For a few hours, Lori hung around the diner, talking to Jess when he had nothing to do, and trying to keep her mind off the confrontation that was coming.
Around seven, Lorelai came into the diner and sat at a vacant table near the window. Lori's breath began to come quickly, and she felt the need to put her head down. "Oh, god, am I really going to do this?" she demanded.
Jess reached for her hand and gripped it. Then he leaned over the counter and kissed her on the cheek, and gestured for her to sit at the table after he'd taken Lorelai's order.
She steeled herself, and forced herself to act remotely cheerful. "Hello," she said, approaching the table where Lorelai sat, looking out the window. The older woman was a bit startled, but smiled when she saw who it was.
"Oh, hello," she said.
"Do you mind if I join you?" Lori asked.
"Not at all." Lorelai looked intrigued as Lori pulled out the chair and sank into it. Lori folded her hands together to keep them from shaking.
"I just wanted to say thank you for seeking me out today," Lori began. "I know I didn't say much, but it really meant a lot to me. I was just…nervous."
"Of me?" Lorelai laughed. "Why?"
"Well, you're the boss and all…." Lori trailed off, not wanting to elaborate on the "all" just yet "I was just afraid of saying something I'd regret."
"That's all right," Lorelai said. She looked down at her coffee cup in surprise. "Oh, darn, I'm out."
"Jess?" Lori called. "Two coffees, please?"
"Thanks," Lorelai said.
There was silence until after Jess had refilled their coffee mugs. When he was gone, she asked, "Do you have kids?"
Lorelai nearly dropped her coffee cup. "N-No, not really, why?"
Lori bit her lip, groping for a plausible reason to have blurted out such a question. "I've just have some questions, and I wanted to ask a woman who's been through the whole birth process. But I don't know any. That's why I was wondering if you'd had kids, and if you did, what you went through."
"What about your parents?"
"They're deceased," Lori said softly.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Lorelai said, and reached out to cover Lori's hand in a gesture of comfort. Lori felt as if she wanted to cry, but held herself back.
"It's all right," she said. "It happened years ago."
"How many years ago?"
"Three."
Lorelai scoffed. "That's barely anything!" she said. "You must still be upset about it."
"I guess I am," she said. "I loved my parents. Even if they were alive now, I wouldn't be able to ask my mom about pregnancy."
"Not a big heart-to-heart person, huh?" Lorelai asked sardonically. "My mom isn't either. I still can't talk to her about anything of importance. In fact, I don't think I've talked to her in the last year at all. We exchanged cards at Christmas, but other than that, there's really been nothing."
"Well, no, it's not that," Lori said. She took in a huge breath, held it for a few moments, and then sighed heavily. "It's that she'd never given birth." Her heart beat faster, almost drowning out any other noise in her ears.
Lorelai had frozen, her eyes fastened on Lori's face and eyes. "Really?" she managed to croak out. "How did she manage that?"
"I was put up for adoption when I was a baby," Lori said quietly. Their eyes were locked, and she wouldn't be the first to look away. "My birth mother was very young, only sixteen, when she had me."
Lorelai's eyebrows drew downward. "What's your birthday?" she demanded, still not looking away, her eyes filling with tears that didn't fall.
"October eighth, nineteen eighty-four," Lori said, her voice hitching.
Luke came over. "Uh, why don't you two head upstairs?" he asked. Lorelai needed no coaxing, and bolted up the staircase she'd seen Jess and Lori disappear into many times before. Lori followed slightly slower, and found Lorelai pacing in the hallway.
Lori opened the door to the apartment and led Lorelai inside. Lorelai half-collapsed against the closed door, and stared at Lori. "Where were you born?" she demanded.
"Hartford, Connecticut," Lori said. "My parents named me after my birth mother. Her name is Lorelai."
Lorelai slid to the floor. "Oh God, oh God, oh God," she chanted, her face pressed into her bent knees. Lori knelt on the floor next to her, almost afraid to touch her. "Oh, God," Lorelai finally said, looking up, face wet with tears. "You're my daughter! Are you really my daughter?"
