Chapter 2
"'But… we've never had an elephant astronaut before,' said the man," Rory read out, trying to make a manly voice. "'I know,' said Stella. 'I would be the first,' " Rory said, shifting to her normal voice. "'I'm sorry,' said he, 'but I don't think we can let an elephant be an astronaut. Imagine what would happen…,'" Rory continued in a tone that barely could've portrayed a man.
"I want to read something else. We just read that yesterday," Em complained, despite having picked the book out herself.
"Yesterday we read 'Reach for the Stars', I thought you wanted this one," Rory replied, really not feeling like starting another book. It was late. Em should've been already asleep and she knew the morning was going to be a rough one with Rory needing to wake Em roughly an hour earlier than the girl would wake naturally.
"Can you just tell me a story instead?" the little girl requested, laying with her head on her pillow while her mother leaned back against her pink velvet headboard.
The girl's bedroom wasn't huge - just a simple 10 by 14, but it was cosy. It's walls were rather busy for Rory's taste - Love Mae's Playful Woods wallpaper covering them, that Em had picked out herself a year ago, having grown out of the nursery decor. One wall held all of her toys and books, and in another corner a hammock-nest hung from the ceiling. The girl had everything she needed - Barbies, Legos - even the fancy programmable ones, stuffed toys. Thankfully, there was a housekeeper that kept the resulting mess under control, Em's own room cleaning abilities coming and going depending on how much nagging Rory felt like doing.
"How about we just talk?" Rory suggested instead, her brain already feeling exhausted from her own work day. Her work wasn't prestigious, but it did put her mind into good use, and more often than not by the end of the day she felt like she'd just taken a mid-term. But it gave her a thrill, even if her job title didn't really reflect it.
"Fine," Em groaned, not really meaning it. She just impersonated adult's expressions and it was just the sound her grandfather tended to make when he had to do something he didn't want to do.
"Okay. Today I went to see this really smart woman talk. She writes books and she gave this really inspiring talk. It was really fun," Rory described. "What was the best thing you did today?" Rory inquired, putting the book aside.
"We painted with brushes today," Em said.
"What did you paint?" Rory asked.
"Fall - we had to use colors like brown and orange, I made a tree. Like the one we have in the yard," Em shared, gesturing to the back of the house where Rory's bedroom was.
"Did you do calculus again too?" Rory continued, feeling a bang of guilt for not having picked Em up herself that day, her work day having run late as it sometimes did. If she had, they would've covered this topics by the time they got home. But that was why they had the nanny, even if she liked to think she no longer needed her services, but even with Christopher eager to help in theory, it did come in handy.
"Yeah, but we're still doing additions," Em groaned, rolling her eyes.
"Were you warm enough for soccer? We should go buy you some leggings soon or it'll get too cold," Rory said, thinking forward.
Em shrugged her shoulders. "Grandpa said I was faster than Katie today," she declared instead, twisting her grandfather's words as it suited her, but that was rather age appropriate.
"He did? Then you must've been really fast," Rory emphasized, pushing her glasses that she sometimes wore when she had a lot of reading to do or when her eyes were tired on top of her head and rubbed her eye.
"Yeah. I was," Em replied, feeling proud of herself. "I did some passes too, right in the beginning, Lexi was just ahead of me but she was just showing off and I just kicked it to Amelia instead," Em described.
Rory barely understood soccer, but she humoured the girl.
"And I bet you were great," Rory replied assuringly.
"You can ask grandpa if he saw it. He wasn't there from the very start," Em began, adding, "he was talking to his friend behind the net for a while."
"That's too bad, but I bet he still saw you through the net. You know how the net sometimes looks from afar like you can't see through it but when you're up close you can see everything, right?" Rory discussed, clueless to how close to a major discovery she'd just been.
"Yeah, I guess," Em sighed.
"How about, we get you to bed now, I'll rub your feet so they're not little icicles," Rory suggested, laughingly, tucking her in and fitting the little girl's feet into her palms. She blew some hot hair onto the girl's freshly bathed feet, rubbing them, and tucked them under the warm blanket as the last thing. It was their thing - something Rory had done every now and again since the girl had been a baby.
"But mommy, I'm not sleepy," Em complained.
"Yeah, but you know you get cranky in the morning if you go to bed late, it's already late," Rory tried to rationalize, and gave the girl a kiss.
"I promise I won't be," Em assured, making a praying gesture with her hands, causing Rory to chuckle at her innocence. She was pretty good at making puppy dog eyes too and this was a prime example.
"Fine, one last thing. Do you want me to tell you how we traveled around Europe with grandma again?" Rory suggested.
"Um…No... Did you meet your friend when you were little?" the girl asked instead.
"What friend? Paris?" Rory asked.
"No the friend grandpa talked to today, the man…, he said he was your friend too," Em said, innocently.
"Well I don't know what his name was so…," Rory began to shrug, unsure how to answer that quetion. Her father had indeed numerous friends and it wouldn't have been the first time he would descend into a discussion on business while at the playground or on the steps of Em's school, and indeed Rory had met many of them too.
"He said his name was Logan," Em replied.
Rory was not sure she was hearing correctly but yet the sound of that name felt like a jolt of pain. Surely there were other Logan-s, she knew a few, but the mention certainly startled her, especially coming from her daughter's mouth.
