Sleeping Beside Him
Summary: Lorelai reflects on her relationship with Luke through the context of their most intimate time together: sleep. Takes into account Partings and The Long Morrow.
A/N: This is sort of a different format than I've ever tried before. Not sure how well it's going to be received, but take it for how it was meant: a retrospective on the L/L relationship from a certain focused angle. No spoilers, but it does take into account Partings and The Long Morrow, so please read at your own risk. And, as always, reviews are greatly appreciated.
The New York Times article was the inspiration for the story. The part with the chuppah I made up (obviously) though I like to think it happened that way.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue me, or I'll sue you back. And I'll ask for damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Rating: T
Turning on the tape recorder at the edge of her desk, she picked up a heavy fountain pen and poised it over a new yellow legal pad. She always liked to start fresh when it came to these final sessions so that she would have good notes for her file.
A few weeks ago Rory told me about an article she read in the New York Times about how couples sleep together and how important that is to foster intimacy in a relationship. At the time, my only thought or comment on the subject was "Dirty!" But since then, I have been thinking about it a lot. Not just the dirty stuff, but actually sleeping with another person, side by side, sharing the same bed, the same covers, the same space.
I suppose it makes sense really, that sleeping together is so vital in maintaining closeness. We spend a third of our lives sleeping (some of us more), and the bedroom is the inner sanctum of most people's homes, with the bed as the centerpiece.
The first time I slept with Luke, we didn't actually sleep together. In fact, Luke slept on the couch and I took his bed – the single bed I teased him about so unmercifully. It was an innocent situation. Just one friend giving shelter to another friend, and I really did appreciate the kindness. But at the same time, I could not quite escape that slightly guilty feeling of taking so much pleasure in his company. He did, after all, have a girlfriend at the time.
And then, I told him about The Dream. The eighteen-alarm-clock-pregnant-with-Luke's-twins-while-he-makes-me-breakfast-in-the-kitchen dream. At first, it was a little awkward, but somehow, the conversation felt comfortable, friendly, almost like talking with Rory. But it did serve as a reminder of the unspoken, subtle attraction we shared, the one we both obviously felt but neither of us ever acknowledged aloud.
"I was pregnant. Twins."
"Mine?"
"What am I, dream tramp? Of course yours."
"We were... married?"
"Um, yeah. Did I not mention that?"
"No."
He looked especially attractive that night. Loose-fitting sweat pants and a long-sleeve thermal shirt. He seemed so relaxed and casual, probably because I arrived on his doorstep just as he was going to bed.
That night, I discovered that Luke snores when he sleeps. Not a rattle-the-windows, "Grandma, what big lungs you have," type of snore, but it was enough to keep me awake. I realized later that part of the problem must have been his laying on the couch in that position. He usually only snores when he is uncomfortable or having trouble sleeping. Part of me wonders to this day if the description of my dream distracted him as much as it did me. Back then, the idea of us together, like that, was a dream. A beautiful, longed-for dream that only my sleeping self could see.
Thankfully, the rest of me caught up eventually.
"I can't believe you kept that horoscope."
"You're just lucky I never clean out my wallet."
"You can't take it back now. You've exposed yourself. You've been pining for me."
"I have not been pining."
"I'm your Ava Gardner."
"God help me."
The first time we actually slept together, we did indeed sleep together. In every sense of the word. Not that I, verbal Serena Williams that I am, could ever come close to explaining with mere words how beautiful and special that night felt to me. From champagne and dinner at Sniffy's to 'dessert' at his apartment, I have never felt more wanted in my entire life. And not just physically, although there was that.
Luke appreciated me for myself, quirky personality and coffee addiction included. He was already such a huge part of my life with Rory and the inn, but he went out of his way to try and enter (or at least understand) my world of music and television and movies. He was 'all in,' and it did feel a little scary.
But making love with Luke was incredible, like the fairy tale ending to all those Disney movies and Meg Ryan chick flicks that you never get to see. I could expend a thousand cliches and still never fully capture the level of his attention, the depth of feeling, the pure passion we shared. Usually, the first time I sleep with someone new, its full of nervousness and that weird 'getting to know you' vibe.
With Luke, it was different – we already knew each other. There was no pretending, no holding back. Instead of nervousness, there was just nervous anticipation, and even that melted away as we explored each other with a level of desire I have never really felt before. The fairy tale found its ending. Or its beginning, depending on how you look at it.
