5:14 Say... Something addition. One week later.
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Until you've walked back and forth across the floor, arms aching with the dead weight of your feverish sleeping child who is far too heavy to be carried anymore, but still child enough to need that primal contact with her mother's heartbeat and breathing and scent...
Until you have done this night after night, spine twisted into an awkward question mark around her in a single pink bed, then waking, rising, holding, bathing, feeding, and at last sleeping again in snatched two-hour increments as only wolves must do...
Until you've had to return to this most basic way of existing, the days and nights no longer distinguishable, your own identity gone as your ill baby squirms fretfully in your arms...
Until this happens, you do not know what it is to be finally grown up.
It is to be horribly alone in the dark with dependent blinking eyes staring up at you. The implicit question in them: Why aren't you making me better?
And the answering anguish of not knowing how to do that.
Lorelai was thinking about Rory at four am one week after assuring Luke that she would respect his wishes to 'not be in right now' which, of course, only meant being 'out'.
She had gotten up, unable to sleep again, her bed still wide and cold, ostensibly to vacuum. That had been at two am. Now, at five, she had her sewing machine out on the table, her glasses on, and the lamp pulled over to her elbow.
She reset the foot over the fabric and checked the tautness of the thread, then depressed the pedal as she eased the fabric through. The machine hummed out into the night kitchen, the long seam before her closing as the red stitches interlocked above with those of the bobbin beneath. Up and down, up and down, up and down...
Rory, thank God, had rarely been sick as a kid. She'd had Chicken Pox as a surprise at twelve and various colds and flus and the like through the years.
But once, when she was eight, bronchitis had taken hold, only to shortly develop into pneumonia.
They'd only just moved into the house then. It was hollow and huge, and echoed when you walked around it in heels. It felt strange and frightening to have so much room for just them. And, exhilarating too. Furniture was still a dim future luxury, but they had beds and a table and chairs, a cupboard full of macaroni and cheese, a hand-me-down twelve inch color tv (no remote), and three bags of frozen peas in the freezer.
Miraculously, the previous owners had left the refrigerator behind.
It had cost Lorelai every penney she had, a mortgage the size of Texas, and the cashing in of the bonds left her by her maternal grandmother. She sure as hell wouldn't be needing them for college now.
She lifted her hand wearily to the back of her neck then, and squeezed at the tight muscles as she surveyed her handiwork.
Not bad. But enough for now.
She turned to the window and saw then that the light outside was beginning to streak through and so got up creakily to switch on the coffee maker. She'd filled it the night before with the still-ample supply provided by Lane and Rory.
She'd become alarmingly organized lately.
She leaned over the maker then and rested her forehead on the cupboard above and breathed deep of the acrid warmth, then immediately pursed her lips tightly at the beginnings of a familiar twinge in her lower abdomen.
Damn.
It was the twentieth, she remembered then. Right on time.
At this time of her life menstruation was no longer what it had been in her twenties. Now, in her pre-menopausal years (she sighed inwardly at this) things worked differently. No longer the drama of a young woman's monthly, but still no frickin' fun.
She grabbed the pink mug from the counter then, and deftly substituted it for the glass coffee pot under the heavy brown flow that was her life's blood and smiled slightly. She could still pull off this move without losing a drop.
Three points for me!
When the mug was full she swiftly replaced the pot just as nimbly and went upstairs.
While in the shower, she remembered how she'd stood in the same spot all those years ago, Rory in her arms, praying that the steam would open up her lungs and the wheezing would stop.
By six, she walked into the bustle of breakfast prep at The Dragonfly.
"Hey, sweetie!' smiled Sookie from the crepe pan.
"Hey."
"Oh, didn't you get any sleep last night either?"
"Do I look that bad?"
"No!"
"I've got that greenish thing under my eyes again, haven't I?"
"No!... Well, maybe just a little."
"I know, I know."
"How about some breakfast?"
"Maybe later."
"Are you okay, hun?"
Lorelai could only look at her on this then shrug, "It's the twentieth."
"Oh, right," smiled Sookie sympathetically as Lorelai turned to go out the swinging door to the front desk.
Later, as she stood at the back of the dining room watching Sunday Brunch bubble on, the cramping below opening and closing within her like a fist, she remembered how standing in the steamy shower with eight year old Rory had not made the wheezing go away at all.
And that had scared them both to tears, which of course made breathing damn near impossible for the little girl.
"Michel," she signaled him over, "I need to go sit down in the office for a bit. Can you handle things out here for awhile, please?"
