Lana had become the neighbourhood "go to" woman. She subconsciously thought it was a mischief, befallen her due to the unfortunate naming, Lana Lane, which triggered subconscious connections between her and the Superman story in people's minds. It was awkward. She worked from home since her husband died, at first organizing his papers and notes and copying them into the observatory's intranet library. Then she experienced a short interlude of furious anger, needing revenge on her husband, or on his fate, for dying when they'd only just recently met and romanced and gotten hitched.

It was during this time that she was visited, and unhappily received, a few of her new neighbours, when they heard of the story and saw her garden growing weeds and her trash never out on bin day. One brought her soup, another mowed the lawn, Mrs Feathers lent her collection of Cary Grant DVDs. And they all stayed a little while, and gently talked, and to avoid hurting Lana in any way by saying the wrong things, they mostly talked about their own lives. Not in a selfish way. They wanted Lana to know that they wanted to be polite, kind and friendly, so they were introducing themselves with vulnerability and mini autobiographies.

Gradually and naturally, a small network of relationships was formed, and a symbiotic bartering system. Lana put her brain and psychology PhD to good use by listening to her suburban co-inhabitants, and by enabling them to iron out the mean crinkles in their worlds. And they assisted Lana in their areas of expertise. Bob Fulcher, investment banker, helped her to research options for her husband's life insurance payout. Margaret Poulson, from Sotheby's, learned that Lana wished she could swap her husband's dark wood furniture for objects lighter and brighter, and helped her make it happen. And Janice Werthing, from the hardware superstore, not only helped Lana to freshly paint her house, outside and inside, but she also enlisted her sister, an personal organizer, to help choose the colours and re-organize the house.

When Lana's anger subsided, she saw this new phase, where her appointment book was filled with "chats", and her everyday life was helped along by almost strangers, and she was okay with that. She wasn't mad at her husband anymore, she just had moments of heart-pain about missing out on his life, and about him missing out on the rest of his.

Bob Fulcher rang her doorbell, multiple times, on a Tuesday afternoon when her appointment book was having a light day. She answered the door and found a man enraged.
"What's wrong, Bob?"
"Pam," he said. "...another man. Pictures on the internet. God! You won't believe it. I can't believe it. I'm disgusted. Full of... disgust."
"Do you want to come in?"
"No," he said, furiously yanking over Pam, who had been out of Lana's line of vision, so that she was in Lana's face. "You deal with her. I can't deal with this. I'm... disgusted."
Pam was scared and unhappy.
"I... I!" Bob spluttered, his voice cracking. "I'm disgusted and I'm leaving and I'm, I'm leaving."
"Stay here," said Lana, to Pam. "Go inside. Sit down. Curl up."
Pam stepped aside, into the doorway, and Lana followed Bob down the driveway.
"Bob!" she called, but he didn't pause. She caught up to him.
"I need you to stay," she said. "Even if it's outside, on my steps. I need you to stay."
"Go away," growled Bob. "You can't talk us through this one. Take her to the police or do something, god damn it. I can't."
Lana ran back to Pam, who hadn't moved from the doorway.
"What happened," said Lana, touching her hand. "Talk quickly. Sum it up."
"I don't know," said Pam. "I came home and he was there waiting, shouting, showed me some pictures he'd printed out, I don't know. He was shouting."
Lana pushed her further inside and made her sit on the floor. "Stay there," she said. "I'll be back."

She ran down the street again, and was somewhat out of breath when she reached Bob. A storm was edging in behind the clouds.
"Stop," said Lana. "Something's going on. What's going on? Are you lying, are you having an affair, are you sick, do you want a divorce? I can't think right. I can't focus, think straight. What's going on Bob?"
Bob came to an abrupt halt and turned. His skin was grey like the stormy edges of the biggest clouds. Lana saw, over his shoulder, fire sparking inside clouds, then it shot down, accumulating in size, and spread over the roof of a house.
"The Reeses!"
Bob spun around and saw it too.
"Give me your phone," said Lana.
As she called emergency services, they watched new sets of fire sparking in the clouds. Another spit load of fire landed on a tree.
"Go get them!" said Lana, and Bob stumbled over his own feet, to the Reeses' house, and pounded on their door. The whole roof was on fire, and fiery roof tiles were falling onto the lawn and infecting grass and nearby trees.

Emergency services weren't answering. Bob and the Reeses spilled out of their burning suburban castle, distraught and uncoordinated. They extended the garden hose and drenched the house bricks, partially diminishing the fire. Lana inspected a patch of smouldering lawn, kneeling down.
"I'm crazy," she said, with an awkward laugh, after listening to the fire.
The Reeses avoided her.
"We need to get everyone out of their houses," said Bob.
"How?" said Meredith Reese. She had her arms around her children, unable to leave them to return to the house, to save anything. But the flash fire seemed weak, crackling on the roof, not spreading and devouring.
"Knock on their doors? Phone them?"
Bob looked at Aaron Reese and his suggestion, as if they were both drunk, and said, "Get a megaphone and go around in a car!"
"Where... are the police?" said the Reeses' eldest, Michaela.
"Not sure, darling," said Meredith.
The spray from the garden hose was strangely effective, and the house fire was dying out.
"Where's a safe place for everyone to go?" said Michaela.
"The swimming pool?" said Bob.
"The car park?" said Aaron.
"As long as it's concrete and not asphalt," said Meredith, not moving.
Lana listened. She wasn't really hearing the people anymore.
"I don't know what you're doing here.... " said Meredith, under her breath, covering her smallest child's ears in an enveloping hug. "Although you always seem to know what's going on... with everything. Maybe you know what caused this too?"
Meredith glared at Lana, who was carefully watching the ebbing fire.
"Do you want to know what I know about you?" said Lana, jolting back into the moment.
"No," said Meredith, clutching her youngest to her chest, ever tighter.

Fire sirens were finally heard, strident and unnatural, and they snapped everyone out of their focussed individual panic. Other neighbours were flowing into the street, pointing at the remnants of fire in treetops, on lawns, on roofs. Aaron Reese was blubbering tears, his temporary bravado permitted leave now that more capable leaders were coming. He was holding the other two Reese children.
"Yes," said Meredith, looking straight ahead, at her unsinged front door. Her baby hugged her knee.
"I know that you are miserable," said Lana. She had figured out one part of today's cryptics and was uncomfortable about how so-called nature had assisted her. "You'd rather be with someone else."
"I despise you," said Meredith.
"That's okay," said Lana.