But the part that made that night truly special, truly significant, was falling asleep in Luke's arms. There was no sneaking home to my teenage daughter or even down the hall to sooth my boyfriend's sudden attack of neuroses. No, with Luke, I just fell asleep, naked but for the heart that felt terribly exposed on my sleeve.
Another thing I discovered the next morning was how good it felt to wake up next to a man, to have that sort of human connection. And after that disastrous trip down to the diner wearing nothing but his shirt, Luke brought me coffee. Luke brought me coffee. Something so mundane, yet the action that has defined our relationship for its entire existence. That morning he brought me coffee in bed, and I truly realized for the first time what I had been missing.
We had only been dating for a few months when I woke Luke up and drug him into the street for the first snow of the season.
"Wake up."
"No."
"Come on, you're missing it."
"Is 'it' sleep? 'Cause you'd be right."
"Smell the air. Smell it."
"It smells cold."
"Come on!"
He grumbled and groused about the cold, but he followed me out anyway. Luke Danes, Mr. Practicality, health-obsessed man that he is, let me wake him up in the middle of the night and lead him into the square to wait for snow to fall, something none of the local weather people had predicted. And as much as he protested, I know he enjoyed it.
I have always had the power to influence Luke in ways no one understands. With minimal effort, I persuaded him to paint the diner, even though the colors were basically the same as before. I convinced him to try on clothes I bought him and model them for me right there in the diner. I talked him into buying my basket (which he knew had nothing edible) for over fifty dollars, then sit and eating with me in the pavilion. I influenced his decision to buy the building next to the diner, to help move Rory's things into Yale, and to break the bells. Okay, maybe that last one involved less of my charm and more of an annoyance factor, but the result was still the same.
But in the end, I think getting Luke to share with me the first snow was more magical and memorable than anything that came before. He only stayed outside a few seconds, but that was enough. As different as we are, Luke has always understood me and appreciated my craziness, letting me be who I am without trying to change me. Or eat french food, as he once said. And even when snow stopped acting like the friend it has always been to me, Luke was there to help me recapture the magic.
That winter Luke built me a shelf in his bathroom for my things, and then later he put a television in the bedroom just so I could watch Charlie Rose on the nights we went to bed early. Going to bed early – not something I ever thought I would look forward to, but with him, it was easy. It felt right.
"You know, you don't have to do this."
"Hey, going to bed early every once in a while is good for you."
"I have to get up at four. You don't."
"Yes, I know, but every night you have early deliveries is a night we spend apart and seriously, where's the good in that?"
"Okay. 'Night."
Sleeping with Luke at night had become so routine, so comfortable, I had trouble remembering a time when I could not just reach out and find his warm body laying next to me. Aside from when Rory and I lived in the old potting shed, I had always slept alone. Except for that night with Max and a few times with Christopher, I had never truly slept with a man. At least not like that, just sleeping. Sharing a bed, covers, that close, intimate space.
In a way, sleeping with Luke felt more intimate and more personal than anything I had ever experienced with a man. When I woke up, I knew he was going to be there, if not in bed next to me then cooking me breakfast or working downstairs at the diner. And, that knowledge never scared me, even though I always thought it would. Instead, I felt safe and protected, like Luke would always be there for me. The Al to my Sam Becket, the Superman to my Lois Lane, the Agent 99 to my Maxwell Smart.
Around that time, I confiscated his blue flannel shirt. The weather had gotten cold enough to wear it to bed, and I loved how much it smelled of him – coffee and diner food and Luke. Richly masculine and yet comforting at the same time. I think I realized then, that out of all the relationships I had ever been in, that was the one for me, the one that could truly be the one.
The first night after we broke up the first time, I only slept because Rory was there with me. Between the tears and the pain and her next to me, I let emotional exhaustion overtake me. But after she left, sleep was impossible and I made that stupid phone call to Luke, prompting him to rush over to check on me.
"I'm so sorry, Luke. I will never do this to you ever again. I am absolutely humiliated. I was hurting, and I knew if I called you you'd come. I never should have done that."
"It's okay."
"No, it's not okay. It's not okay. I am not that girl. I am not the one who cries and falls apart and calls her ex-boyfriend to come and save her. Thank you so much for coming, and for breaking my door. You're an amazing guy for doing that."
"What's that?"
"It's the tape from your answering machine."
"From my answering machine?"
