a quiet chuckle before a soft knock from the living room doorway drew their attention. “Hey, you two. How’s it going?”
Catharine Margaret Kent jumped up from the couch and ran to her father. Despite her youth and her above-average height, which had exceeded her mother’s almost two years earlier, her steps were graceful and smooth. Her arms wrapped him up and she snuffled, “Oh, Daddy, I love you so much! Thank you for being my dad!”
He returned her embrace. “I love you too, Kitten.” Above the girl’s head, he lifted a questioning eyebrow at his wife, who smiled back and nodded. After a long hug, he pulled back and looked down at his youngest child. “Hey, Mags, how about you and me waiting until your siblings are in for the night and then taking a little trip with me?”
The girl chuckled and gave him a happy frown. “I’m a little old for ice cream treats, Dad.”
He shook his index finger at her playfully. “You are never too old for ice cream. But that’s not what I meant.”
“Oh? What did you mean?”
He picked her up in his arms, levitated a couple of feet in the air, and spun her around several times. “I meant that we could go to Florida or Georgia or wherever you wanted to go to get some ice cream.”
“What? But Dad, that’s too far to drive in one – wait a minute! You don’t mean – are you talking about—”
He put his mouth beside her ear and whispered loudly enough for Lois to hear, “Let’s you and me go flying together. What do you say?”
Lois watched her daughter jump to the floor, then bounce in place as if she had steel springs in her shoes. “Mom! Dad said – he said – we’re going flying!”
“I heard.” She smiled at the girl – no, the young woman acting like a girl – and said, “Be sure to dress in dark clothing. And do exactly what your father tells you. Deal?”
Catharine all but tackled her mother and squealed, “Deal!” Then she spun on one foot and bounced some more. “Come on, Dad! We have a cloud to catch!”
Clark threw a helpless look at his wife. “I guess we’re going now. Will you be okay with dinner for the other two great beasties?”
She nodded at him. “Assuming their social calendars are open, veggie pizza, here we come. I think we’ll go there instead of having it delivered. In fact, I think I’ll go even if I go alone.”
“Without the kids?”
“You know what social butterflies Rhonda and Larry are.”
His mouth opened, but before he could say anything more, Catharine all but pulled him off his feet. “Come on, Dad! I want to see the sunset from over the Atlantic!”
He managed a finger-wave to his wife as his daughter tugged him up the stairs to the roof. “Later!” he called out.
Lois laughed, pleased that the encounter with her Kitten had ended so well. As she half-listened to their conversation upstairs, she picked up her phone and dialed a number in Gotham.
“Hello, Lois. Hang on a second – okay, the line is secured.”
“Hi, Selina. How’s life treating you?”
The woman on the other end of the conversation groaned. “Like an interloper. I can’t seem to get rid of those last fifteen pounds I put on with our second kid. And it’s been almost two years already!”
“Really? I feel your pain, girlfriend.”
The voice turned bone-dry. “I’m sure you do, Ms. Fit-Through-A-Keyhole-Like-I-Used-To Lane. I assume you’re calling to invite us to a cookout in your back yard next Saturday so you can show off your slender figure to all your women friends and make their husbands or boyfriends jealous of Clark.”
Lois laughed as the upstairs window slapped shut. “Oh, if I only had a recording of Catwoman talking about babies, weight gain, and weekend backyard cookouts, I could sell it to the tabloids and retire.”
“You’d make a lot more selling it back to Bruce. He still thinks he’s in his mid-thirties. Keeps telling me he never thought he’d be married to someone as old as I am. Last week he gave me a T-shirt that says ‘I Thought Growing Old Would Take Longer’ on the front.”
Lois laughed again. “I don’t know whether to tease you or commiserate with you.”
“I’ll take either one. Oh, Bruce will want to know this, so I have to ask you how the new implanted digital hearing aids are working.”
“Surprisingly well. Although I’d forgotten how high-pitched teenagers’ voices can be. Maggie had a slumber party last week, and when the girls all started laughing and squealing at once it sounded like fifty baby chainsaws on meth doing the Hamster Dance.”
Selina laughed freely. “Just wait until she gets older and starts dating. Then you’ll know you’re almost ready to retire.”
“You’d know more about getting older than I would. And I’ll have you know that Rhonda has a steady boyfriend and Larry is quite popular with the young ladies at parties. Speaking of time going by, our little Kitten knows The Secret now.”
“You told her? Or did she invoke those latent Lane genes and discover it herself?”
“Herself, with a little bit of luck tossed into the blender. She’s sharp as a lightsaber, won’t let anything get past her.”
“Can’t argue with that. Did you call to commiserate or complain? Or maybe to brag about how smart she is?”
