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Happy Birthday, Baby
by wordlover

Staring wistfully out into the fading darkness, she touched the cracked leather binding of the photo album.

"This is not the right time to go soft, Chloe," she said out-loud.

Today would be her mother's 40th birthday. Every year on this day Chloe took out the book, but she's never gotten past the first three pages. Perhaps this would be her year to go all the way.

Sighing, she returned to her newest editorial on "Parental Responsibility" for the Torch. When in doubt, express your personal trauma to the entire school.

Ten minutes later, ready to scream, cry, and throw the laptop down the stairs, Chloe saved what is left of the editorial and shuts down. She had edited the piece to the point that it no longer made sense. With more than a little force she slamed on her CD player to shuffle without looking at what was inside. Flopping on the bed, she again caressed the old photo album. Absently, she wondered if her father ever remembered this day. After all, he never seemed to notice that the photo album had gone missing from the other books and albums under the coffee table. She wished she could turn her feelings on and off like that. Must be a Y-chromosome thing.

Actually, this editorial was part of her "big break." Last week's editorial on school violence and the death of Jenna, which was a too-close-for-comfort call in Chloe's world, grabbed the attention of local parents and town officials; for once, the snide comments and words of encouragement came from adults. Someone sent a copy of the editorial to Red Shovlain, assistant editor of the Daily Planet, and he had called her, Chloe Sullivan, to let her know that her work showed real promise. Also, he let her know that the Daily was starting a Youth Editorial Board for the state, and that he was very interested in having Chloe on the committee. He wanted her to send him a copy of her next editorial as well as a portfolio of her work to submit with her entry for the Y.E.B. Barely hiding her excitement, she said she'd get the portfolio gathered and sent in to him. Her head swimming in delirious joy, she barely heard Shovlain prattle on with the details, and turning to her bedroom door, scored a direct hit on her dartboard of Britney Spears. "I guess Britney will need a little body sculpting before her next tour," she grinned silently, when Red's words cut through her, "...and of course we'll need a parental permission slip and family photo for our final selection round."

Chloe's next dart missed the board completely and bounced off the doorjamb as she grasped the phone to her ear in tightening panic. "I'm sorry Mr. Shovlain, a family photo?"

"All writers selected will be profiled along with their families in our Sunday edition," Red replied. "We want to really get in the 'reading as a family' angle with this committee, and feel this is the best way to get the message out to our readers. Will the picture be a problem?" he asked, and the sudden drop in his enthusiasm caused Chloe's stomach to hit the floor. She could feel her big break slipping like soap through her fingers.

"No, not a problem at all," she said, forcing her voice to be light and give a slight laugh. "I just wanted to make sure I heard you correctly. I guess I'm just excited to get going on the portfolio."

Red laughed heartily on the other end of the line. "Your reputation as an investigative reporter has proceeded you, Miss Sullivan. It appears you attack all issues in your life with the same fervor as your reporting."

"I'll be sending you an information packet with all the necessary information. We do need all entries by 5pm Friday, so please be sure to send yours in as soon as you finish this week's editorial."

"I'll get it to you no later than Thursday, Mr. Shovlain," Chloe replied, "Thank you for your time. I really appreciate this opportunity."

"You just keep writing editorials like this one, young lady, and I'm sure we'll hear more from Chloe Sullivan in the near future," was Shovlain's reply.

That call had been Sunday night. Chloe had received the information packet Monday at school, next- day delivery from Metropolis. Shovlain had even written a personal note at the bottom of the cover letter, letting Chloe know he was looking forward to seeing her work. While it was exciting to have the school office deliver her package during English I, and to have the entire class look at her in wonder, she felt the warm weight settle low in her stomach as she thought of the required family photo. She hadn't even mentioned this to her father, and would not until she had figured out what to do about the photo.