Lori nodded, feeling the tears threatening her also, and tried to fight it. But the dam broke when Lorelai quickly grabbed her shoulders and hugged her tightly, still crying.
Neither knew how long they stayed that way, but suddenly Lorelai leaned back against the door, spent, her eyes closed. "Oh, God," she said again. "My daughter, Lorelai. Jeez. That must've been so confusing for Jess and Luke." Her eyes popped open as something occurred to her. "Oh, God, Jess!" she said, this time sounding horrified. "You're pregnant!"
Lori shrank back. She'd been afraid Lorelai would react like that. She nodded.
"God," Lorelai moaned. "I gave you up so I wouldn't ruin your life and you manage to ruin it all on your own!" She thumped her head back against the door.
"Hey!" Lori said. "What happened to 'Congratulations,' and 'You're doing great,' huh?"
"That was before I knew–"
"That I was your daughter? Big deal!" Lori stood and went over to collapse onto the couch. "I'm handling this situation better than you did," she spat. "I'm in love with Jess, and he loves me, and I'm going to raise this baby with him!"
"It's not my fault!" Lorelai cried, also standing. "I loved your—Christopher, but he had no interest in being a father. You know what he said when I told him? He said, 'What are you going to do?' As if it was all my fault and all my decision!"
"So where is he now?" Lori asked, slightly cowed by the thought that Jess could have reacted like that. Could have, but didn't, she reminded herself.
"I don't know," Lorelai answered. "I lost track of him a long time ago."
"You lost track of him?" Lori demanded. "How could you lose track of him? You had a child with him!"
"No," Lorelai snapped. "I had a child by myself. I just had me. And I wasn't enough. I thought I was doing the right thing by putting you up for adoption, and I still think I did because you loved your parents."
"They lied to me," Lori said quietly.
"But you still love them." Lorelai shook her head. "Don't deny it. You're still upset they died, and you still miss them and love them. I just thought I was being selfish and unrealistic to want to keep you. But I wanted to," she added. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done, handing you to the nurse when I knew I'd never see you again. But I'd been selfish my entire life. Up until then, it had only affected me. But…I couldn't let it affect you. I had to do what I thought was right."
The pair sat in silence for several long moments. Finally, Lori asked, "So tell me what happened after that."
"After I had you? After I gave you up?" Lori merely nodded. Lorelai sat next to her on the couch. "I went back to high school. Everyone knew, of course. Christopher got sent to a different school, and then he went off to college. I worked so hard to prove to everyone that I hadn't ruined my life. I was Valedictorian, with a full scholarship to Yale, even if my parents could easily pay for it. I majored in business, mostly because I couldn't think of anything else. Then, on one of the family trips to Martha's Vineyard, it hit me that I really liked hotels. The whole business fascinated me, from the way the rooms were decorated to the ordering of food for the kitchens. I wanted to know it all."
"But my parents didn't want me to. They're snobs, and they think anyone who takes care of everything they need is beneath them. So, to them, running a hotel—even one like the Georges VI in Paris—was akin to me running away from home and joining the circus. And I couldn't take it any more. By that time, I'd graduated school and was working at a job I hated but that paid very well and was very prestigious."
Lorelai took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "I'd been the perfect daughter to them. I'd done what they told me to do every step of the way, even to the point of marrying someone they thought was a 'good match.' That almost made up for the disgrace of getting pregnant so young." She began to choke up, the tears threatening again. "I'd done everything they told me to, and when I found something that made me happy they told me it wasn't good enough. What made me happy wasn't good enough for them, so I wasn't good enough for them. And I wouldn't ever be, no matter how many things I did right."
