Chap 11: Home Again
Lorelai paced the living room like a caged cat.
"Why haven't they called? They said they'd call if they found them. How big could that friggin island be?" she said.
"Sit down, Lorelai," said Emily, who was sitting on the couch with a magazine on her lap (though she hadn't turned a page in half an hour). "You're going to work yourself into a fit."
"Mother, my daughter and my boyfriend are out in a storm!"
"The storm has stopped, Lorelai."
"I'm going to go look for them."
"Are you planning on swimmingto the island?" Emily said.
Lorelai opened the front door.
"Lorelai!" Emily said.
Lorelai yelped and ran outside, screen door slamming behind her. Emily followed, asking shrill questions.
Rory and Luke trudged up the walk, soaked, muddy, and tired.
"Gilligan!" Lorelai cried, and grabbed Rory in a hug.
"I'm sorry we scared you," Rory said.
"You certainly did, young lady," Emily said.
"And the skipper, too!" Lorelai hugged and kissed Luke. "Thank you for keeping her safe."
"It was nothing," Luke said.
"That's quite a thing to say to the person who got her lost in the first place," Emily said to Lorelai sharply.
"She isn't a kid, Mom," Lorelai said. "Rory chose to go up there on her own."
Rory's eyes filled with tears, and she launched herself at her mom. "I'm sorry," she cried. "I'm sorry for fighting with you and saying those awful things."
"Oh, honey," Lorelai said, holding her girl.
"What's she going on about?" Emily asked Luke.
Luke shrugged and started walking to the house. Emily evaluated the girls again, and reluctantly followed Luke inside. As Lorelai and Rory hugged and cried, they heard Emily's receding voice, "Take off those muddy shoes and check yourselves for ticks before you come inside the house. And be sure to use the garden soap so you don't break out in poison ivy from head to toe. There's calamine lotion, too, because I'm sure you gave the mosquitoes a feast. I can't understand what you two were thinking. . . ."
The screen door banged shut, and Lorelai and Rory were alone in the wet yard.
"I'm sorry, Mom," Rory said for the fifth time.
"It's all right. I'm sorry for being snippy," Lorelai said. "I'm just used to being able to talk to you about things. What happened? I mean, did I screw it up? Did I make you not want to talk to me?"
"No, this isn't your fault at all," Rory said. "Everything you said that night when Dean and me – everything you said was right. I wanted to talk to you, Mom, really. I didn't think you wanted to hear it."
"Oh, honey," Lorelai said guiltily.
"No, you didn't do anything wrong this past month," Rory said, gesturing to emphasize. "It was my fault for being angry at myself and taking it out on you."
Lorelai rubbed Rory's arms consolingly.
"I just didn't want to admit that I did something so stupid," Rory said.
"No, not stupid; just human."
"I know," Rory said. "It – what happened –" she pulled her lips inward.
Lorelai's heart broke to see the pain on Rory's face.
"Look, it's not on your list of top achievements," Lorelai said, "but the only thing you can do now is what you're already doing, i.e. staying the hell away from him. So, short of changing your major to physics so you can take a team of scientists into the desert and build Project Quantum Leap, there's nothing much else you can do at this point."
"I know," Rory said. "I just – this isn't me. I don't feel like me." Tears welled in her eyes.
Lorelai hugged her again. "Honey, even smart, sweet, kind kids mess up. You're still you. Really."
"You think?" Rory said tearfully.
"Oh, totally," Lorelai said. "Head to toe, you're one hundred percent Rory."
Rory leaned into Lorelai again, seeking comfort this time.
"I just wish I could believe that."
"You will," Lorelai said. "You just need to give yourself time. You'll work through this."
When Rory was a little girl, Lorelai would say things like, 'We'll fix this together.' But her daughter was achingly grown up now, possessing her own life and its consequences. And while Lorelai understood this, she still didn't want to let go. But that part of Lorelai's life was over now; as much as Rory's childhood was both an ending and beginning point in her own life, it signaled a new chapter in Lorelai's life, as well.
"I love you."
"You too."
When Luke came downstairs from his shower, he found Emily in the living room, subtly watching Lorelai and Rory from the living room window. When she heard Luke's footfalls on the stairs, she picked up a magazine and started turning pages.
"Hi," Luke said.
Emily looked up only long enough to send him a scathing look. "I trust you discovered no disease-carrying insects on your person?"
"Nope," he said. "There was bug spray in the boat."
Emily looked at him carefully. "Oh."
"Sunscreen, too."
"I see," she said evenly.
"I didn't take her up there," Luke said. "She was intent on going, and I wasn't going to let her go alone. I went to make sure she didn't do anything stupid and got herself hurt."
"You could have tried to stop her," Emily said icily.
Luke sat heavily onto the sofa opposite Emily. "When Rory makes up her mind about something, she's like a dog with a bone in her mouth."
"How charming, likening my granddaughter to a dog."
"You know what I mean," Luke said. "She's like Lorelai. Stubborn."
Emily's lips twisted as she wrestled her emotions: fury at this man for being adjacent to a disaster regarding Rory, yet belief that she came home safe because of him.
"I've kept her in burgers and fries since she was in grade school," Luke said.
Emily put down the magazine and stood abruptly. "You must be hungry," she said.
"Yeah," Luke said, still unsure of his standing with Emily.
"There's a pot roast in the refrigerator, and –"
The screen door flung open. "Hey, Grandma, look at this!" Rory cried.
"Look at what?" Emily said, as Rory brandished her cell phone.
Luke sent Lorelai a look, 'Everything okay?'
Lorelai nodded. 'Thank you,' she mouthed, bobbing her head at Rory. Luke nodded.
Rory explained about their near-miss with the lightning bolt, and – after Emily recovered from her stroke -- said, "When it hit, I must have just squeezed my phone, and pushed the photo button."
"This is astounding!" Emily said, looking at the picture displayed on Rory's phone.
"What?" Luke said.
The camera had been pointed up at the tree. Rory's timing had been perfect: a vein of white light, like a knobby finger, arced from the top of the picture to the middle of the tree. The upper limbs of the tree were in silhouette, and the bolt of lightning was cutting down the center of the trunk, which was bulging and cleaving, about to split the tree in half.
"Wow," Luke said. "We heard it after it hit."
"Yup," Rory said. "You protected me from a big noise and some crackling electrons."
Emily and Lorelai shared a smile at the word 'protect.'
"And the falling tree," Luke said wryly.
"The tree was falling?" Rory said.