"Did you get a last name?" Rory asked, hoping this was just a glitch. But it felt like too big of a coincidence. But why was her dad talking to him if it was him?
Em shook her head.
"Then how about we leave it at that tonight. Mommy's tired too," Rory said, not even having to fake her yawn.
"But mommy..," Em began to complain.
"No 'buts', baby," Rory replied, got out of the bed and kissed her daughter good night. "Sweet dreams, I love you," she added.
"I love you too, momy," Em replied, and turned to her side.
With a heaviness within her, alertness accompanied by a nasty feeling building in her stomach, she closed the little girl's bedroom door behind her. She wanted to just shake the suspicious feeling off, go climb into her own bed and just sleep it off. She wanted to just go on with her life like a mention of a name didn't just stop her blood from running through her veins for a second. She didn't want to have vulnerabilities like that, she needed to be stronger than this.
Surely it was just some other Logan.
But instead of being able to push the thought aside, she passed her bedroom door without opening it and made her way down the carpeted staircase, knowing her dad was probably still up, truly hoping she might sleep better once she got the confirmation this had been something innocent.
Christopher had his feet up on his vintage Eames chair, and had just finished flipping through channels, landing on the Late Late Show from a couple of days ago that promised to show Elisabeth Moss.
"You still up, kiddo?" Christopher asked, seeing her.
"Uh-uh," Rory replied, not knowing where to start having this discussion.
Rory made her way to the kitchen that was just adjacent to the den and poured herself a glass of water, trying to think up a way to approach this.
She watched the show with him for a minute, leaning against the doorway, sipping on her water, but then she just decided to bite the bullet…just knowing she needed to get to bed, she didn't have the energy to tiptoe around the topic and she was 95% sure it was just a coincidence anyways.
"Em said you met someone at soccer today," Rory chimed, appearing casual.
In an instant Rory could just see her father tense up, set his feet on the floor and his hand went for the remote to pause what he'd been watching. Not the response she'd been hoping for. He had guilty written all over him.
"Look, I'm sorry… I thought it was harmless..," Christopher began to explain apologetically.
"Hold on. Back up a little...," Rory reacted, going closer and took a seat, her position remaining alert.
"I saw Logan and I just talked with him for a few minutes - I hadn't seen him since forever...," Christopher explained.
"What? Logan Hunzberger?" Rory reflected, her eyes going wide. She could just sense any shred of sleepiness she had had slipping away in an instant, getting a burst of adrenaline.
"Yes," Christopher replied. "I think he wants to talk to you himself, so I thought it was better I stay out of it...," he added, still looking guilty.
"What? So you introduced them?" Rory asked, feeling utterly confused, and her face showed it. She was jumping over a couple of things, nearly forgotting she hadn't actually talked about Em's paternity before with her father, she hadn't talked to anyone about that except for Logan and the lawyers.
"Yes, but obviously not as her d-a-d," Christopher said, whispering the 'd' word. "You should've seen him. I knew that look…," he added.
"What!?" Rory reacted very nearly wanting to shout at him right then. "Did he tell you that?" she focused on the not most relevant aspect.
"No, he didn't suggest it, I sort of made a guess and his silence answered it for me. You know your mom always suspected it too, but you never wanted to talk about it, so we never really got an answer. And then the guy shows up at her game, has that longing look in his eyes… I could just tell," Christopher explained.
"Oh, crap…," Rory panicked, needing a really deep breath to comprehend this. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but surely you now understand why… right?" she added, apologetically.
"I have a few guesses," Christopher shrugged but seemed suprisingly calm about the whole thing. Almost annoyingly so.
"So he's met her… you introduced them…, wow... okay...," Rory fretted, rising from her seat, and paced back and forth. She wanted to accuse him that he didn't have the right to do that, but at this point she sort of understand there was no point. It was already done. And she felt a certain sense of loyalty considering everything her father had done for her during these past years. She wasn't eager to confront him with accusations like that, feeling too dependant on him. She'd lost already too much with her stubbornness.
"It was very innocent. I swear. He didn't ask for it or wasn't going to bud in. But he didn't even recognize her... and I sort of just took a leap and let him meet her. Very casually, just as an old friend. And I'm sorry, I know it wasn't my place. But I just recognized a little of myself in him and I guess that's my weak spot, you know," Christopher replied, sounding genine in his apology.
"Did he say what he wanted?" Rory asked, her breathing growing consciously deeper and deeper, trying to avoid a panic attack. She hadn't had one in years.
"All he said was that he didn't want you to worry and that he wasn't there to overstep or turn Em's life upside down…," Christopher said, hoping Rory would hear reason.
"So he says," Rory chimed in disbelief. While she had once trusted Logan, the very fact that he showed up was the one thing she'd feared for years. One never showed up without any requests, even if one didn't express them right away.
"Rory… what happened with the two of you? Christopher asked, wanting her daughter to focus on talking instead of spiraling inside her head like she seemed to be doing.
AN: The tiny book excerpt in the beginning was from 'Stellarphant' by James Foley.
And in my stories Christopher lives 62 Mount Vernon in Beacon Hill, Boston. It's still on sale on Sotheby's so you can take a peek at how I more or less imagine it. It has fitted what I've pictured the best for a while now + liberties with floorplan and furniture.
What do you think happened?