5. Roots
We were there at his bedside when Grandpa died. My grandmother, my mother, and myself. The Gilmore girls. The women he had provided and cared for for much of his life. The women whose spirited natures and mindless chatter he had indulged, put up with. The woman—my mother—who was in every way the daughter, causing him joy and pain and pride the way daughters do their fathers. Myself, in every way the grandchild, initially lost and watched from a distance, but then found and doted on and cherished in the way he would have his own daughter, if only he had known how, and if only she had allowed him. And my grandmother, in every way the wife.
She said to him, "My dearest Richard, my darling Richard," kissing his hand and nodding imperceptibly to the doctor to finally detach the tubes and machines that had kept him alive. And as he did, it seemed as if he had also detached my grandmother's life support. My Grandpa was her life's support. Strong-willed as she was, she seemed smaller as she kissed his head.
And I was crying, but I wasn't certain for whom or for what. Was it for the loss of my beloved Grandpa, or more for the poignant heartache of my Grandma? Was it for my mother and the years she had wasted, so distant from her father? Or was I crying for the depth of love I felt in that white, sterile, hospital room, love that may have been hidden, understated, or misunderstood; love that can dominate a life; love that may cause so much pain. But love still.
I touched Grandpa's foot, so still under the blanket. I watched my grandmother whisper into my grandfather's ear, for the last time. I watched my mother, leaning on Luke's shoulder and clutching my other hand in hers.
And I knew that love mattered more than anything.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As memorial services go, it was beautiful. I've always wondered what people meant when they said, "that was a beautiful service", whether it was all just rote etiquette. It seemed like such an oxymoron to think of death and its commemoration as such. But Grandpa's was, because we decided to serenade him with his favorite tunes: Gershwin, Chuck Berry, Bing Crosby. Because the Saturday morning was sunny and breezy, and the stained glass windows in the church cast a kaleidoscope of color on the plain white walls. And it was beautiful because my mother said a few words, and shed a lot of tears. I think it meant the world to Grandma to hear Lorelai talk about how much she looked up to her father—literally—as a little girl of 4, running around in circles at his feet when he came home from his travels, and as a grown woman, basking in his pride when she finally opened the Dragonfly. How much of her love for him bloomed from witnessing my love for Grandpa and his for me. Mom had always kept her emotions in check when it came to Grandpa (and Grandma), refusing to lay out her cards on the table for fear of giving away her last semblance of control. But perhaps they knew anyway, knew that they loved each other fiercely.
But yes, Lorelai and Emily still bickered through the floral arrangements, the program, the choice of music, down to the color of the casket (there were catalogs after all!). And I still had to play the dogged role of referee more than half the time. Between Grandma's gold-filigreed ivory, Mom's basic maple, and a heated exchange of protests that it was no big deal because it would be buried underground anyway but in the meantime we had to give him a proper and dignified ceremony for his friends and colleagues, I finally ended up selecting the dark oak. (It was so distinguished, like Grandpa.) The whole exercise of arranging the funeral was something right out of Six Feet Under, surreal in an almost funny, slightly dysfunctional way. We three found relief in the mundane, and in the fact that some things in our family probably won't ever change.
And as Gilmore functions go, the memorial service and reception was well-populated with the blue-bloods of Hartford, the Bulldogs of Yale, the ladies of DAR. Oh, and the townspeople of Stars Hollow. I milled around Grandpa and Grandma's crowded living room at the reception, occupying myself with much fidelity—as I had in the past two weeks—with the duties of grandchild, hostess, and all-around attendant at everyone's beck and call. It had been a welcome distraction to set appointments, make arrangements, send notices, see to Grandma's welfare. It kept my precariously uneven feelings on even keel.
As I did the rounds, I overheard Miss Patty, gabbing on about flower bulbs and ferns with Tweenie Halpern; Kirk, expounding loudly on his latest business scheme with a moustachioed former associate of Grandpa's (personalized funeral plans, a keep-your-dearly-departed-close-by-in-your-own-backyard arrangement, was what I understood from his pitch to me). There was Taylor, looking nice in a suit but flush-faced and sweaty, basking in the perfumed advances of Miss Grumwold. Michel, foregoing the diet and savoring the selection of French pastries with Sookie and a cluster of DAR ladies whose names I've regrettably forgotten. The two worlds of my mother and Grandma, which both have managed to keep separate, now commiserated—in a distinctly un-mournful way—over hors d'oeuvres.