When was our last family picture? Rolling onto her back and allowing her head to fall over the end of the bed, Chloe looked out into the final light of day, and thought back. It must have been my tenth birthday, she thought, the last time Mom was able to stay with them. Not long after Chloe's birthday, when her dad was at another conference for LuthorCorp, her mom had come into her room after Chloe had gone to bed and awakened her. With extremely bright eyes, she told Chloe that she had been offered a position at a university in Africa to chair the women's studies department. She didn't want Chloe to sacrifice her education in the United States for the poorer education and political unrest that was present in Africa, so she would be leaving Chloe and her dad for the next two years to teach in the wilds of Africa.

At the time, Chloe was excited for her mom. It all sounded like a great adventure, a life experience, and that was right up Catherine McManus' alley. Cate, as everyone called Chloe's mother, was someone who lived life for the experiences it provided. A professor of women's studies and literature, she was a small woman with auburn hair who exploded with energy. She also exploded with her own opinions and ideas. Cate was the youngest child of a small-town farming family in Melrose, a poor town in the southern part of the state, the youngest daughter of Irish immigrants. Grandma Mac told Chloe that she was always surprised that everyone in the family was able to survive Cate's childhood. Cate had red hair and a free spirit, but she was very bright, so when given the opportunity to study in Europe on a scholarship her sophomore year of high school, she practically left the country before her parents had even signed the permission form. She didn't return to Melrose for another six years, and Chloe always thought that was the reason her Grandma's eyes always looked so sad.

Cate studied a year in France and another in Germany. She won a scholarship to attend Oxford University in England for college, and stayed until her senior year, when her father died. Patty McManus may have been poor, but he was well-respected in the community. When Cate claimed that she didn't have the funds to fly home for the funeral, the town mayor called her and told her that she would be coming home if he had to swim over there and drag her back. Cate stayed for the funeral and prepared to leave the day after her father was buried. Her brothers sat her down and told her she needed to stay with their mother, who would need her help now on the farm. Cate said that since they were all farmers in the local area, they could help, and that the opportunity she had back in England was too good to pass up. There was no argument, since Cate would not accept that she needed to stay. Severing all her family ties, Cate wouldn't return to Melrose again until after Chloe was born.

Cate returned to Oxford, where she earned her Masters Degree in English, and then returned to the States. She joined a feminist group and toured the country setting up women's shelters and legal rights centers. While at a rally on the campus of Metropolis University she met Gabe Sullivan. They did that "hippie thing," as Chloe called it, and were married by some Indian guru in a meadow. A year later Chloe was born, and four months after that, her mother was accepted into a program to teach and earn her doctorate at Metropolis University. Chloe's father had begun to work for LutherCorp, and would spend much of his time caring for Chloe when she wasn't at a local sitter's house.

When Chloe was three years old, her Grandma Mac took a bus into the city to visit them. Chloe's father was in the shower when her Grandma rang the doorbell, and three-year-old Chloe answered the door with the lock bar still on. She told the stooped old lady outside that she couldn't talk to strangers and closed the door on her. A few minutes later, Gabe was out of the shower and getting dressed when the doorbell rang again. He heard an insistent Chloe say that she was not allowed to talk to strangers and that "...you need to go away." Coming out of the bedroom, he glimpsed an old woman as Chloe again closed the door. Gabe went to the door and greeted the woman, who told him she was Cate's mother. Stunned, Gabe opened the door and let her in. Years later Chloe would learn that her mom had told her father that she didn't have any parents left.

That really defines Mom, Chloe thought to herself, as she felt the blood begin to rush to her head hanging over the edge of the bed. Everything was either on her terms or it didn't exist. Period. Her "two years" in Africa became a tenure as her weekly calls became monthly and then twice a year, her visits to the U.S. went from four times a year to one to none. Chloe hadn't seen her mother now in over two years, and this last year her mother had called her for her birthday ... a month early. While she was angry with her mom, Chloe couldn't bring herself to hate her. She had begun reading all the books her mother had kept in their library back in Metropolis, most of which her father had left in boxes after their move to Smallville. Authors like Cate Chapman and Jane Austen, poetry by D. H. Lawrence and Alta. Her mother had an old copy of "Pretty" by Alta, fingered and worn, marking a page in an anthology of women's writers. Chloe had taped it upside down under her window, so she could read it while handing over her bed. She glanced at it now, and with a grimace, sat up and grabbed the album off her quilt.

