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On her latest nameday, she asks to do something quiet. She says so to Kal. He rubs his forehead for a bit in thought, then says: it’s pretty hot today, do you want to go get ice cream? What’s ice cream? Kara asks. Then Lois rushes up front and clasps her shoulders. In all your years on Earth, you’ve never had ice cream? I’ve had popsicles before, Kara says, and iced tea—but not soft, silky, actual real ice cream? Lois presses. Then she snatches Kara by the sleeves. We’re fixing this right now.
So they go buy ice cream.
They take seats on the patio, under the shade of a gingko tree. Kal comes back with three bowls of ice cream and sets them on the table, then takes Jonathan from Lois and deposits his son on his shoulders. Like snow, Kal explains, but thicker and sweeter. Turquoise mingling with brown. Mint chocolate. It’s my favorite, Kal says. There’s a pitted cherry sitting on top, and a tiny spoon sticking out from the side.
Krypto bounds into her lap.
She takes a spoonful, slips it onto her tongue. It tastes like rakao butter, her father’s favorite spice, except less peppery and more refreshing, sweeter, melting faster on the tongue. She takes another scoop. Then another.
They’re halfway through their bowls when Jonathan starts cooing longingly from his perch.
“Ma-ma.”
“Nuh-uh,” Lois cuts in firmly. “You are not having ice cream, Jonathan, or candies, or any kind of refined or processed sugars under my watch until you turn at least three.”
“Pa-pa?”
“I’m with your mom on this one.” Kal lets out a knowing chuckle. “She knows her stuff.”
“I do,” Lois preens.
“After all the unholy, sleepless, caffeine-fuelled nights me and your mom spent changing your diapers and fumbling over baby formula and making sure you didn’t suddenly get powers ten years ahead of schedule and levitate out of the crib while our eyes were off of you—no, we’re not taking that risk.”
The child lets out a disappointed bleat. Then he turns his attention to Kara.
“Ka-ra?”
“What about you?” Lois asks. “Will you succumb to our devilspawn’s wily ways and offer him the forbidden treats he so craves?”
She takes her sunglasses off to look at him properly. He’s decked in a pair of tiny overalls and a Daily Planet t-shirt and an Orioles baseball that’s smeared at the rim with sunscreen. With pudgy hands, he is reaching for the ice cream in his father’s hands.
She lingers over the lick of wispy brown hair, twin to his mother’s; eyes matching with his father’s, aglow with all the azure hues of Earth’s clear skies.
“He’s beautiful,” she breathes.
“Huh?”
“I meant, no.” She lets a smile creep over her face. “I’m not risking messing up his powers,” she continues. “We wouldn’t want him to, I don’t know, breathe fire and shoot ice from his eyes, right?”
She glances down at Krypto, in her lap, chewing at his red cape, shooting her a look of confusion.
“That was a joke.”
“I know it was.”
She looks back up. Lois is fixing her with a fond, faintly mischievous smile. As for her cousin, he’s in a spot of trouble. Jonathan has managed to climb over his head. Her nephew tugs at his hair, shoves fistfuls of hair into his mouth in place of the forbidden ice cream. They’ve finished their bowls, now. Jonathan seizes Kal’s glasses, then right ear, then nose, twists, and Kara’s cousin—Superman, he who can crack planets like eggs, he who is now decked in a beach shirt and khaki shorts and is losing the physical battle with his son—squawks in faint alarm.
She can’t help it. She laughs. And after an instant, Lois and Kal join her.