The rumbling in my stomach finally registered, and I grabbed a coveted salmon puff from a passing tray (flicking off some garnish for good measure). As I did, I saw the entrance of Shira and Mitchum Huntzberger at the foyer.
Damn.
My chest involuntarily tightened at such a physical, flesh-and-blood reminder of Logan. Don't lose it, not here. (Although, this would have been the perfectly acceptable occasion to lose it, albeit for a different reason.) With everything that has happened in the last weeks, it seemed that I didn't even have a moment to think of him at all. Seeing the Huntzbergers rekindled my awareness of my deep-seated, abiding need for him. Now more than ever.
I made a beeline for the terrace, for air.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hey, you." The greeting startled Rory, jolting her from her contemplation of the foliage in her grandparents' garden. She was wondering about whether her avocado plant was getting enough sun.
"Lane!"
The two engulfed each other in a hug, swaying side to side like the third-grade best friends they were.
"Oh Rory, how are you?" Lane asked earnestly, sliding her arm through Rory's as they meandered towards an iron-wrought bench.
"Fine," Rory replied automatically.
"Uh-huh. We haven't seen each other in months and months, Steve and Kwan are practically all grown-up and growing facial hair, and am I not still your best friend from way back when we secretly revered Robert Smith and Bono when every other girl in our third-grade class had boy band posters in their bedrooms? Surely I warrant more than a 'fine'," Lane reprimanded her at length. "I tried catching you at the crap shack the last few weeks. I didn't realize you were staying here with your grandmother all this time."
"Lane, Steve and Kwan are just one-and-a-half and the image of them with facial hair is seriously disturbing—but oh, I want to see them! And I'll have you know that I once had a poster of N'Sync in my bedroom in this very house. That makes you the weird one."
"How are you holding up?" Lane squeezed Rory's hand.
"I miss him," she said simply. Grandpa and Logan both.
"I can imagine. It all happened so fast, didn't it?"
"I wish we had more time," Rory began slowly. "He was already—he had already lapsed into a coma when I flew in. We could have had one more conversation, you know? Talked about—I don't know—politics, Grandma, yet another place in the world to add to our long list of places to travel to, sometime, when we got around to it. And what really bothers me, is that I wish I had answered his last email to me. I just didn't have time, you know? What if he had gotten up that morning and checked his email, wondering if I had a note for him?"
They lapsed into sympathetic silence.
"Well," Lane began. "This is small comfort, but at least you know how proud and happy he is for you. That nomination—"
"Yeah, I guess," Rory replied.
"The whole of Stars Hollow is proud of you," she continued. "But I'm guessing you know that by now and you're probably thinking these crazy townspeople have gone way overboard. Big city girl that you are. And it's the last thing you need at a time like this. I tried telling Taylor."
Since her return to Hartford and Stars Hollow, Rory had been bombarded with congratulatory hugs and thumbs-ups, two free welcome home sundaes from Taylor's shop and free burgers from Luke's for as long as she's in town. At a town meeting she later regretted attending, she was presented with a framed clipping from the Stars Hollow Chronicle heralding the news of her OJA nomination (apparently, they were running reprints of her online articles too). "Daughter of Stars Hollow Bags Prestigious Nomination," the headline ran (subtitled: "And we knew her when she was in diapers!" townspeople report). All this in stark contrast to the expression of their sympathies and regrets over her Grandpa's attack and eventual passing.
Rory smiled a little. "I'm still waiting for my sash and scepter, you know. But I guess that would come when I get the award. Seriously, I appreciate everyone's support. And I'm not some big city girl, you know me better than that. Chicago is a little too…steel-and-skyscrapery for me. I don't imagine myself living there for long."
"Ah, but Stars Hollow is a little too small for the up-and-coming journalist who's being called 'the voice of her generation'. At least you were born there, maybe that would finally put us on the map, like what Shakespeare did for Stratford-upon-Avon. But hey," Lane turned to face Rory, shifting gears. "I don't think I ever got to tell you—I loved your series, you know. The ones on Hillary Clinton's legacy? The articles that got you the nomination. Not that I can relate…" she laughed and pointed to her slightly bulging tummy. "How'd you get the idea to write about that?"