"The last crazy thing you will ever have to endure from me, I promise. I just want you to know that I heard you when you said that you're out. I did. I'm going to respect that from now on."
With Luke gone, nothing felt right. The bed was too big, too empty, too cold and sad. Like my garage when he removed his boat, it had lost the one thing that made it most special to me. I almost gave up on it altogether in favor of sleeping on the couch, but in the end I forced myself to face my destiny: a lonely existence without Luke. As melodramatic as it sounds, I made my bed, and that meant I had to lie in it.
Of course, I still kept to 'my side.' Despite having slept alone virtually my entire life, those few months with Luke ingrained my sleeping patterns so completely that it felt strange to go too far onto his side. Nothing felt worse than waking in the middle of the night and feeling the void over there, where he should have been. Where he would have been, but for my part in driving him away.
The one thing I remember most about our time apart was the nightmares. I don't recall having bad dreams when Luke was around, but when I slept alone, I often awoke feeling scared, confused, and very conscious of being entirely by myself. No Luke to protect me, to put his arm around me in loving comfort, to play the Luke Teyssier to my eccentrically frightened Kate.
Thankfully, our separation was short-lived and quickly mended.
The night Luke came back to me, we never made it to the bed. Oh, there was a definite attempt, but rather than replay that uncomfortable-looking (but sexy) Pierce Brosnan-Thomas Crown Affair-stairway scene, we eventually settled for the couch. Our need to reconnect was so great, I'm surprised we made it farther than the front door. And while actual sleeping was not a high priority for that particular night, after satisfying those long-held physical desires, we did spend a lot of time talking.
He told me about my mother coming to the diner, how her visit was not the cause of his return but merely the catalyst. We discussed Christopher – briefly but succinctly – and resolved to have better communication. I promised not to lie to him again, and he promised not to let what other people said come between us.
"I just hate that we were apart."
"Yeah, wasn't too fond of it myself."
"Well, all I can say is, you're lucky I'm back in your life, because clearly you were lost without me. I mean, it's a miracle you're even still alive. Right?"
"You bet."
In the nights and weeks that followed, as we settled back into our routine of living our lives together, the bedroom once again became our personal sanctuary. Having suffered through the weeks of our break-up, I was in a better position to truly appreciate not only Luke's presence in my life, but Luke himself. Every kiss was sweeter, every word exchanged more precious, and every night together more treasured than before.
At the same time, our break up gave me a realistic view of my life without Luke. While in many respects this new outlook reinforced my fear of losing him again, of saying or doing the wrong thing, it also showed me that I did not want to be without him. Ever. No matter how scary the prospect of forever sounded, without Luke was infinitely more terrifying.
Forever came a little sooner than I had planned, but I know proposing was the right thing. I felt it in my heart, in my soul, like one of those things you know you will regret your entire life if you do not do. When we fell asleep that night, exhausted from celebrating, I could tell he was as excited about getting married as I was. He kept rambling on like he was channeling me, something I would have appreciated more if I had been more awake.
"Is this really happening?"
"Yes. It's really happening." Pause. "You bought a house without telling me?"
"What?"
"A house? I mean, a house is huge!"
"Yeah, I know. That's why I told you."
"A house full of kids?"
"No, a plant, don't forget the plant."
"Please don't do that, okay? Or, any other address or life changing decisions? Please include me in!"
"I will. I am. I'm sorry. I won't. I will."
"Okay."
"Sorry."
Pause.
"Kids would be good."
Luke doesn't think I remember much about that sleepy post-coital conversation, but I do. I remember him talking about the house and the kids, and something about plants and furniture, although that part is a little fuzzy. But he was talking about our life – together. Our future as a married couple, something he had obviously already been considering.
That first night we spent as an officially engaged couple, I have never slept better in my entire life. Even with the problems with Rory and my parents, my future with Luke was so full of hope and promise. He was even talking about kids. Luke, Mr. Jam-Hands, "Drop another sucker," fatherhood-phobe himself told me he wanted to have kids.
Or plants. I'm still not completely clear on that whole conversation, but I'm fairly certain that his preference was for kids.
To say I felt happy about the state of my relationship with Luke would be like simply describing the sinking of the Titanic a 'regrettable accident.' Words just fail to describe my elation at his acceptance, at the knowledge that after years of being friends and months of being a couple, we had both finally reached that level of ultimate commitment.