"Only by summoning forth my considerable powers of concentration and fortitude."
"That's my little buckaroo!"
After an hour in the office, Lorelai found that the ledger columns on the computer were neither lining up nor adding up as they should.
Double-dog dammit.
More importantly, her mug of coffee was stone cold.
As was she.
She crossed her arms before her on the desk and lay her head down for a minute then. Just to rest her eyes. She felt certain that when she opened them again, the columns would magically sort themselves out, she would be warm, and have the renewed vigor necessary to make it to the kitchen for a fresh mug of the blessed 'joe'...
She dreamt then in that way that happens sometimes when you're neither completely awake nor asleep, and therefore perfectly aware that you are dreaming, but unable to move or do anything about it.
This had been happening to Lorelai a lot lately.
In her dream, Luke was at her front door with a big orange bowl of steamy hot mashed potatoes. Commercial-perfect with a little square melting butter pat 'just so' on top.
'I put broth in so she'd get some protein. She needs to keep up her strength.' he'd said, and then, 'How's she doing?'
She sighed and smiled her thank you in this dream before telling him the truth, 'She's twelve and has Chicken Pox and therefore convinced she'll never be beautiful or wanted again.'
'Poor little thing,' Luke had said with uncharacteristic tenderness then, 'Poor little thing.'
He smiled softly at her,and here was the strangest part of the dream, kissed her sweetly before turning to leave.
When she woke to Sookie's shaking hand on her shoulder, she ached for the memory of it.
"Lorelai, you're not looking too well. I think you better go home."
Hand palmed over her belly, she moaned as she stood to leave, not bothering to argue.
In the jeep on the way home, she thought back then to that dark Pneumonia Night, or near-dawn really, and how she'd bundled them both quickly up, after turning off the shower in its uselessness, and had carried her great big eight year old baby down to the car, turned over the engine, and headed to the hospital.
Stopped at the traffic light in front of Luke's today, she did not automatically crane her neck to catch a glimpse of him before heading home as she usually did. Instead, after a moment's thought, and once the light had changed, turned the other way and went toward the highway for Hartford.
As she drove with one hand and pressed down upon the uterine contractions with the other, she thought about Rory and how sweet she'd been to her the previous week as she lay in the depths of wallow.
It had been then that the quiet realization had initially taken hold. For the first time ever, it was not the comfort of her beautiful daughter that she required, but that of her best friend.
And the man that she loved.
I love him, she thought then.
And the warmth and salt flowed out and down to her lips where she could not only taste the tears but was also powerless to stem them.
She loved him.
And it was right and good that her daughter should go back to Yale and books and hormonal boys and leave her behind. Because children must leave. Even Rory.
And, she loved him.
She hadn't known that one day she must face all of this. Certainly not back when she'd crashed through the Emergency Room doors on Pneumonia Night. Hadn't known that breaking your heart to keep a child alive culminated years later in the day of letting go that must surely come to all parents.
In fact, for her, now had.
It was probably a good thing she hadn't thought about that back then. It would have been just too much.
But today, now, and last Sunday on her bed too, she knew that it was right. And that her heart must now be shared between her grown daughter, who even now was creating her own world, and in her own daily-living way, with this man she loved.
A man who now needed to be away from her.
Life is just a big god-dammed thing sometimes.
She swung into a parking structure then and removed her hand from her abdomen long enough to pull up the handbrake and, moments later, was exiting an elevator onto the fourth floor of a tall limestone building.
"I don't have an appointment," she began, "but I really need to see someone..."
The woman at the desk nodded.
"Sign in. Let me see what I can do."
And, of course, it was as she suspected.
Even though she didn't really expect to get what she suspected, she did.
Another of those god-dammed funny things.
After the urine and blood, and the being cranked open in the familiar cold-handed way, there'd been the waiting in the world's most unflattering dress, in the world's most unflattering light, only to be told what she already knew.
"It's much too early in the process to even term it a 'miscarriage' really, Lorelai."
Her brain furrowed through the files of alternate names she liked to keep on hand for things but drew a blank for what would be just right for a non-miscarriage miscarriage.
"It is only nature's way of remedying a situation that needs to be fixed."
She thought then of being in the Emergency Room with Rory long ago. They'd put a face mask on her attached by a long tube to a nebulizer so she could breathe in the necessary medicine to get her lungs clear.
"This has been happening to women for generations. Particularly of your age."