Taking a deep breath, Chloe opened the book and looked at the pictures inside. The first page was all Cate's school pictures from 4th grade through college. Chloe shared her mother's intense eyes and impish smile, and that same set of eyes and smile stared back at her from the different photographs. The final pictures on the page were shots taken of her mother as an educator at the various organizations and universities where she had taught. They ended with her mother's move to Africa.

The second and third pages were of Cate as a young girl in Europe, traveling with women's groups across the country, and finally with Chloe's dad at Metropolis U. Chloe liked these pictures, with her mother's hair in a red afro and her father's bushy mustache and hair, long and curly almost to his shoulders, sandy-blonde like hers. They made her more comfortable with her choices to not join the mainsteam. They gave her a sense of belonging and safety.

Taking a deep breath, Chloe's shaking hand turned the fourth page of the album. There on the pages were pictures of her mother pregnant with her, and suddenly small again with a little bundle wrapped in bright cloth. Heat sprang into Chloe's head and eyes, and she took deep breaths to quiet her emotions.

Turning to the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth pages, delving deeper and further into her emotions, Chloe was lost in memories before she realized that she was crying freely. Her phone rang sharply, slicing through her thoughts, and she sat paralyzed as Pete's voice floated from the answering machine, telling her that he and Clark were hanging at the Talon and wanting to know if she would be showing up. As the machine clicked to the dead sound of a dial tone, Chloe continued to look through the pictures. As the pages of the album progressed, she began to realize that her mother had left them long before her trip to Africa.

In the pictures from her eighth birthday Chloe realized that her mother had already begun to leave.For her eighth birthday, Chloe had wanted to go to a new kid's place called Littluns with her class from school. As usual, her father made all the arrangements, invited all the kids, and found parent chaperones. Her mother promised to be there on Saturday, saying she had made arrangements for someone else to run a conference on women writers of the 20th century. Her birthday arrived, and Chloe dressed in a new outfit to look like a safari guide. The theme of Littluns was an Australian adventure / pizza parlor, and Chloe wanted to lead her group like a real guide. She had even gone to the public library to read up on what a safari guide should do, the language of the "bush," and what animals to expect.

Full of information and excitement, Gabe drove Chloe and her best friend Marquette to the eatery. He assured Chloe that her mom would be arriving soon. After gathering all members of their "expedition" Chloe directed them all through the games and animals until everyone broke up and scattered to their favorite sites. Chloe and Marquette, her best friend, wrestled mechanical stuffed-alligators for most of the afternoon, as well as playing "bop-it" with hiding duck-billed platypuses, climbing up "trees" to claim koalas, and doing the chicken dance with a variety of wild birds. It wasn't until the pizza arrived and the strolling band of mates played the birthday song and "Waltzing Matilda" for the Chloe, the "Sheila of the Day," that she realized her mom wasn't there. With a false smile and falling hopes, she listened to the songs and accepted the pizzas, but as soon as they ended, she found her father and questioned him about her mother. With his best "happy voice" Gabe explained that her mother had to stay at the conference and wouldn't be home until that evening. Crushed, Chloe walked back to the table and ignored her pizza. After a half-hour of pouting, her father pulled her aside and told her that her mom had a big surprise for her when she got home, and that Chloe was supposed to enjoy herself today. Refreshed and renewed by their talk, Chloe, Marquette, and her friends when back to their pizza and play.