The next night, he took me outside to the front yard and and there, beneath the full moon and the chuppah he had built for me, he gave me the engagement ring. It was so beautiful – exactly the kind I would have picked for myself. At the same time, he made a silent promise, an unspoken declaration of love and devotion. In a way, we had finally come full circle. I had come full circle.
Rather than feeling nervous or scared about marriage, the way I had with Max, I felt sure. I felt ready and excited. But I also wanted to wait for things to be right with Rory again before we moved forward.
Luke was so understanding about that, so good to me. For once in my life, I had a true partner, someone to take Paul Anka to the vet and deal with the contractor, to make me not only coffee but breakfast in the morning. Someone I could share everything with: my bed, my house, my life.
"This whole baptism thing is just a ruse to get me and Rory together. She's played me. She's played me like a Stradivarius."
"So don't go, then."
"No! I've got to go!"
"Why?"
"Because she asked me to be a godmother. You don't say no to that."
"Why?"
"Look. I know what she's doing. She knows what she's doing. But no one else knows what she's doing. So on the slight chance that she's not doing what I think she's doing, if she's actually just doing what she wants to do, then I will be the jerk who wouldn't be the godmother to her best friend's baby because she thought something was happening that wasn't! And that will be the story everyone remembers, understand?"
"I like the green dress."
I'm not sure I could have gotten through those months separated from Rory without Luke. He held me together and kept me from going out of my mind, his mere presence providing an indescribable comfort. Even as my house was torn apart and rebuilt as our house, he was there with me when I went to bed at night and when I woke up in the morning.
He suffered through my movie obsession and a hundred other crazy Lorelai-things because he knew it made me happy. And somehow when I tried to let him know it was okay for him to do Luke-things, that I wanted him to do the activities he enjoyed before we became a couple, I managed to make him feel unwelcome. Despite all that, he was my knight in shining armor, my real-life, honest-to-God, would-trust-him-with-my-life, golden-helmet-and-everything hero.
We were partners, in so many more ways than I imagined was possible. I always hated that ancient concept of marriage as a merger of two people into one identity, but for the first time, I started to appreciate that idea as a reality. Not that our connection was negative in the 'one of us dominating the other,' kind of way, but rather we were more, together than we had been apart. It felt as though I had finally achieved that 'couple life' I once described to him, and beyond all my wildest expectations. As much as I hate to admit it, Luke and I reminded me of my parents and their unfathomably powerful alliance.
Then it all came crashing down.
When I found out about April, and that Luke had been hiding her from me, it really shook me. And it was not that he had a daughter that really hurt, but the fact that he had neglected to share that information with me for the two months he had known about her. I had been planning our wedding and thinking about the family we were about to become, and all the while he had this whole other life I didn't even know about.
But, I got over it. I sucked it up and acknowledged how difficult it must have been for him to deal with this new person, this little girl who's mother thought she would somehow be better off without Luke as a father. Anna Nardini. I can't even think her name without feeling that rush of disbelief that anyone could be so self-centered and prejudiced as to deny a man like Luke twelve years of his daughter's life.
Unfortunately, Luke became so engrossed in making up time with April, I think he lost sight everything else, including me. And I didn't mind him being with her, trying to establish a relationship. I really didn't. I know in hindsight I probably seemed overcome with jealousy and loneliness, but what really bothered me was not April's inclusion, but rather my exclusion. And even that would have been easier to bear if Luke had let everyone else besides me witness his burgeoning role as a father. I mean, Lane played games with her and both Rory and Jess got to meet her in Philadelphia. But not me.
When we became engaged and Luke discussed the possibility of children, I assumed he meant our children. Parenthood was never something I expected for him to experience without me. And even when that happened, when April emerged from the mists of time like some bad Days of Our Lives storyline, I did not expect for him to purposely exclude me. I thought he would look to me for guidance, for ideas, for some sort of support.
But he did none of that. And while I don't blame him for wanting to get to know her in his own time and in his own way, the longer he shut me out, the more I began to doubt whether our relationship was as strong as I thought.
"Look, I know I've been preoccupied. I don't like that about myself. It's just who I am, I get in my own head and I forget about the people around me."
"I know, that's why I thought this trip would be good for you. Get you thinking about something else. But it's been cold here, and Logan's been bugging you, and the raccoon is noisy and the waves were keeping you up. I think the trip was a dumb idea."
"Lorelai, no. It was a good idea. Hey, you know I love you, right?"
"I really need to hear that once in a while."
"I love you, and I am going to marry you, and at our wedding, we are having lobster."