She winced but went on in her mind to see the relief in Rory's eyes when she could finally breathe comfortably again. Her big saucer pupils staring into those of her mother over the clear plastic mask.
"It probably happens far more often than is realized, actually. Most women just assume they are having an especially heavy period, when in fact it is something more. But hormonal testing being so sensitive now, we are able to discern the truth. I don't know if that's really for the best, by the way."
She nodded at that, trying not to think of the poor women who never knew.
"Have you been careful with your birth control?"
The medical bill on Pneumonia Night had come to fifteen hundred dollars, she remembered then. She'd pawned the diamond earrings her parents had given her for her sixteenth birthday to pay off the credit card bill when it came in.
Years later, she'd spied the same ones on QVC late one night. Only Cubic Zirconias but she'd been wearing them ever since.
It pleased her to no end that her mother didn't know the difference.
"Lorelai?"
"What?"
"Birth control? Careful?"
"Yes, very careful. Fort Knox careful."
"Well, your body is probably changing and we should put you on a different pill with a higher level of hormones then. Accidents like this are rare but can happen."
"Okay."
"I've got a sample painkiller here for you as well to make you more comfortable as you ride this out. Call me if you need more."
"I–I just ride it out?"
"It's perfectly natural, Lorelai. But I'll want to see you next week for a check up, if things haven't gone as they should, we might consider a DNC."
In the jeep on the way back home, she thought about the article she'd read in the newspaper the other day. Half of all bankruptcies that happen to families are because of overwhelming medical bills. Not everyone has diamond earrings she guessed.
Again, in her mind's eye, she saw the relief in Rory's eyes that night when she could finally breathe again.
And realized that she hadn't really breathed in a long time herself.
Hadn't really felt like there was enough oxygen in her heart to keep her going at all.
She felt another painful internal squeeze.
Maybe that was why all this had happened.
Not enough air.
It was something like that, anyway.
Must be.
Half an hour later she stopped deliberately in front of the diner, got out, walked in, and sat at the counter.
It was dark out and well past dinnertime. The place was empty.
Until he came through the curtain.
His eyes widened, "Hey."
"Hello," she said. "Could I have an extra large order of mashed potatoes with butter, please?"
"Um, sure."
He hesitated only slightly before moving into the kitchen.
For long moments only the clanking of a pot or two. Then the opening whoosh of the refrigerator door. The bang of an oven's maybe too.
"Here you go," he said returning, and setting the steaming bowl before her.
"Could I have a cup of coffee too, please?"
"Of course."
He turned to fill a mug as she dipped her spoon into the creamy richness of the potatoes and then slipped it into her mouth.
She closed her eyes and felt the coolness of the spoon against her tongue and the warmth of the potatoes that filled her mouth, and remembered how happy Rory had been to have them to eat when she'd had Chicken Pox.
She'd been right. Mashed potatoes did help a little.
When she'd swallowed and opened her eyes again, she found him staring at her, the mug suspended in his hand in the air between them.
"Luke?"
"Yeah?"
"Coffee?"
"Right."
He set it down in front of her and moved to the end of the counter to sort receipts.
Lorelai slipped her hand into her pocket and felt the foiled painkiller sample then, but somehow couldn't bring herself to numb the pain, after all. She went instead back to the mashed potatoes in silence.
When she finished, she took out her wallet and set the requisite bills next to her bowl and prepared to leave.
She'd go back to her sewing when got home for awhile if she felt up to it, she decided. There were two long seams to finish and she surely did not want to lay awake still-alone and with her only her damn brain and all the thinking it was surely gearing up to do. The thinking leading to tears, the tears to wallow, and the so forth and so on into the inevitable.
She sighed audibly at yet another spasm as she got up to go.
"You okay?" he looked up in concern.
"Thank you for the mashed potatoes." She tried to smile.
He nodded a 'you're welcome' down the long counter at her as she finally turned to leave.
"Lorelai..." he called then before she could go.
She turned back.
"Yes?"
But he seemed to change his mind.
"Nothing. Have a good night."
He shifted his eyes down, then up at her again.
She noticed.
"Are you sure it's nothing?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
She turned away yet again.
"I mean, no."
And back.
"Okay."
Her womb was throbbing now.
"I mean, not nothing," he went on uncertainly, "Something, in fact... I mean, as opposed to the nothing I just said before. Turns out there is... something, after all..."
She nodded and waited for him then...
Remembering to carefully take in all the air that she could.
"Would you like to come upstairs and talk... or something?"