That evening Chloe's mother came home late, but she did bring a surprise with her. Walking into the apartment with her confident air, Cate was chattering with someone behind her. As she turned to enter the kitchen, Chloe saw another older woman behind Cate. This woman was very dark, her skin even blacker than Marquette's, and she wore a thick turban of cloth around the top of her head, surrounding dreadlocks of black and grey hair. Chloe had a vision of this woman wearing a towel over her head getting out of the shower, and suppressed a giggle. The woman walked up to Chloe and extended a slender hand. "I'm guessing you must be Chloe," said the woman with a smile, and her voice had a strange cadence to it, with the vowels and stresses all scrambled. "My name is Rheka Walladinga, and I'm a friend of your mum's. I hear that you have taken an interest in Australia; I'm from the bush myself," she said.

Chloe's mouth gaped open and her eyes popped as the full reality of what was happening hit her. Her mother didn't get to her birthday "safari," instead her brought Chloe a real live Australian! Chloe spend most of the evening, well past her bedtime, talking to Rheka about where she came from and what it was like living in Australia. Not until years later would Chloe realize that Rheka Walladinga was a huge world figure, fighting for women's and Aboriginal rights in Australia, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. She had been on the panel at Cate's conference, and had agreed to spend the evening with Chloe. It was a great present, but a part of Chloe still wished that her mom had done something with her, just her, for her birthday. While Chloe and Rheka talked, her mom ate leftovers from the fridge and read the paper.

Finally reaching the end of the album, Chloe gazed at the last picture of she and her mother. It was taken the last time her mother returned from Africa, at Chloe's induction into the honor's society at Luther Middle School in Metropolis. Cate hadher arm around Chloe's shoulders as Chloe held her certificate and leaned into her mother proudly. They looked so happy, so normal, that Chloe's stomach twisted sharply. In the picture of her dad, mom, and herself from the same event, Chloe's mother is looking away from the camera and toward the front of the room. After the picture was taken, Cate had walked off to talk to Lionel Luther about a women's scholarship he had developed for Metropolis U. He had named it for his wife, and Cate, as former head of the department for women's studies, wanted to thank him and offer his condolences. They waited several hours for her mother to finish "making the rounds," as Chloe used to call it, before deciding to leave Cate to take a cab back to their apartment. Chloe was in bed before her mother returned home that night, and sighed deeply as her parents attemped to fight quietly in the study over her mother's behavior.

Closing the book, Chloe realized what she needed to do. Her mother and father were not divorced legally, but her mother no longer had a need for their family. When her father was promoted to plant manager and they moved to Smallville, LuthorCorp had a big picnic for their employees to welcome Gabe to the plant. At the picnic, the families had taken place in a Silly Olympics, and Chloe had been a partner to her dad. While the activity was a bit too Beaver Cleaver for Chloe's tastes, she had to admit that she had a fantastic time with her dad that day. After the Three-Legged Race, someone had snapped a picture of Gabe and Chloe with their trophy, two Play School people tucked inside a burlap bag and glued to the top of an empty tin can. Gabe had showed the picture to Chloe, then stuffed it inside a box of pictures in the entratainment center.

Carrying the album to the living room, Chloe placed it among the other albums and books under the coffee table. She walked to the entertainment center and took out the picture box, which was made to look old by a covering of antique postcards. After ten minutes of shuffling, she found the picture. Going back to her room, she scanned the picture into her laptop and cleaned it up a bit. After taking out most of the people milling in the background, she brought the picture into better focus and cropped it to only include she and her father. She enlarged it, erased her previous editorial, and started anew.

Calling Pete's cell phone, she told him she wouldn't be at the Talon that night, that she had work to do. Blowing hair out of her eyes, she settled into the editorial on parental responsibility, but she no longer felt the heat and ache when she thought of her mother. Instead, she looked at the picture from the family picnic, and thought of her dad and all her had done to be both her mother and father. With a quick smile, she set the CD player to India Arie's Accoustic Soul and wrote her thanks to her dad.

Happy Birthday, Mom, she thought to herself, and felt the old feelings swell in her stomach and rise to tighten her throat. One last pang of self-pity, then Chloe was ready to move on and write an excellent editorial. This wasn't the time for emotions, it was time to live. Her mother taught her that by how she had chosen to live her life, removing emotional ties when they interfered with her life plans. Thanks, Mom. You're quite a teacher.