Chapter 107

January 14th, 2022

The holidays were long gone. Not only had Rory been back to work for two weeks, both the energizing atmosphere of Chilton and the long hours of grading papers coming crashing back into her life, but a lot of things were changing. Logan had begun to adapt to a life with a puppy, taking him away from Rory and Em a little more in the evenings, but that was to be expected as he was in charge of training Loki and the puppy did have a great deal of energy that needed to be burnt off. He wasn't off their radar, but it was the length of time he spent with them that had diminished - also understandable and expected. It was just a combination of things that they both had going on. But they knew this was all temporary.

Logan was going to therapy on his own, making sure things were running smoothly on the house purchasing front while also somehow managing to make a few important deals for his business working from home, and of course dealing with minor inconveniences like his chewed up sneakers which he'd already had to replace twice.

Rory dealt with the usual - work and Em, but as her work was never just the hours spent in the classroom, she'd stayed the past day and night over at Smith's for an overnight conference on Interdisciplinary learning. It wasn't really her thing as it turned out, having rather hoped to find good tips on how to include modern journalism into literature or English rather than what it had turned out to be. She was hardly the person to start organizing project days on climate change and resilient communities, but here she was, having signed up for this thing nearly six months ago, before her life had been turned upside down. Most of these things that had changed were for the good of course, her engagement ring just now brushing against the pencil she was doodling the corner of her program with, reminding her.

She was frustrated…of the current setting she'd paid too much of her own money for. At the same time she was nervous too and cautiously hopeful. Her OB/GYN had gotten the flu last week hence her appointment had been postponed by a week, and she was still clueless whether signing the contract of the house 6 days time time was supported or not by her physical condition. Would she really end up with a craft room and a movie lounge on top of all those guest rooms? She had pushed on on the house front nonetheless though - simply loving the place and she just felt more and more like she wanted to move out of her current house that reminded her too much of Jess. She just wanted her and Logan to have a joint home, almost thinking that they'd just get more puppies if it came to it, trying to shed her worry. Having a puppy around was indeed very good therapy.

She was saved by the bell, or rather a low buzz coming from her purse. And a quick glance at the phone showed it to be her mother. She'd been expecting that call. And because she was conveniently placed at the back of the 150 person conference hall, it wasn't too impolite to excuse herself out into the hallway.

"Yeah?" Rory picked up, deciding to lower her voice in the hallway where she didn't find herself alone, a small group of men and women discussing something amongst themselves. Researchers, she figured, having briefly seen one of the other speak the day before. This was how research projects happened, she'd heard, feeling almost like an insignificant minor party at this thing with her teacher's position.

"They've finally got it!" Lorelai exclaimed.

"Got what?" Rory asked, for a moment not quite following.

"Luke's diagnosis!" Lorelai huffed with some annoyment.

It had been a long two weeks for Lorelai as well, fluctuating between thinking her husband might be schizophrenic, had some type of a tumor in his brain, had thyroid issues or dementia. Now finally there was something more concrete than that. Lorelai had gone from fearing for his life to worrying how she was going to be able to live with him, trust him again.

"Oh, sorry… I just had the last presentation in my mind," Rory fibbed. The truth was she'd just been preoccupied with her own life and other than checking in on her mother every few days she hadn't felt like she really had the capacity to worry the way her mother worried. She knew it was selfish, but it was a survival mechanism of sorts.

"They say he has something called Wilson's disease, …or was it Watson's?" Lorelai said, already doubting her memory. That was no wonder either, it was not like she'd slept very calmly these past few weeks.

"I think Paris mentioned something like that as a possibility, though she didn't really think it was likely," Rory replied. "Something about copper levels?" she tried to recall.

"Apparently it's genetic. Which means also both of his parents must've been carriers. They usually discover this thing much earlier in life… so they're saying that it's down to his diet why it only now surfaced. Still it's a bit of a freaky thing here at the hospital, he's being poked and probed like some alien," Lorelai described.

"But this at least means he's out of psych right?" Rory asked, hopefully. Before she'd been reluctant to even suggest it, but she knew her mother had been thinking it too. It was just that until now those other options had sounded more lethal than schizophrenia.

