For weeks, she has tried not to let thoughts of this date enter her mind. Working hard at the Inn, making capital improvements, keeping busy. And always, her face frozen into a smile as she orchestrates other brides' weddings. Always a planner, she thinks, never a bride.
But it is here. Time stops for no postponed wedding date.
She reaches over to the nightstand and pulls out a photograph of the two of them. Sookie took it one evening at her house. In it, he's reaching out and smoothing a strand of her hair from her eyes. She rubs her thumb over his still-beloved face. Simultaneously, she closes her eyes and remembers what it was like those first few months they were engaged. The joy of his 'Yes.' The thrill of receiving the ring. Kids would be nice. The kiss in the gazebo. Zima. It was like no other time in her life. She was hopeful. He smiled. She was all in, he was all in.
And then she happened. His long-lost daughter. And the Luke she knew was already fleeing his body as he said a long slow good-bye to the life they'd planned, destroying hope. It was devastating to witness, yet easy to deny. And even once she knew, Lorelai still kept hoping, kept supporting. Little did she know that her Luke was already a ghost.
She's crying.
"I love you," she whispers into the air to a man who no longer exists. "I love you," she reaffirms, sobbing, her tears forceful and copious.
It's so damned unfair, she thinks as she sobs. She did everything right. She was all in. She did not try to change him. She was Gwen to his Gavin. It's so damned unfair that she thinks she could die from the weight of it all. So damned unfair.
So damned unfair that it's June 3, and that Lorelai Gilmore, who had been a woman so well-loved, with a perfect dress and the perfect man and the choices made in the snow--should have been a bride this day, instead of a bitter woman on the downslope to forty.
She rises from her now too-big bed, the bed that no longer will have more than one occupant, and walks to the window and looks out. The stars are out tonight, the sky is clear, and its beauty mocks her pain.
-----
There is only one room that she has not yet cleaned out, not removed his belongings from: the kitchen. And most days that's OK, because Lord knows, she does not cook.
Rory had been over a few days before, and asked her about her Luke boxes. She has so many. So many memories. How do you box up over nine years?
Lorelai had pretended not to care, almost even laughing at Rory, wanting to tell her not to worry so much.
"I'll be fine. But if you're that worried," and Rory was, she could read it on her face, "then maybe you could take some of these boxes and store them somewhere for now."
And now, mindful that those boxes contain her dress and her veil, she turns on the kitchen light. Other than the bedroom, it is easily the place where she has the most memories of Luke. The living room has caused her very little pain, though she avoids sitting in his favorite spot. The bedroom is a tsunami of pain, an emotional deluge. The garage, well she thinks she might burn it down. She can't ever go there again.
And in the kitchen, the refrigerator is almost back to its pre-Luke condition.
She pulls open the door, half expecting the light to come on before remembering that the bulb has burned out. There is a carton of skim milk, already past its expiration date. And some leafy once-green vegetables, now moldering in the crisper. Like her heart, like her life.
Her heartbeat is the only sound she can distinguish. She shrugs her shoulders, replaces the refrigerator contents, and moves to the table. She lays her head down on the cool Formica.
Nighttime, once so companiable, is now empty, an all-encompassing silence around her heart and soul. Before Luke, even during the darkest hours of her life, she had had something to cling to, someone to grasp: Rory. Paul Anka is a poor substitute.
And her nights are without hope. The world of her dreams is usually bright, colorfully adorned in deep red, ocean blue, shimmering silver and gold. Now it is ashen and grey, if she dreams at all.
Sometimes when she sleeps, there is nothing left but blackness.
Why wouldn't he tell me? Why keep it secret? She asks herself for the 456,123rd time.
Because he wanted the timing to be right, she answers herself.
Because he wanted me to be happy.
Because he was ashamed.
Because April's mother…
But the thing was, he'd never told her why.
And she's tired. So tired.