"Well I was supposed to just write a plain old spiel about her achievements. But then I started thinking about what it was about her—her legacy, so to speak—that really made an impact on me, and other women like me—us—who were growing up while she was First Lady and Senator and now in all likelihood the most powerful woman in the world. And it was this idea that—"
"Women can have it all," Lane finished.
"Be intelligent and have a brilliant law and political and public service career and a nice little family—"
"I don't know, there was that cigar incident, which my mother tried valiantly to protect me from…"
"But they overcame that. Or at least that's what they showed us. And she has a daughter, and—and oh, right, she's blonde—"
"She's not very attractive, though. Do you find her pretty? Well at least she's prettier than Chelsea," Lane said thoughtfully.
"The point is, I look at her, and that's what she tells me. 'Woman, you can have it all'. So then I began talking to these random women in their twenties in Chicago, see what they thought about that—this waitress—"
"Oh, Shiela. She's my favorite. What a potty mouth," Lane interrupted again.
"A graduate student—Lindsay, and Sarah, an overworked intern at an advertising company. And then online, my inbox became flooded with all these personal stories and opinions from women all over. The response was just overwhelming."
"Like I said, I loved reading about life out there, women in the 'real world' living this so-called 'quarter-life crisis'," Lane said, making air quotes. "My life seems so different. But it still made me…wonder, you know? I'm pregnant, I have twins that can still barely walk, and a set of precious drums that now serve the only purpose of having my kids bang on them to release excess energy before settling in at night. It made me think of my dreams…before Zach. And now, well, there's…Zach."
"It makes me wonder too, Lane," Rory said quietly. "And I think many of us are struggling with this…need and expectation to be successful and have a career, but then also to be happy…and have relationships," she floundered, finding it difficult to verbalize her own conflicted feelings.
"And then there's Paris," Lane chimed in.
"And then there's Paris," Rory agreed. "You're happy though, Lane. Aren't you?"
She paused for a moment, weighing her thoughts, absent-mindedly rubbing her stomach. "There are days I wish I could do more than cook and clean and play with the kids and read Goodnight Moon a dozen times a night and all these other motherhood things that occupy about 80 of my life. I think, there's got to be more than this, right? I think about going back to school, Rory. And I can't believe that now I'm hearing my mother's constant nagging about education, when all I wanted back then was to play music. But there's only so much I can do…and going to school isn't one of them, not right now. My family—" she ended up shrugging.
"Yeah. It took a while for Mom too. Hey, you didn't answer my question."
"I can't imagine my life without Zach or my kids, Rory," she said simply. "I can't say I don't have regrets, but I don't regret marrying Zach. I wouldn't trade them in for anything..."
"Not even that fantasized gig with Robert Smith," Rory teased. Inside, she felt an ache that might have been akin to envy.
Lane made a face, slapped Rory's arm. "Yuck, and what a sordid pre-pubertal fantasy that was. Have you no respect for the sensibilities of a pregnant woman? What about you—you happy, Ror?"
Rory puffed her cheeks, blew out a deep sigh. "Wow. I guess. I should be."
"But…?"
"But…I'm…fine," she finished, bringing their conversation full-circle.
Lane glared at her.
"Oh, what's that? I think I hear a baby calling," Rory said, furrowing her brow and stretching her neck.
"I hate you. You owe me."
"I am your best friend. You're not allowed to hate me."
"Oh, Rory, look," Lane said, suddenly lowering her voice and jerking her head towards the French windows behind their bench. "It's Emily."
Rory turned her head slightly and saw her grandmother seated by herself in her Grandpa's study.
"Is she okay?" Lane asked.
"I think I should check on her," Rory said, standing up.
"I'll let you go, but you owe me the story of your life," Lane hissed again.
"I'll give Steve and Kwan fabulous gifts this Christmas," Rory appeased Lane, pecking her cheek.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rory poked her head in the doorway of her grandfather's study. It was the only room in the first floor that was kept shut, that wasn't teeming with people paying their respects. It was as it was, uncleaned and untouched, since Richard's heart attack. Emily was sitting on Richard's leather armchair, looking at photographs she had lain out on the desk. She looked up and saw Rory.
"Come in, Rory," Emily invited quietly.