“None of the above. Clark’s taking her flying tonight, so I’m driving the other two to the Pizza Palace, assuming they’re free. But I wanted to do something special with Catharine, so I called to ask you when you were next headed to Milan for a wardrobe upgrade.”
“Ha-ha-ha! I should have known you had an ulterior motive. Hmm, how about two weeks from Friday? That’ll give us two days, or three if we don’t come back until Tuesday morning. Or is that too soon?”
“Should be fine. I’ll have Clark warn the credit card companies. But I also wanted this to be a threesome instead of just the two of us.”
“You refer to my namesake, I assume?”
“Yes. Presuming, of course, that you can keep your paws off the sparkly stuff.”
“Don’t worry, Lois, I always pay for my swag now. In fact, Eddie and Harvey are the only ones from the old days who still call me regularly about non-criminal activities. And I also assume that this trip means that I’m reserving the new Learjet and crew?”
“I hope so. I can’t swim that far. I want my little girl to have the best weekend I can give her. And we need to watch our conversational content, too. We’ll have impressionable young ears super-listening to everything we say.”
“Sounds like a fairly restrictive form of fun, but I’ll take it. I’ll firm up the details on my end and call you back to confirm in a couple of days. This may take a little wheedling.”
“If anyone can wheedle Batman, I’m sure you can. Just tell him that this is for Clark and he’ll agree to just about anything. Besides, it’s time Superman and Batman did some kid-sitting for their wonderful wives.”
“You’re absolutely right about that. Whoops, here comes Bernard with milady’s afternoon grapefruit.”
“Who’s Bernard again?”
“Alfred’s hand-picked successor. Alfred had to retire last year after that second heart attack that scared us so badly, although he still insists he’s just fine. Despite his age and condition and station in life, I still think he could take Bernard in a fight without breaking much of a sweat. They’re starting to work much better together – what is it, Bernard?”
Lois heard the sound of the man’s cultured tenor voice without grasping the words, then Selina came back on the line. “Sorry to cut this short, but I have a guest waiting for me downstairs and I don’t want her in the mansion any longer than she has to be.”
She almost asked who the guest was, but decided she didn’t need to know which crazy Rogue was trying to break through the walls Bruce and Selina had raised to protect themselves and their own children. Instead she said, “Go take care of your guest, then give Bruce a kiss on the cheek for me and a big sloppy one on the mouth from yourself.”
Selina chuckled. “Will do. Have fun with the replacement units tonight. We’ll chat again in a couple of days and firm up our plans. Toodles!”
Lois hung up the phone, sat back, and smiled at her life. She and Clark would celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary next year. They had three beautiful children, the youngest of which would be introduced to the world of high fashion with her mother in just a few days. Best of all, by sharing the story of the origin of her name, she’d managed to build a strong bridge to the girl, one that if reinforced regularly would be a lifelong link between them. The other two kids were in advanced classes in their college-prep private school and were close enough in age to defend each other if the need arose. Of course, it rarely did nowadays.
Her children were all geniuses, no false bravado or bragging involved, and nowadays they taught her as much as she taught them. If she ever admitted feeling a little dumb around any of them, Clark would kiss her and remind her that they’d inherited her mental faculties. It always made her feel better.
Her best friend these days was a reformed world-class thief who had carved out an honest career designing and implementing new security systems, and who sometimes even condescended to fix the holes in existing systems, assuming she was motivated and was approached in the proper deferential manner – meaning if she were offered enough money or asked in the proper way. And it worked out well that Selina’s husband – who was still haunting the night as Batman, albeit less frequently – was Lois’ husband’s best friend. Bruce’s billionaire status had come in handy with the Kent household’s various remodeling projects, too.
Lois had followed Perry White into the general editor’s chair at the Daily Planet and was teaching the young reporters that story content and presentation was everything and the flash and sparkle of their competitors drew the reader’s eyes but not their loyalty or the advertisers’ dollars. The photo of Perry and Elvis shaking hands mounted on the wall opposite her desk let her draw on the deep well of Elvis trivia which Perry had bequeathed to her. She still missed the old curmudgeon and his Tennessee drawl.
It was a great life.
But she knew she had that great life because of Cat Grant’s sacrifice. Lois never forgot that. She couldn’t forget it – Cat’s death had marked a turning point in Lois’ life that dwarfed all that had come before it. Cat’s willingness to die for Clark had shown her what love really was. Remembering Cat had helped her through the births of three children, not to mention the greater pain and joy of raising them to near-adulthood.
And now that her youngest child knew that her father was also Superman, it marked a turning point in their relationship.
A good turning point. Her little girl was becoming a woman in mind and heart as well as in body.
And Lois couldn’t imagine anything better than that.
# End #
