AN: I wasn't originally going to do this, but I'm giving you Logan's POV, though I don't really want to explain much about his background through his thoughts but rather leave it so you'd learn these things through their interaction. So technically if you like the Rory-only side of this you can just skip this short-ish chapter altogether.
Chapter 15
October 7th, 2021
Logan had been driving around Hartford for at least half an hour, aimlessly, essentially just killing time. Driving helped his nerves. It gave him something to do. He didn't want to run into one of the family friends, he didn't want to answer questions. He didn't want their sympathy.
In a way he liked seeing the familiar streets, places where he'd been frequently when he was younger, pass by, allowing him a moment to decide where he was going.
Other than the very lonely one-bedroom airbnb he'd booked for himself for a few days, he didn't really have anywhere to go. He knew where he was supposed to go, where he was supposed to have gone days ago, but he was reluctant.
He could've also gone to Honor's, though it was a bit further away from Hartford, but he knew that despite everything he'd probably just get his sister's fury for not showing up on Saturday. He could, technically, go to her mother's but that was the last place he wanted to go, he was pretty sure he never wanted to step foot in that house again. His friends, by now mostly estranged, were scattered across the globe - Boston, New York, Chicago, L.A., London, Marrakech, Singapore...- at least those few that he'd once considered real friends. But it had him that had shut everyone out.
Eventually he pulled up to the parking lot of Cedar Hill cemetery, realizing that he probably wouldn't get this nagging feeling out of his system if he didn't. It was like ticking a box, even if he didn't feel much like it.
The parking lot was dimly lit by just a few yellow streetlights, but the lot itself was thankfully almost completely secluded. His odds of coming and going without running into any of his parents' friends were good.
It was as he stepped out of the car he heard some commotion coming from the Blue Box, it's door half ajar. He looked down at the key of the Audi, locking it, it's buttons placed a little differently than on the car he'd driven before this.
He wouldn't have thought twice about it - surely someone was just doing their business, but it was then he noticed a smartly dressed little girl wandering away from the noise, observing her reflection in the oil-stained puddle of water in the middle of the parking lot. He assumed it was one of the girl's parents who was with her, but since a few large trucks passed by, speeding in his opinion, and the parking lot really was only separated from the lot by a thin strip of grass, he felt he needed to say something.
"You guys okay there?" he said, not wanting to sound like a creep sneaking up on a kid. What was she - four-five? - he thought, judging by Honor's kids when he'd seen them around that age. "You should be careful not to wander onto the road, cars might not see you," he cautioned, taking a step closer to the little girl, while gesturing at the road. The girl was dressed in dark colors, making her even more difficult to make out in this poor lighting.
But him addressing her didn't quite work out how he'd planned, having clearly shocked the girl by speaking up.
"Mommy?" the girl jolted, and rushed back towards the Blue Box.
"Yeah, we're fine," a woman's voice replied. The voice sounded a little broken, perhaps a little upset even - well he had just nearly heard her curse, hadn't he? But there was something familiar to it, just the same.
It was like looking at a ghost from the past - so very familiar, yet like having stepped into an alternate universe. It was her but it wasn't.
"Rory?" he asked. Could it really be her? Her glasses reflected the streetlight, not really giving him a good look of her eyes.
"Hi," she replied, the recognition in her eyes definitely confirming that it really was her.
Rory - a mommy? - he looked back and forth between her and the girl. The girl certainly looked like her.
He stepped forward, not wanting to shout over the traffic noise, the stranger-distance seeming uncomfortable. The little girl hid behind her mother's hip - it was certainly not the effect he wanted to have on her, but being struck with the presence of Rory he didn't have enough brain power left to actually attempt to focus on calming her by crouching down or anything like that.
So many things were going through his mind - he didn't know where to begin.
"It's okay Em. This is Logan, he's not a stranger," Rory said, speaking to the little girl.
Em probably stood for Emma or Emily - he thought. He'd heard about Emily Gilmore's death, so the latter was quite likely.
He appreciated that she'd said that. At least he wasn't considered the enemy, the persona non-grata, someone whom she couldn't wait to get away from.
It was then she noticed Rory holding her phone between her thumb and index finger in an odd way.
"Did you drop your phone in there or something?" Logan asked, almost wanting to ask whether she needed help, maybe she needed to call someone. What else was she doing in an empty cemetery parking lot. But it was then he noticed Rory dressed in black as well.
