Chapter 9: The Father and Mother Meet at Last

Max and Lorelai were standing outside of Luke's diner. Both were glancing anxiously at the door.

"Are you ready for this?" Max asked his wife.

"How can we be ready for this? Emily Post doesn't exactly give guidelines on how to tell someone that he's raising your daughter."

"True. Just remember what we talked about. We need to take this slow. We can't push them."

Lorelai nodded. "Let's do it."

Lorelai and Max walked into the diner and immediately saw Luke at the counter and walked over toward him.

"Luke Danes?"

"Yeah, who wants to know?"

He immediately recognized Lorelai as the woman that had been with Sookie a few days ago and wondered why she was back.

"I'm Max Medina. I'm one of Heather's teachers from Chilton and this is my wife Lorelai."

"Nice to meet you. Is there some sort of problem at school? Is Heather in trouble?"

"No, of course not. Heather's a wonderful girl."

"Then what are you doing here? What's the problem?"

"Can we sit down?"

Luke nodded and showed them to a table.

They sat in silence for a while and finally Lorelai broke the silence.

"I need to tell you a story. I need you to sit here and listen to the whole story without interrupting me."

Something in Lorelai's voice hit a cord deep within in Luke. Or perhaps it was the desperate yet strangely hopeful look in her eyes. Something just told him that he should hear what she had to say.

"Ok."

"A long time ago I was a student at Chilton just like Heather. My parents were wealthy and I was on my way to being an up and coming debutante in society. I was never fond of that life and did everything that I possibly could to rebel against it. Then when I was sixteen, I did the unthinkable as far as my parents were concerned. I got pregnant. The father immediately proposed and my parents were horrified when I turned him down. I ended up dropping out of school and giving birth to a beautiful baby girl and named her Lorelai Leigh Gilmore. Rory for short. Rory was my life--she was everything to me. Then one night when she was she was about two months old, I went to check on Rory because she had been unusually quiet that night. When I got to Rory's room, I discovered that she was gone. I went hysterical—I can barely remember what happened for the next month or so after that. Initially, the police had no leads on where Rory was. Then gradually it became clear that my parents' maid had been responsible for her disappearance. One night I came down the stairs and heard screaming. It was my mother yelling at the maid. As it turned out, she had paid the maid to disappear with Rory forever. The maid left that night and we never saw her again. After screaming at my mother that I would never forgive her, I left, vowing never to return again. I dedicated my life for months to finding Rory but with no source of steady income, it became clear that I had little hope of doing it. Finally, I made the decision to get my life together and then resume my search for Rory. I moved to California and got my GED. I worked my way through college doing various jobs. While there, I met Max. We fell in love and eventually got married. After graduating, Max and I rededicated our efforts to finding Rory but there was no trace—nothing. I never gave up hope though. Then Max was offered the job at Chilton and I made the difficult decision to move near my parents again. We ran into my father a few weeks ago and he invited us over to dinner. I reluctantly agreed. While there my father showed Max some pictures of myself when I was 16. Max immediately noticed a striking resemblance between Heather and myself. We had a DNA test performed to be sure and she's Rory. Your Heather is my Rory."

For a moment after Lorelai finished her story, they were all silent.

Finally, Luke broke the silence. "No it can't be true it…"

"Mr. Danes, we wouldn't be coming to you unless we were absolutely certain," Max interrupted. He handed Luke the DNA results. "Please feel free to have your own tests run."

Luke stared at the paper in disbelief while shaking his head in a combination of anger and hurt.

"She was abandoned she was…"

"She was abandoned but not by me. I never intended to give her up. She meant everything to me. I've spent my entire life looking for her."

"She means everything to me," Luke said with tears in his eyes. "You can't take her away from me."

"Mr. Danes. We don't want to take her away from you," Max replied.

"Then what? What do you want?"

"I want a chance to get to know my daughter. A chance to be a mother to her. But I don't want to scare her—I want to take it slowly."

"But if she wanted to live with you, you wouldn't turn her away, would you?"

Lorelai and Max shook their heads.

At that moment the door of Luke's opened and Heather walked in. She could immediately tell that something was terribly wrong.

"Dad what is it…Mr. Medina, what are you doing here?"

Lorelai clasped her hand to her mouth to contain the gasp that came out as she glanced at her daughter for the first time in over 16 years. She was beautiful–she was perfect...

They were all silent.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?"

Luke swallowed back tears and nodded toward Lorelai and Max.

"Heather, your teacher and his wife have something to tell you."