"Hey, Grandma." Rory walked behind the desk and leaned down to give Emily a brief, one-armed hug. Then she perched herself on the desk, looking down at the pictures of Richard in various ages and poses: dancing with Emily at their vow renewal; young and lanky, wearing checkered pants at the golfing green; with a bunch of mischievous-looking men holding up mugs of beer, looking distinctly drunk and merry (this picture reminded her terribly of Colin and Finn); a faded, solemn solo in Yale cap and gown.
"I wish I could have used this one instead of that horrid one at the service," she fretted, tapping her finger on a shot of Richard, laughing, on what looked like a bridge overlooking old, gabled rooftops. "In Prague. We had such a lovely time there." Her eyes became nostalgic, then annoyed. "Why did I ever allow Lorelai to use his photo from the company annual report? He looked like someone who was about to retire, which he was."
"This is a wonderful picture, Grandma," Rory agreed. "And I liked the one in the church too."
"Oh, well," Emily shrugged, dismissing the issue.
Silence ensued, the muffled, chaotic voices outside the door the backdrop to the tenuous, fragile moment in the room.
She finally said, "I don't know what to do tomorrow, Rory. Or the day after that."
Rory felt a tightening in her throat. "Oh, Grandma. You loved him so well."
"All my life. I don't know how to do anything else, be anything else, than the one who looked to his meals and arranged his calendar and read with him after dinner." Then she brushed at her eyes impatiently. "I'm making a mess of myself. You don't have to stay and listen to an old widow's maudlin sentimentality, Rory." She looked up at Rory. "You go on out and talk to Ling. I saw you two out there in the garden."
Rory felt like she was a six-year-old being shushed out of "adult" conversation. "It's okay, Grandma. I can stay here for a while. And I'm going to stay here with you, keep you company, for another week or so." Until you can settle into a new routine post-Grandpa, Rory thought to herself. Then wondered sadly, will she ever?
"I shouldn't be keeping you from your job."
"Hugo knows."
"Well there is a lot to be done," Emily began, ever efficient. "Just his study, for one." She looked around the room.
"And then Tweenie Halpern had mentioned the annual DAR fundraising event, too."
"Oh, yes. Richard and I had planned to attend, of course, if Tweenie can manage to whip up something more interesting than roast beef." Emily stood up and began rearranging the photographs, pausing for the briefest second to stare at their black-and-white wedding photo, before putting it back in the stack.
"Grandma?"
"Hm?"
"Do you…did you ever wonder or wish or, or…just think about what life would have been like if you hadn't married Grandpa so young?"
Emily glanced at her, looking a bit taken aback by her question, and Rory berated herself for her spontaneous and inappropriate bout of curiosity.
But then Emily answered her plainly. "Even before he proposed to me, I knew in my heart that I wanted to be the wife of Richard Gilmore, spend my life with him." Then she looked keenly at Rory. "Of course, it appears that the lives of young women today are so much more different and complicated, as you've written about so wonderfully."
"But is it? Any more different or complicated?" In the end, don't we all want the same things, Rory asked herself.
"Of course. You're different. Different from me or your mother."
She felt a little confused, and protest was bubbling in her chest. "What do you mean I'm different?"
"You are Rory Gilmore. Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, just look at yourself. At 24, beautiful and with a bright future, so successful at a young age. You are everything your grandfather and mother hoped you would be."
"And so if I had been more like you or my mother—married young or had a child or chose the not so straight and narrow Ivy League path, I would have disappointed everyone?" Perhaps she was tired, but she was suddenly, inexplicably, all riled up at her grandmother's comment.
"Now what has gotten into you? The fact is you did neither of those things," Emily said with a tone of finality.
"I have to go and see to our guests, Grandma," Rory simply answered in a tired voice, kissing her grandmother's cheek and leaving the study.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am indeed, as the headline said, the daughter of Stars Hollow. I'm the epitome of that African proverb (and incidentally Hillary Clinton's famed book) "It takes a village to raise a child". And sometimes, I feel that the hopes and expectations of an entire village are upon my shoulders. Sometimes—in recent months—I've wondered whether what I've decided to do in my life is more a function of what I want, or what I feel others want for me. I do so hate to disappoint people I care about.
