Chapter Text
Lois stood on the porch of her father's house, willing the tears that pricked her eyes to subside.
I'm a real tough kid, I can handle it.
Not so much for her family's sake—she'd cried more in the last year, alone and with them, than she had in four decades of life—but more for her own sanity. If she started crying now, she wouldn't be able to stop. And today of all days, she needed to hold it together. They were packing up Dad's house, the first step in a long list of steps to bury her last remaining parent. She needed at least part of her brain operable. The mindless grieving, the yawning pit of despair, the simmering anger and rage, would have to wait.
She'd only been back here twice, once to throw out the perishable food and again to figure out the thermostat and utilities so Lucy could control them remotely. Her little sister had taken on the liaison role for Lois, coordinating all the things one had to take care of when somebody died.
Utilities. Bills. Inheritance taxes. What became of Dad’s house and the land and his new-old car. Who did the readings at his funeral and who were the pallbearers. Whether he was buried in Arlington or at Ft. Leavenworth. Music for the ceremony. What uniform he'd be buried in. Canceling his Netflix subscription, along with Hulu and cable and Scientific American. Canceling his prescriptions at the pharmacy. Retrieving whatever classified information was buried on the property. Figuring out what to do with all his fishing poles.
Reducing the sum total of a person's life to an hour long funeral and a house full of boxes--it was a gargantuan task for anyone to take on. You needed nerves of steel, an iron resolve, a bracing will, to call up chaplains and talk to mortuary directors without breaking down in every meeting, crying hysterically on every conference call. She and Clark had worked through it the first time, after Martha died. And now, barely three years later, she was doing it again.
I'm a real tough kid, I can handle it.
A gust of wind knocks against her, rattling the wind chimes on the porch. Lois blinks and takes a deep breath, steadying herself. Her reflection, shrouded in shadow, does the same in the glass storm door. Several feet behind her, clearer though they're farther away, she can see Clark and the twins, silently waiting for her.
The silence--there's nothing here, except the wind and the clattering chimes. Maybe it's the silence that making her feel worse. No one spoke, not on the drive up nor now, in front of Dad's house. It was as if this place were sacred ground, and everyone had to be quiet, lest they desecrate the place with anything beyond whispers.
It was funny, Dad had never been a quiet man. He wasn't boisterous, either, or inherently loud, but he had a gravitas that took over the place, made his presence known. Whether you were arguing or agreeing with him, doing something or doing nothing, you knew he was there.
Alive and breathing. Living. Doing. Handling problems. Putting out fires. Being there. Making mistakes and learning to do better. Opening doors, like she should be doing now.
Dad would've opened the door by now.
He'd be inside, packing up. Ruthlessly efficient, even when the world was crumbling, and his heart was breaking.
He'd lost soldiers in war and in peace, grieved a failed marriage, buried his brother and parents. Attended funeral after funeral, done what she was doing now, a thousand times over. He did all that and kept going. Didn't let grief drown him. It was sink or swim, right? Fake it 'til you make it, bottle up your grief and pack it away before the tidal wave of loss smothers you. Act like you're invincible, believe the lie because that's all that's holding you together.
Dad would've done it...so she could do it too.
They were Lanes, after all.
Lanes were tough, she was tough, and it was unseasonably cold outside.
I'm a real tough kid.
One final breath, and Lois hears herself unlocking the storm door and typing the passcode for the front door. Pushing both of them open and stepping inside. A voice that sounds like hers is talking now, assigning everyone tasks, giving instructions, going through the motions of a person with purpose.
A person in control, awake and alive, aware of her emotions but not ceding ground to them.
Not now. Not today.
She's done all this before, burying her anxieties and fears under waves of bravado and confidence and false capability. She'd gotten through so much that way--mom leaving, Dad on classified deployments, Granny and her mother-in-law dying. Lucy's suicide attempt. Several office restructurings. The loss of several cars, mostly to arson. A miscarriage. Clark disappearing. Everything with Jordan. Jon doing drugs.
The bravado, the confidence, it's kept her alive, kept her moving when she's falling to pieces. Kept her afloat in the face of loss after loss. Kept the dread and grief and terror in check. But there'd been so many--too many--losses lately.
Her health, her hair, and everything else cancer took from her.
Her children's childhood and peace of mind. Jon was overworking himself, and Jordan was on the precipice of...something, and she didn't know how to pull him back from it.
Clark wasn't up to full strength.
And now, Dad. Cut down in his prime and gone too soon. A casualty of a war he'd never signed up for. Yet another loss, and Lois was so, so tired of losing. So sick of grief. Exhausted from watching her family cry. It was like they were in perpetual mourning, caught in a loop where they weathered one tragedy only to suffer another.
So now what?
Who broke first? Who died next? Who or what else was she fated to lose? What other unstoppable calamities were just around the corner?
She could hold her breath, hit her marks, stick the landing. Be productive despite her tears.
She could do it with a broken heart and do it well.
But she couldn't do it forever.