"Just the floor, but still gross," Rory explained, kind of breaking some ice with that. Though there was still an iceberg between them.
"What are you doing here?" Logan felt he needed to ask. He truly hoped it wasn't anyone close to them as to why they were there.
"We lost Paul Anka… mom insisted we scatter the ashes on the family plot," Rory said.
Logan faintly recalled Rory's mother having a dog by that name. He'd only seen the dog a few times, and heard her mention her since then once or twice.
"I'm sorry," he said, it seemed like the only appropriate comment to that. Even he wasn't very surprised of Lorelai Gilmore doing things a little unconventionally.
"I'm sorry about your dad," Rory said. He was kind of surprised she knew about that, he wasn't sure what she knew or why. What Rory didn't know was that this was the only in-person condolence he'd heard, that he hadn't minded hearing. Because he knew that she meant it.
"Thanks," he said. "I was heading there now," he added, gesturing towards the cemetery. He hoped he still remembered the plot and was able to find it alright in the dimly lit cemetery.
Rory looked a little hesitant, her arm still around the little girl. He wondered what the story was there. There was no question that he was curious. Even if they were in the past he was curious. It was a dangerous curiosity though. He got so easily wrapped up in her, he'd done so many times… but in the end he'd gotten burnt both times, while the second time things had been almost too complicated to comprehend.
The silence had clearly been too long as the next thing he knew Rory was already talking to the girl. "Okay," she sighed, "we better get you home, you must be hungry," she added. It was the perfect sentence to indicate that she needed to get going. Maybe she couldn't get out of there fast enough?
He watched her walk towards her white Mazda, waving in goodbye with a brief glance. He replied with the same, unsure what he was supposed to do. It had been such an odd event that she'd been there, not to mention the situation itself - of all the times and places!
Logan took a deep breath, needing to shake the encounter off of him. She clearly had a life going that he was no part of. She had a daughter, probably a husband, partner - something. He had asked Finn to make sure she was okay and he generally knew they occasionally caught up, but he knew no details. He'd never asked and made sure Finn never offered them. It had all been too hard to keep up.
He slipped into the darkness, taking the shortcut over the grass towards the family lot, guessing he could probably find the location by a line of familiar names on the stones. It was hard to focus on the reason why he was there. And by the minute it was becoming more and more confusing to why he was at all. It was not like his father was much for spirituality or lengthy goodbyes.
"Logan, when you grow older you'll understand that when a person dies - her heart stops beating, there's no more lungs coming from his nose, that person doesn't have memories of loved ones, thoughts or bloody last wishes, it's just a corpse of flesh and bone. It's those who are left who have the memories. It's for them these events are for," Logan's father had once said to him, at his grandmother's funeral when he was 12.
He didn't really think it mattered to Mitchum that he was there. But that was what people kept saying - that one needed to pay one's respects. That was what he was there to do. To draw a line to the end of that part of his life.
If there was anything he was happy about in this - it wasn't so much that his father had passed, he didn't need him to die. But it had been the way he'd died. Unexpectedly by an outside force and his own stubbornness. The perfect way - wasn't it? His father would've been a horrible person to retire, he would've been an even worse bedridden patient or one needing outside help to function. It had been a respectable way for him to go. Logan was pretty sure his colleagues and friends didn't speak about his stubbornness or his fault in getting killed like that, likely blaming the driver or the car that had caused the crash, and it was for these reasons he was glad to be here alone, not with all of them.
The only sentence he mumbled while standing at Mitchum's grave was - "I get it, you wanted what you thought was best." He was unable to add that he'd forgiven him everything, surely not everything. But he wasn't holding a grudge. His father hadn't been the root of the problem.
As he made his way back towards the parking lot, thoughts of his former encounter came back to him. God, he wished he had asked something more, said something more. It was good to see you - perhaps? Can I call you sometimes, just to talk? How are you? - he didn't believe he hadn't even asked the latter.
"Fuck," he muttered to himself.
The white Mazda was gone, however. Of course it was gone! What did he expect?
Maybe it was better that way. She clearly had a life, she had things going for her… what was he doing even considering poking his nose into her happiness?
He got into his car, and turned the engine on. But it was then he saw it - a business card.
She'd left her number. It had to be. His heart suddenly beat a little faster.
It was a business card alright.
Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, English teacher, Chilton Prep Academy. There was the general number for her school and her e-mail. He checked the back, noting the scribbling which, however, was a little smudged by a few drops of water.
Still - she'd left a card. Surely that meant something.
