Today was the day that Lorelai Gilmore met her birth parents. As she stood on the front steps of a modest yet large house she couldn't help but reminisce about the past seventeen years of her life.
7 years old:
'Lorelai, we don't have time for your antics right now, we're going to to be late for the westburns dinner party if you don't go upstairs and let Marie clean you up.' Emily commanded without turning around to look at her whimpering daughter.
Lorelai had fallen off of her swing set and cut up her arm up pretty bad. All she'd wanted was for her Mummy to kiss it better and clean her up but no. She'd been told to go and bleed somewhere else because her mum was busy getting ready for a party.
11 years old:
'I'm sorry mum.' Lorelai said as she and her mum looked down on the large red wine stain on the carpet.
'Lorelai, you're so clumsy! Go upstairs and stay there until I say you can come down. This is not acceptable! We have guests coming over in an hour and that stain will take days to soak out!' Emily yelled after Lorelai as she climbed the stairs.
'YOU NEVER CARED ABOUT ME!' Lorelai yelled back.
14 years old:
'Mum, can I talk to you for a minute?' Lorelai asked timidly as she poked her head round the door to her parents' bedroom.
'Fine but I don't have very long, make it quick.' Emily replied through a deep sigh that showed her annoyance at being interrupted.
'Can you help me, I had an accident.' Lorelai stated as she pulled a pair of red stained panties out from behind her back and presented them to her mum. The tears began to pour down Lorelai's face and she couldn't decide why she was crying, was it embarrassment or hormones or something else?
'LORELAI! Go take those to Greta, that's discussing! What would posses you to bring those in here? You know how to deal with this and if you don't I'm sure Roza wouldn't mind helping you out.' Emily told her daughter sternly whilst turning back to her desk and continuing with the paperwork she was doing.
'Sorry mum.' Lorelai apologised unnecessarily.
16 years old:
'Mum, I'm pregnant; I don't expect you to care so I was just telling you.' Lorelai hollered into the Dining room as she passed to climb the stairs leading to her room.
'Lorelai, Lorelai! Get back down here and explain yourself!' Emily screeched as she ran after her only daughter.
'No mum, I'm pregnant and I'm not giving it up or making any drastic life changes just because I'm having a baby.' Lorelai insisted when Emily entered her bedroom.
'This is a drastic life change Lorelai! You're having a BABY! What don't you understand about that?'
'No, I don't think you understand it mother, or should I say Mrs Gilmore! Yeah, that's right mum, I know! I know you adopted me when I was born and I know you only did it so that the DAR women would get off your back about having a baby. You can't have children of your own so you had to take someone else's.' Lorelai was yelling her discovery at the woman she thought was her mother. Emily's tears didn't deter Lorelai either; she was so worked up that she didn't notice her mother's crest fallen expression. 'The second my baby's born I'm outta here.' Lorelai said as she walked out of her bedroom, leaving a broken hearted Emily behind.
Every so often Lorelai would feel bad for doing that to Emily but then she'd think back into her past and everything was clear.
So here she stood in front of the Bravermans front door with a seven month old Rory on her hip.
'Give that back Adam!' screeched an eleven year old Crosby as he rounded the corner, chasing Adam who had his new basketball and was throwing it back and forth with Sarah.
'Naah, Naah, Naah. You can't get it!' Sarah teased as she ran backward whilst waving the ball in front of Crosby's face. Her moment of glory was cut short as she tripped over something backwards. 'What the...' Sarah started until she looked up and saw an exact copy of herself leaning over her with a baby in her arms.
'Are you okay, I'm so sorry, I should've moved my stuff I was just so caught up the moment and I didn't think...' Lorelai stopped talking abruptly when she saw who was in front of her. She watched on as the double scrambled backwards towards what she could only assume were her brothers.
'Who're you?' Sarah asked Lorelai who shifted Rory on her hip.
'I'm Lorelai Gilmore, are your mum and dad around?'