Our trip to the Vineyard with Rory and Logan felt like a new beginning. I genuinely hoped that things would get better between us, especially when I let him know (gently) about my fears regarding postponement of the wedding. He reassured me and told me he loved me, something neither of us were all that used to saying. And it felt good, really good, to talk about it, to feel like we were still that close couple we had been before April showed up.
But as soon as we hit Star's Hollow, everything went back to the way it was.
At Lane's wedding, I self-medicated with tequila to the point that I have little memory of that night at all. But I've heard the stories, and they match well with the vague, fuzzy images that do linger in my mind. That night was not the first I slept alone, nor was it the last.
Instead, it was one in a string of nights that his side of the bed sat empty, the only thing making it stand out in particular being the hunched figure of Christopher sprawled out on the nearby sofa. When the phone rang and I heard Luke on the other end, I wanted him so desperately to be there, to be beside me with his arms around me, reassuring me that everything would be okay.
And then, a few days later, Luke called me from the diner asking for my help with April's birthday. It felt like a step forward, an open door, an opportunity to join this new life that had started without me. Hell, it was an invitation to something I had been watching from afar for months. And finally, finally, I was allowed in.
"You know what would really push this party over the top? If we made it into a sleep over."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. You've got sleeping bags and blankets."
"Plus I've still got Jess's bed. We could stick a couple of them on that."
"Why don't you ask the birthday girl if she wants to do that?"
April's birthday was the first time I slept in Luke's apartment without him. I was surrounded by his daughter and her gaggle of teenage friends playing 'light as a feather, stiff as a board' and exchanging make-up tips and old boyfriend stories.
My fears and uncertainties began to dissolve away, leaving me with a little peace of mind. No matter what obstacles may fall in our way, Luke and I were a team. He had finally thrown me that ball and trusted me enough to run it towards the goal line-thingy at the end of the field. I'm not sure where the sports metaphor came from, but it seems appropriate.
But then Anna stepped in, and I realized that I was never going to be a true part of Luke's life until we were married, until we could prove to Anna and each other that our relationship was solid and permanent, that we were really committed. And what scared me more than anything was the prospect that maybe he wasn't.
Obviously, we were still engaged. But with postponing the wedding indefinitely, our marriage felt less like a certainty than a gradually fading possibility on the horizon. Like watching the last sunset. And the more I felt Luke slipping away, the more I imagined I was losing a piece of myself. It just hurt too much to continue.
"Let's elope."
"What?"
"Come on Luke. Grab your keys, and let's go."
"Elope?"
"You said that would be fine in Martha's Vineyard. Didn't you say that would be fine in Martha's Vineyard?"
"Yes I did, but I'm just..."
"Come on then, lets go. We can drive to Maryland. What the hell, right? I mean, you have to see Maryland eventually. We can drive there and get married and then come back here. And you'd get your stuff and you'll move in."
"Okay hold on-"
"I mean, we have the plan already, right? We just have to put the plan in motion."
"Let's calm down. We don't have to figure all this out now, do we?"
"Yes we do! Because we've been waiting and waiting and putting it off, and I don't want to put it off anymore."
I can't say much about that night except that it was probably the worst in my life, ranking right up there with the time Rory called me from the hospital after her car accident and the night Luke rushed me to the emergency room to see my father, not knowing if he was dead or alive. Funny how I categorize Luke and I breaking up right alongside potentially traumatic events in the lives of my family members.
I know going to Christopher was wrong, that sleeping with him was a terrible thing to do. But the whole thing seemed so surreal and awful, like my little corner of the universe was crumbling into a thousand tiny pieces. And the conventional rules of behavior just sort of went out the window the way they do with major crises.
Like how if you get caught in a hurricane and need shelter, it's okay to break into someone else's house, even though ordinarily it would be a crime. Not that I've ever been through a hurricane, and it seems possible that if someone were still in the house they might not take kindly to the breaking in part. But the fact that Luke and I had just broken up seemed so unimportant compared to the fact that Luke and I had broken up, that I didn't really care how horrible it was to go to Christopher.
I just needed it to be over. I needed to know that this thing with Luke and I, this perpetual waiting and wanting thing I had grown to hate, was not going to continue forever. So I did the one thing I knew would end it for both of us.
And as long as I live, unless I become a serial killer somewhere down the road, I think that act will be my greatest regret - not just because of the consequences to me, to my relationship with Luke, but because I know it hurt him. And hurting him was never something I wanted to do, no matter how much he unintentionally hurt me.