The truth is that I wrote that online series as an almost embarrasingly personal account of my own uncertainties about the path I've chosen and the future I'm shaping for myself. All those women—and I—we do want to have it all. But perhaps that's a pipe dream, a meaningless mantra. Perhaps it's about making choices, having to sacrifice one for another, rather than having it all.
One thing I learned from my Grandpa's death, is that life matters, and time matters. And so love matters. But if I had chosen love, if I had chosen to factor him in, would I have been any less accomplished? Any less the Rory that would make the village proud? Any less of myself?
I really should stop bothering to try to answer those questions. It's done; there is no choice to be made. I've written my piece, told the story, got the nomination. And made everyone proud.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rory went back to the fray, her mind heavy from her conversation with Lane and then Emily. She went back to her tasks in a robotic fashion, marching back and forth from the kitchen to check on drinks, trays, coffee, and Kirk (who has been known to do some impromptu performance art when sloshed, typically sans clothes). She was bringing a pot of tea, as requested, to Miss Patty, when something—or rather someone—at her peripheral vision made her walk more slowly, and altogether stop.
Even with his back to her, she would know that blonde head of hair anywhere. Even with his back to her, she knew his stance, the way he shifted his feet, the way he gestured with his right hand as he talked, the way he kept his left hand in his pants pocket. She even knew the dark grey suit, had it dry cleaned for him once.
The room spun around slightly, and she felt out of breath. Perhaps she was seeing things, the recent turn of her thoughts conjuring his image before her. Yes, I must be really tired now, she thought to herself. But just as she set her mind straight that it couldn't be him, the man turned around, as if suddenly aware that someone had been staring at him for the last minute. And it was him. In the Gilmore mansion. All the way from San Francisco, or wherever it was he came from.
She set the tea pot carefully at the nearest surface—a bookshelf—her shaking hand having caused it to spill a bit under the lid. She couldn't bring herself to look up, perhaps fearing that if she did, he would be gone. Or that if she did and he were still there, she would—what? She didn't know what she would do. Either way, she might fall apart. So she carefully swiped the small puddles of tea on the shelf with her fingers.
"Rory?" His voice was low, questioning. He had entered her field of vision, her airspace. He touched her lightly at her back, but she felt him in her bones.
"You have a helicopter parked somewhere?" she blurted out, still dumbstruck to see his brown eyes looking down at her to think of anything more intelligent to say.
He gave a small laugh at her unexpected greeting. "I wish, so I could have gotten here sooner."
"Your parents are here," she said in a hushed tone, as if in warning.
"I know. I'm petrified," he hushed back.
The ice broken, Rory pitched forward ever so slightly, tilting her body towards him. And Logan stood there, ready to be leaned against, should she want to. She grasped his forearm, and his hand came up simultaneously to cup her elbow.
"You came," she said, her words muffled, as she leaned just her forehead on the lapel of his jacket. She felt her tired body, her sad heart, come together and rest against his body. "You didn't have to come."
"I did," he murmured.
"Why?"
"Because." Logan bent his head lower, brushed his cheek lightly against her hair. "Because you love Richard."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lorelai watched her daughter and Logan surreptitiously, half-hidden by the doorway. They were holding onto each other's arm, her forehead on his chest. They were barely touching, and when they did, it was so tentative. But she was amazed at the palpable tenderness between them—everyone in the room must have been aware, though all took pains to appear oblivious. Then Logan said something against Rory's hair, and her body seemed to crumple. They embraced now, fully, her face in the crook of his neck, his hand at the back of her head, the other wrapped around her waist. He was whispering in her ear, and she was nodding. Then he kissed her cheek.
Lorelai looked away, self-conscious to have been staring at them. As she walked aimlessly among the dwindling crowd, she wondered about Logan and what it might mean to Rory that he was suddenly there, after a year. She was unaware that he had never been truly absent from her daughter's life, unaware that they had been together in New York only two months ago. Unaware that Rory loved him still.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Do you…do you want me to stay?" Logan asked tentatively, through her curtain of hair. She was in his arms now. And he held her tightly, wanting to be with her at this time. Selfishly. Wanting to be the one to comfort her and make her happy.
He felt Rory nod against his neck.
"I'll stay for as long as you want," he said.
And she nodded again.
"I love you," he said then, and kissed her cheek.