'Yeah, I'll go get 'em' Adam said as he ran off in the direction of the guest house.
Five minutes later he came back out with a grey haired man and curly haired woman who looked extremely shocked at Lorelai's presence. 'Hello, um... how are you?' the woman asked.
'Yeah, I'm good. So I guess you're the one I'm looking for... mind explaining some things?' Lorelai asked with slight annoyance in her voice.
'Okay, we'll answer your questions if you answer ours.' The man replied in the same tone as Lorelai had just used.
'Fine, whata you wanna know?'
'What's your name and who's this cutie?' the woman asked as she tickled Rory's chin, to which the baby hid her face in her mother's shoulder.
'My names Lorelai and this is my daughter Lorelai but everyone calls her Rory.' Lorelai explained.
'Okay, well maybe we should discuss this inside, just us four.' The man said as he patted Sarah on the back. All four and Rory went into the Guest house which was surprisingly nice for what it was.
When they were all seated, Lorelai and Sarah on one couch with Rory on Lorelai's lap and the two adults on the other things got tense but soon flattened out when the woman started explaining things.
'Well first of all I'm Camille and this is my husband Zeke and our daughter, your sister, Sarah. You and she are twins.' To this Lorelai and Sarah's heads snapped to face each other. 'We just couldn't afford twins at the time and so before you were even born we decided that the first baby born would be put up for adoption and the second we would keep. I HATED to have to choose between you but Adam was only a year and a half old at the time and your father was the only one with an income and it just wasn't enough to support all of us at the time. I am so sorry for abandoning you hunny, please don't take it to heart, we love you, always have, always will but we weren't in the right place to have three babies under two. Anything you want to say?' Camille asked through teary eyes.
'You just gave me to those monsters. You let me go and I had to suffer for years because of that. You have no idea of the things that I went through in that house. I was emotionally abused and I couldn't do anything about it because I didn't know I had a choice in the matter.' Lorelai wiped the tear trails from her face and lay Rory down in her arms. Turning to Sarah she addressed her with some things that she knew would get their attention. 'What happened when you skinned you knees as a kid?'
'Mum and dad put a band aid on them and gave me a hug I guess.' Sarah answered.
'Well you're lucky, I got told to go bleed somewhere else or tell the nanny because Emily was busy. What happened when you got your first period?' Lorelai asked.
'Mum took me to the shops and bought me stuff.' Sarah said like it was no big deal.
'Yeah well count yourself lucky because I went to Emily in tears because I was scared and embarrassed and I presented her with my bloody panties and you know what she did? She told me that I was disgusting and I was either to deal with it myself, even though I had absolutely no idea what was going on, or to go to the maid because she'd wash my panties.' Lorelai was weeping by the time she'd finished talking. 'You left me in hell, why would you do that?' Lorelai asked heartbrokenly.
'I didn't know! I swear, they looked nice enough and they said they were able to provide for you. I promise that if I had ANY idea I would've come for you.' Camille pleaded as she moved over to the other couch and enveloped her weeping daughter in a hug.
Ten minutes later the hug was broken as Rory tugged on Lorelai's sweater and made a suckling motion with her mouth. 'Oh, um... do you have somewhere that I could deal with this?' Lorelai asked, already rising to her feet with Rory in her arms.
'Yeah, you can use my room if you want.' Sarah offered and led Lorelai into the main room and upstairs at her nod. Once they were in Sarah's room Lorelai settled on the edge of the bed and pulled her shirt down, situating Rory to begin her daughters feed. Sarah began uncomfortably shifting from foot to foot and Lorelai noticed. Just as she was about to comment on the nervous air Rory took an extra eagre suck at Lorelai's nipple and caused Lorelai to quietly cry out in pain. After the pain passed Lorelai smoothed back Rory's brown hair in a comforting gesture.