The night I spent with Christopher, I understood by comparison what I had lost with Luke. Those feelings of safety, of comfort, and intimacy was gone. His arm draped across my body felt confining rather than protective. His hot breath on the back of my neck brought goosebumps to my skin rather than that familiar sense of peacefulness. But most of all, I felt dirty, and sickeningly alone, something I had never felt with Luke by my side.
The next night, after ridding the house of everything belonging to Luke and everything reminding me of Luke, I slept under a sheet in our bed in pajamas I had not worn in years and had to fish out of the back of my closet. Even then, his smell was still in the fabric of the pillows, his spirit in the bed beside me. I barely slept at all, it was so awful.
The next day, I got what I had wanted so badly. I got Luke – frantic and desperate just the way I had been before. He was ready to do anything, to go anywhere, to be anything I wanted. But it was too late, for both of us.
"Luke, stop."
"I also did some research, and we can also apparently use a sea captain - if you want. I 'm not sure how big the boat has be for it to be legal... But we can head to the coast and we can knock on some doors. You know, boat doors. That's probably not the most sensible way-"
"Just stop."
"But you were right. I need to be faster. I need move faster. I need to think faster, and well, here I am."
"It's over."
"No, you can't say that. You can't just say that it's over. It's not over. You can't just decide that it's over. I'm in this too, you know. And... I'm not going to let it be over. You said be ready now or never - I'm ready now."
"Luke-"
"Let's go. Let's do this. Let's get married. Right now. Let's go."
"I slept with Christopher."
I didn't see his expression when I spoke those final words because I could not bring myself to look him in the eye. Part of me expected him to yell, to scream at me for what I had done, for having betrayed him. I think part of me wanted him to. Maybe it would have eased my conscience.
But he just walked away from me. I jumped when the door to his truck slammed and he drove off. The finality of it cut through me like a sharp object. I couldn't get out of my mind how I felt when I walked away from him the night I gave him the ultimatum, how badly I had wanted him to come after me.
I didn't sleep very well for a long time after that. And sometimes, if I woke in the middle of the night or early enough that it was still dark out, I would find myself reaching for him on the other side of the bed. Of course, then the confusion would fade and I would remember. During times like that, I would wonder if he ever did the same thing, unconsciously reach out for me.
Later on – much later on – he confessed that he had.
It's funny how much I missed the little things the most when we were apart. The stupid jokes that aren't funny to anyone except for him. The deep sigh he makes just before he's about to give in and do something he doesn't really want to do, but he does it 'cause I ask him. The cozy feeling of waking up in the morning with his arm around me and his breath against my neck.
He's been making me breakfast in bed a lot lately, even though he hates getting crumbs in the sheets and I always manage to drop crumbs, even when he makes me pancakes or waffles. He brings the food in on a tray, like that one with the legs at Logan's house at Martha's Vineyard. And he brings me coffee – well, if we can truly call decaf, coffee. And we just sit and talk until he has to go to work or I have to rush to the bathroom.
You know, when Linda McCartney died, they said that she and Paul only ever spent one night apart in the thirty years they were together. They loved being together that much. I didn't understand it then, that desire to always be with one person, but I think I do now.
I have to admit, in the last year that Luke and I have been married, we have not spent a single night apart.
Carolyn Bates dotted her last 'i' and crossed her last 't' before setting the pen down on the desk beside her and turning off the tape recorder. Lorelai Gilmore had been her patient for nearly two years, having first come to her a few weeks after their impromptu car session in front of her parents' house. At the time, she was having trouble with insomnia and looking for a prescription, but before long she gave into the temptation to start talking about the problems actually causing her sleepless nights.
"So you're still sleeping okay?" she asked perfunctorily, already knowing the answer.
"Pretty good. The nausea keeps me awake sometimes," Lorelai said with a shrug.
Carolyn nodded in sympathy. "Well, contrary to popular myth, morning sickness can happen at any time."
"It's not too bad," her patient assured her.
"Well, you be sure to drop by and say hello after the baby's born."
Lorelai smiled, looking so genuinely happy that she seemed radiant. "Sure."
"And give me a call if you ever need to talk about anything."
"I will."
As Lorelai left the office, Carolyn placed the hand-written notes in the open file on her desk, then wrote CLOSED in bold letters next to the name on the outside.