------
Hours later, she hears the phone ring, awakening her. It is morning. Her stiff neck and shoulders attest to her having fallen asleep at the kitchen table.
"Hi you've reached Lorelai Gilmore and Paul Anka."
That was it; she hadn't the heart to record a quip.
"Lorelai, it's your mother. I just wanted to tell you that your father and I are going to be in Stars Hollow today. We'll be there around noon."
She bows her head back down to the table.
-----
She goes to the bathroom, the bathroom he remodeled. Looking in the bathroom mirror, her face is splotchy and red, her hair a rumpled, stringy mess. Her eyes stare back at her, black-rimmed and puffy.
There's too much damned space, she thinks. This is a house for a family now, not an aging spinster.
Her parents will be over in an hour. Everyone thinks she's so strong. Strong Lorelai who raised Rory all alone. Lorelai who's now dumped two fiancés. They don't know, Lorelai thinks, they don't know how weak she's been, how she found a flannel in the recesses of her closet and broke down, just because it had his scent. They don't know that she obsessively re-reads the emails he'd sent her during their engagement, over and over again. They don't know that she Googles his daughter, so she can see what he might be up to with her. They don't know that she listens to his voicemails and answering machine messages, both at home and at the inn, just to try to capture the cadence of his speech. They don't know that she cries in bed at night, and during the day.
No one must know any of this.
It's been six weeks since they last kissed--this thought comes unbidden to her mind, and roams through as if it owns her mind. She licks her lips, trying to remember. It's been eight weeks since they last made love. Eight weeks since the last time she'll ever have sex again in her life, she thinks.
She stares at the wall, and remembers what his hands felt like. Rough and strong, soft when needed. Hands that deserve to hold the bundle of hope now forming inside her.
Maybe today she'll tell her parents.
The phone rings again. "Hi you've reached Lorelai Gilmore and Paul Anka."
"Lor, I umm, it's me. I know that today was supposed to be the day…"
She slams her fist down to stifle his voice.
A little later, "Hi you've reached Lorelai Gilmore and Paul Anka."
"Mom, Logan and I will be there sometime after Grandma and Grandpa get there. Stay strong."
So Rory and her parents are in cahoots, she thinks.
Maybe today she'll tell Rory.
But two wrongs do not make a right, she thinks. Yes, she'll tell Rory, and Emily, and Richard. Maybe even today.
And she grabs the manila envelope with its precious contents from the console in the foyer, and for the first time in weeks, her legs carry her across the square, to the diner. Eyes red and black-rimmed, hair ratty, so not the look she'd planned for this day. Yeah, situation normal over there, she notices. She stands in the street, and squares her shoulders, then walks in.
Today, she'll do what another woman didn't do. She'll tell him and give him a choice.
-----
As she enters, the diner falls silent. Finally, Cesar comes over from behind the counter, and says, "The boss has a new black or dark or something like that day."
She desperately wants coffee but she has no money and oh yeah, the timing's not right for coffee.
"Is he upstairs?" she asks, and makes her way there before Cesar can answer in the affirmative.
-----
She bangs and bangs and bangs on the door without result, then discovers that the door is unlocked. She notices artwork on the refrigerator and finds him asleep in his easy chair, the room littered with bottles in a tribute to Howard Hughes. She trips on one and it rattles on the hardwood, and an eye, the eye closest to her, opens.
"Lorelai…" he whispers as if dreaming, and then he bolts upright as he realizes she is really there.
She silently hands him the envelope. "December 6," she whispers as an afterthought.
His hands shake, it's a good thing that he's seated, she realizes.
"December 6," he repeats, as he looks at the grainy black and white image.
"Far be it from me to quote Emily Gilmore, but…but a child needs a mother and a father…"
And from the look in his bloodshot eyes, and from the grip of his hands around her hips as he holds onto her, and from the tears soaking her shirt, she knows that definitely today, they will tell Rory, and Emily, and Richard, together.