Chapter 28

Once again she drove away. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Away from her town, her house, her home, just away. She knew she would be back, but at the same time, she wasn't sure she'd ever really return. She might never have the relationship that she had once had with the woman in the house she drove away from: her mother, or even with the man who was probably in the house, who had been more of a father to her than anyone she had ever known, including her biological father.

Her daughter had a better relationship with her mother than she did. That's not that unusual, she told herself. That's the way it was for me growing up. Mom hated Grandma. She winced at the thought going through her own mind, hoping she and her mother weren't quite at the level of her mother and grandmother. Maybe it's worse. At least they spoke to one another. She didn't know if they had been in contact in recent years or not, although somehow she doubted it. It's different, she managed to convince herself.

More than anything, she wanted that relationship back. She wanted once again to think of her mother as her best friend. She had Lane and she had Paris, but she really didn't see either one of them that often, and she had a different relationship with both of them than she used to have with Lorelai. She wanted Lorelai back, but she didn't know how that was possible.

Almost equally, she wanted a better relationship with her daughter. She had always known she would someday have a daughter. She told herself, and everyone else, when she had been pregnant with Emma, that she didn't care if it was a boy or girl, but she wanted a girl, and somewhere deep in her mind, she knew she would have a girl. She had always said that she would have a relationship with her daughter that was as wonderful as the relationship had been between her and her mother. Unfortunately that hadn't quite worked out.

Emma was closer to Lorelai than to Rory, and Rory knew it. She hated it, but she knew it. She hid it well, but she hated Emma spending so much time with Lorelai, doing things with her, and sharing everything with her before she shared them with her own mother. She hadn't asked Emma much about her dance because she knew she would want to share the details with Lorelai first. She hadn't even asked to see the pictures because she had a feeling Emma would want Lorelai to be the first to see them.

Rory didn't know why she and Emma weren't closer than they were. She blamed it partially on her own early adulthood. She had spent the last leg of her childhood living with her grandmother. She loved her grandmother, but she wasn't the role model Rory should have had at that point in her life. It should have been Lorelai, and she knew it. The activities of the older, richer woman shouldn't have influenced her in the way they had. She would never have joined the DAR, or quit college, or even have had a maid if it weren't for Emily.

Sophia had turned out to be a blessing, but the other two things hadn't. Emma was right, the DAR was what she did for the most part, but she wished it wasn't. The women in it drove her up the wall, and organizing DAR functions was no longer one of her favorite things to do. She wasn't sure if it was logical, but she saw the DAR as a major roadblock between herself and Lorelai.

Quitting Yale had turned out to be one of the worst decisions of her life. She wished with everything she had that she hadn't dropped out, that she had at least gone back after taking some time off. Without a college degree, she felt that she was limited to her DAR activities. She didn't need to get a job, Logan's income combined with his inherited wealth was far more than enough to sustain the good life that she and her family had, but she was considering getting a job more and more often as something to do. The only true reason she hadn't really considered it with the thought of actually doing it was that she wouldn't be able to get a job that she liked and that challenged her without a college degree.

She was truly getting fed up with the fight between herself and her mother. Twenty years was more than long enough. She wanted it to end, and she wanted it to end as soon as possible. These were the thoughts going through her head as she pulled into her own driveway. She set her jaw, opened her car door and walked briskly into her house. She went directly to her phone to do something she wasn't sure she should be doing. Her daughter had advised against it, and she usually listened to Emma. Emma was smart, and sometimes displayed more logic than she did herself. Logic however, didn't play a part in what she was doing.

The phone rang, and soon was answered by a voice she knew. "Hello?"

"Hi Carol, it's Rory," she said to the DAR's secretary.

"Hi Rory. I haven't heard from you all day. Been busy?"

"No, actually I was taking the day off," she wasn't ashamed to admit.

"Really? You never take the day off."

"Actually, I'm taking more than a day off. Get someone else to finish organizing the bathroom fundraiser."

"I wish you'd stop calling it that. It's to further furnish our headquarters, which will please all the members of the DAR, including you."

"And it so just happens that one of the main focuses of the entire DAR, minus one, is to get heated toilet seats for the headquarters bathroom. We have better things to use out budget for!"

"Okay, okay, I'll find someone else. Are you sure though? You've already halfway organized it, and I know you don't like quitting projects in the middle."

"I'm sure, trust me. In fact, I don't want to be part of the DAR anymore. Take my name off the list."

"Off the list? You do know that this means that you will not only be completely unable to organize any more of our functions, but you also won't be able to help with, or even attend them anymore? The DAR ladies don't take kindly to key members such as yourself dropping out of the organization. You won't even be able to enjoy the benefits of the renovations to headquarters."

"You know what Carol? I think I can live without sitting on a heated toilet seat in the near future. In fact, I'd be just as happy to never enjoy the benefits of a heated toilet seat, which I'm sure are numerous, in my entire life. Take my name off the damn list!" With those elegant last words, she hung up.

Throughout most of her life, she had never really enjoyed shouting or arguing. Through most of high school and her brief college experience, that had been Paris's department. Many of the arguments she had taken part in had ended in tears, but strangely, this one didn't. She felt somehow pleased, as if she should have done this long ago. The next challenge she faced was to tell her daughter what she had done.

Emma saw her mother pulling out of the driveway out of the corner of her eye as Lorelai answered the door. She looked pleased to see Emma. "Emma! Hi! You got here pretty fast."

"I know, Mom was actually ready to go pretty much as soon as I hung up with you. So, well, here I am," Emma tried to keep the conversation about her mother down to a minimum when she talked to Lorelai. She didn't think Lorelai liked to talk about Rory much, and she knew she missed her.

"Well, good. Now, first thing's first, do you have pictures?"

"Yep. The only reason it took me as long as it did was I had to wait an hour to get them developed. But here they are, all ready to be looked at."

"Good. So what are we waiting for? Come over here and let's look at them," she said, pointing at her couch.

"Okay, let's go," Emma said as she and Lorelai sat down. "Wait, should we let Sookie and Luke see these, too? Sookie bought me the camera, so I assume she wanted to see the pictures, and I have a feeling Luke would want to see them, whether he would admit it or not."
"No, me first," she said, with mock offense that Emma had even considered showing them to anyone else. "Have you seen these yet?" she asked seriously.

"Nope. Just got them developed, I haven't even had the chance."

"Good, so I am first." Lorelai was pleased. "So apparently it went well, you sounded happy when I talked to you this morning."

"Yes it did, it was great."

"I need more."

"A picture is worth a thousand words, apparently," she said.

"How many pictures do you have?"

"Twenty-six thousand words."

"Good. Let's see."

"Okay, I have no idea how many of these turned out, but let's find out."

"Just open them!"

"Fine." Emma took the pictures carefully out of their envelope.