She trailed off, still trying not to cry. For a long while, Lori let her fight it out. Then she asked, "So you–"
"I stopped talking to them. I had my trust fund and my husband to see me through lean times, and I had a business degree behind me. I could do whatever I wanted. And what I wanted was to run a hotel. So, I started in New York. But that was still too close to my parents, and I went to Philadelphia. I still felt suffocated, so I relocated to Chicago, still learning all I could about the hotel business. Eventually my husband got sick of moving around and wanted to stay in one place. It took us a long time to realize we weren't even friends any more, just strangers living together. So, we put in for a divorce, and I moved on.
"And finally, I thought I was ready to take on a business of my own. I had enough money from my trust fund, and from investments I'd made, and my half of the divorce: I bought the Independence Inn."
"So, where do your parents live?"
"Well, right now they're living in Hartford, but they're making plans to have a retirement home built in Florida. Actually, they might be there by now, for all I know." Lorelai sounded as if she were counting the days. "I've told them where I am and gave them the phone number for the Inn. The ball's in their court."
Lori bit her lip before she asked, "Are you going to tell them about me?"
Lorelai laughed in horror. "Oh, there's a picture. Richard, Emily, here's the daughter you made me give up for adoption seventeen years ago, and–oh yeah!–you're about to become great-grandparents! Yeah, there's a Kodak moment for you." She chuckled for a few more moments before it hit her. "Oh, god! I'm going to be a grandmother!" She winced. "Bad mom flashback," she muttered, putting her palms to her eyes. "Forget I said that, please."
"Does that mean you're going to be involved in our lives?" Lori asked, almost afraid to hope.
"How can I not be?" Lorelai demanded. "I mean, you work for me, I eat at the diner everyday, and this is a very, very small town." Lorelai put her head back in her hands. "I hate small towns," she finally concluded. "They cause nothing but trouble. Really, would this have happened if I'd bought a hotel in New York? I don't think so!"
"Are you sorry?"
"About?"
"Finding me, us," she added, placing a hand over her stomach.
"Yes and no," Lorelai said, going for brutally honest.
Lori took a deep breath. "Let's hear the 'no' first."
"Well, no, because my life just got a lot more complicated. Think about how this is going to affect introductions: Hi, I'm Lorelai, and this is my daughter that I gave up for adoption seventeen years ago, who is also named Lorelai. How did that happen, by the way?"
Lori told her about her parents meeting Lorelai three days after she was born.
"I remember them," Lorelai said. "Those were your parents? Wow."
"Yeah. Now, what about the 'yes?'"
"Yes," Lorelai began, then sighed. "Yes, because I've regretted what I did for so long, and now…well, it's not exactly taking it back, but at least I know what you look like now."
Someone knocked on the door, making both women jump at the sound. "Yeah?" Lori called, and Jess opened the door.
"Just thought I'd check on things up here," he said, entering the apartment warily, studying both their faces with extreme caution. "Everything okay?"
"Not right now," Lori said truthfully. She turned and smiled at Lori. "But I think it will be."
Jess sighed in relief, and went over to sit on Lori's other side. "So, is it going to be a boy or a girl?" Lorelai asked them both.
"We don't know," they chorused. "I didn't find out before I came here," Lori continued. "I just don't know if I want to know."
"Well, it's not going to be a secret for very long, now, is it? You've only got four more months."
"Closer to three, now," Lori said, counting the days. "And…now that all the secrets are out, can you help me out with the pregnancy thing?"
Jess excused himself from talk about pregnancy, cravings, lack of caffeine, and swelling and pain.
"It might get really bad, it might not hurt that much," Lorelai told her. "But back pain is common. Anytime at work, just let somebody know, and you can take a break."
"Oh, god, work," Lori said, groaning, putting her face in her hands. "What are we going to tell people at work?"
"Nothing, if they don't ask," Lorelai said. "If they ask, we tell the truth. It might make their eyes glaze over, 'cause it'll take so long, but we'll tell them."
Lori thought for a moment. "Is there any way we can shorten this?"
"Hmm. I had a baby when I was sixteen, and you're it."
"That's pretty short."
"Or should I say 'it was you?'"
"I really don't think it matters."
They smiled at each other, comfortable together for the first time.