'You've gotta be patient with mummy Baby girl, it's been a long day...' Rory pulled again and Lorelai decided that nothing must be coming out of that one so she shifted Rory to the other breast. 'Okay, slowly this time.' Lorelai coached as she stroked Rory's soft cheek.
Lorelai was snapped out of her moment by Sarah's voice, Lorelai hadn't even remembered that she was there. 'Does it hurt?' Sarah asked timidly, 'you know breastfeeding?'
'Umm... not really, every now and then my body doesn't wanna cooperate with Rory and she gets kinda over excited and pulls but apart from that it's all mostly mainstream. It used to be embarrassing but I guess you do what you have to do right?' Lorelai answered accordingly while casting a smile down at Rory.
'Yeah, what you gotta do... hey, can I tell you a secret... I mean you are my sister and everything right?' Sarah asked with a smile.
'Sure, whatever... come sit?' Lorelai invited and was happily surprised when Sarah bypasses the awkwardness and just sat down next to Lorelai.
'Umm, this is kinda hard to say, considering I've never told ANYONE but um...'
'You can tell me anything you know.' Lorelai assured.
'I had an abortion three weeks ago.' Sarah confessed through a watery smile.
'Aww hunny, why?' Lorelai asked while fixing her top and burping Rory over her shoulder.
'I couldn't do it. I'm not strong enough, and I couldn't tell Seth, he'd beat me.' Sarah said as she bowed her head in shame.
'Why do you think he'd beat you? If he hits you you need to leave him. No man should ever have that much power over you.'
'He's not a bad guy, it's just the drugs, they make him change.' Sarah defended.
'You need to end it. He IS a bad guy! They all are, the drugs are just an excuse to act that way without any consequences.' Lorelai insisted.
Sarah thought it over and nodded. 'Okay.' She conceded.
'Good now you wanna change your niece?' Lorelai offered.
'No, maybe next time, I don't really know what I'm doin, I'll just watch this time.' Sarah said as she stood up and moved out of the way so Lorelai could use her bed as a change table.
After taking off Rory's dirty pink onesie and changing her diaper Lorelai put her daughter in a clean hot pink and white striped onesie and wrapped her up in a blanket before scooping her up. Rory whimpered for a bit but soon settled down when Lorelai started bouncing her and making soothing noises.
'Can we go back out there?' Lorelai asked Sarah.
'Yeah, sure.'
Once they were down stairs Sarah offered Lorelai a drink or some food but found that their guest only wanted coffee. A while later Camille and Zeke came back in, looking like they'd been having heated discussion which was unsettling for Lorelai as everyone seemed to be arguing about her.
'Hey Lorelai, hunny, where exactly do expect to spend the night?' Camille asked as she stood in front of Lorelai and grasped her shoulders.
'Oh, umm well I was gonna go stay at this Inn my old boss set me up with.' Lorelai supplied easily as Mia had called up one of her friends and organised for Lorelai to stay free at the Sunshine Inn.
'How would you feel about staying here tonight?' Zeke asked caringly.
'Oh, that'd be real nice but I don't want Rory to wake you. I don't want us to be a hassle' Lorelai stated shyly.
'That's no trouble darling; we've raised four children in this house... Should've been five but we made a terrible mistake seventeen years ago and let one of them go.' Camille confessed guiltily. 'No daughter or granddaughter of ours is a hassle.'
Lorelai and Camille shared a watery smile and then Zeke spoke up, 'now you go up stairs and get yourselves settled in okay? We'll see you in the morning.'
'Here, I'll take you to the guest room.' Said Sarah and surprisingly enough lead Lorelai to a guest room inside the main house.
Once they were up in the room Lorelai laid Rory down on the queen sized bed and ran down stairs, having forgotten something when she went upstairs. Poking her head around the corner of the stairwell and into the kitchen she addressed Camille and Zeke, 'Goodnight mum, goodnight dad.'
'Goodnight Lorelai' they said in unison both smiling widely at the fact that they'd at least temporarily gotten their daughter back.