The maid opened the door and curtsied, all five feet of her meek and stiff with stress. It boded ill for the mood the house's mistress would be in and Lorelai considered going back to the car to wait out the storm. She adjusted her hold on Liam, who had fallen asleep in the car on the drive and wasn't fully awake yet.
"You are late," Emily barked as she came upon them from the room immediately to the right of the entry way. "I would have thought that today of all days, you would have more respect, Lorelai."
"Look, Liam, it's grandma! Can you say hi?" Lorelai said, trying to avoid a battle. Usually, his presence had a softening effect on her mother, but today Emily wasn't going to play nice.
"Lorelai, he's getting all wrinkled," her mother chided, "all of your father's friends and colleagues are here and they will want to meet his grandson."
"I'm sorry, but he just woke up from a nap in the car. He wouldn't get out of the car unless I carried him," Lorelai replied warily. Luke nudged Lorelai and mimed he would take Liam upstairs. After a gentle transfer, Luke disappeared up the stairs with his son. Meanwhile, Rory had gotten Emily's attention and they were talking about her travels before her grandmother remembered something that needed to be done and Rory followed to help.
Lorelai found the bar and had to make do with a few sips of wine to calm her down before heading upstairs to her boys. She found them in her old room and smiled at them sitting on the overly feminine bedspread. For a boy who was usually animatedly cheerful, Liam was surprisingly sober. Lorelai sat beside him and was relieved that he wasn't quite so wrinkled as her mother had assumed.
"Gran'ma is mad," Liam said softly. Fortunately for him, Emily had always been more relaxed around the boy and so he had never seen her on the rampage.
"Grandma is just sad because of Grandpa," Lorelai told him.
"Because Grandpa is dead?" he asked. Lorelai nodded and felt a touch of emotion. Her father's death had affected her stronger than she had thought it would. They hadn't ever been close, even as their relationship had improved over the years. She hadn't expected to miss him quite so much. Maybe it also had to do with Liam. As much as her father had grown to love Rory, he had equally loved his little grandson. Liam in turned had loved Richard and Lorelai knew her son couldn't fully understand what had happened. Even after she had sat him down to explain it the other day.
"Okay," Lorelai said, shaking herself into a more cheery mood. "Hop down, let me smooth those wrinkles out." She knelt down before Liam and ran her hands along the pant legs to straighten out the fabric, tugged on the shirt a bit and straightened his zippered tie. Luke took a comb he had in his back pocket and ran it through his son's hair briefly.
"There we go, handsome boy," Lorelai said and Liam smiled. Luke took Lorelai's hand as they headed to the stairs, Liam hopping ahead of them.
"You going to be okay?" Luke asked Lorelai softly. Throughout the days since Richard had his final heart attack, Luke had been overly attentive to her needs.
"Luke, I'm fine," she said squeezing his hand, "Yes, I lost my father, but it's different than when you lost yours. My relationship with Richard was different than you had with your father."
Luke nodded once again at her reasoning, yet even though this was the second time she had said this, Luke still had his doubts. He was determined to be there when Lorelai finally let herself grieve properly.
They came down the stairs to a shrill voice talking above the low murmur of guest conversation. Everyone else went silent in the presence of Emily angrily berating someone.
"I paid you top dollar because I expect nothing but the best, yet nothing I see is right. That is wrong, this is wrong. Not one thing I asked for is right. This is a funeral for my husband! I . . . ."
Emily was going hysterical, and the lid was coming off. Rory tried in vain to calm her, but there was no stopping this tidal wave.
"This is not how anything was supposed to go. He promised me!" Emily said, now to no one in general. "He promised." All watched in shock as the most proper woman in all of Hartford, all of Connecticut, burst into tears in the middle of her carefully tailored gathering. No one knew quite what to do. Rory was about to steer her out, but Lorelai beat her to it as she deftly whisked Emily out of the room and into her father's study.
"Poor lamb," Sissy murmured to her group of D.A.R. friends.
Lorelai sat quietly beside her mother as the tears slowly ran out and there was only a sniffle left. It had been years since Lorelai had ever seen Emily cry like that. Come to think of it, she had never seen her mother cry like that. Witnessing it had pulled a few tears from her own eyes.
Presently, Emily dabbed delicately at her cheeks and nose with a white cloth handkerchief and looked up at her daughter.
"I'm sure I've made a complete fool of myself in there," she said.
"Mom, Dad is gone," Lorelai said gently, "I think you can use your get out of jail free card today."
A pained look crossed Emily's face.
"It's so hard, Lorelai," she said, another sob on the way, "I don't know who I am without him. My whole adult life, I have been Mrs. Richard Gilmore. What am I going to do?"
Unfamiliar at comforting her mother, Lorelai was unsure how to respond. It had surprised her how automatically she had taken her mother by the shoulder and guided her away from the crowd of sympathizers.
"I can't even imagine, mom," Lorelai said softly, "I can't even think about how it would be to lose Luke someday, I couldn't breathe if I did."
Emily nodded in understanding and then took in a deep, fortifying breath before standing.
"Thank you, Lorelai," she said, fiddling with her handkerchief. Lorelai smiled and stood with her, a hesitant touch between them, before Emily headed back to her guests.