"Yeah, it does. They just need to get his copper levels down and monitor him. We just have to hope it hasn't caused any major damage on his liver, kidneys…," Lorelai began to explain in length all the details she could recall. It was more detailed than Rory really needed to hear, but she would listen, offering a friendly ear.

"You're going to have Friday Night Dinner without me today?" Lorelai asked, having not heared much input from Rory.

"Nah… I'm pretty tired already and I still need to drive back from Smith's," Rory sighed. Em was with Jess, and while she wanted to invite Logan over or just crash at his, with the puppy around that was not always so easy as the puppy was rather attention needy, especially at night, Logan already having broken the rule of him sleeping in his cage more than once and allowed Loki into his bed. It was safe to say that moving together couldn't come soon enough, whether it was a house with six bedrooms or not. She'd spent last night picking out wallpaper and choosing kitchen cabinets on Pintrest.

"Oh right, I forgot you were there," Lorelai exclaimed. "So how is Emily Gilmore's alma mater these days?" she inquired. "Are you feeling very womanly?" she teased, the idea of a women's college sounding ridiculous to her in these modern times. She'd joked about that several times over the years, but of course - Emily Gilmore's reasons for going there were in her time one of the few decent options she'd had around here, as Yale was an all-male school back in the 60s, until 1969 at least.

"It's not so bad, bit more modern than Yale I guess…," she replied, glancing around the conference building which was decorated in mid-century modern style. But she knew the other buildings were similar red-brick, styled much like Yale or Harvard's campuses. But what she had noticed, having stayed over at one of the visitor dorms overnight, was how safe it felt compared to some of the other campuses she'd visited. There were a lot of students who biked, even in the winter, and students seemes several degrees more relaxed. Maybe it did hold a secret to allowing the students to focus more on their studies than relationship drama, not that these were probably excluded, just perhaps less prominent, her own college time dramas, Finn's birthday party for one, with Logan coming back into her mind.

"You know what you should do?" Lorelai began, excitedly.

"What?" Rory asked obliviously.

"You should go check out if they still have grandma's picture up at Greene Hall," Lorelai replied, having not been there herself but had heard her mother mention it once or twice, not thinking much of it at the time. But thinking back she did think this was something of importance to her mother. "Take me a picture," she suggested.

They ended the call soon enough, but Rory was indeed left with a sudden craving to go check the place out. Sure she'd known her grandmother had gone there, majored in history and been a good student as far as she knew, but she hadn't fully pictured it. She decided to skip the last session on digital tools for integration, and pulled on her jacket and went to explore. As she saw some students heading for their dorms she could almost dub their words with her grandmother's, it only took her a little imagination. There was no Greene Hall, but a pillared red brick building called after John M. Green, a theoretical physicist and mathematician which Rory had quickly looked up.

It's hallway was covered in alumni photographs starting from the very early days of its establishment. She eventually made her way into the 60s, realizing she didn't even really know what years she was looking for. She eventually found it though, the unforgettable pair of piercing eyes and a broad, yet humble, smile, which brought out her sharp triangular chin. Her hair was curled, loose but held back by a hairband, coming down just to her shoulders. She looked so much leaner and softer like this, and Rory could definitely tell what her grandfather had found attractive about her. She recalled her grandmother telling her once how much she'd despised the huge lift some people tended to wear their hair in those days. Her grandmother stood out next to the other women on the pictures next to her.

What hit her the most though, was not the way she looked but her maiden name. Rory realized that she'd never even heard her grandmother mention it - Emily Standish, it said. She'd always been Emily Gilmore to her, the married name having enveloped her completely. The name didn't even sound like her, or did her justice. Even Emily's sister Hope who'd lived most of her life in Paris, had changed her name when she'd gotten married, making their maiden name disappear completely. As she looked at that photograph Rory did think - what kind of aspirations did this manga cum laude graduate have at that point? Why had she worked so hard, what had inspired her? Why would anyone work so hard if all she wanted to achieve in life was getting married and being the very best wife a husband could have?

It made her want to know more, and now with that maiden name imprinted to her brain, she was feeling a familiar thirst for knowledge, she hadn't felt in years. It was that journalistic desire to learn, she'd missed.