Chapter 152
November 20th, 2016
"Hey!" Rory said, raising the steps of her mother's house having been waiting for her to arrive from her honeymoon at The Bahamas. "Where's Luke?" she asked, before her mother had had a chance to inquire why she was so anxiously waiting there, clearly looking a little nervous.
"Oh hey!" Lorelai replied, looking a little sunburned, and hugged her daughter. "Oh he just saw Kirk rushing out of there with an apron on him so he couldn't help himself and went to check it out, make sure he still owned the place, you know... He slept like a baby on the plane so he's wide awake anyways," she explained with a shrug. "What brings you by?" she asked, not missing a beat. The plan had been to meet up in a couple of days in Hartford initially, so she really hadn't been expecting Rory.
"Can we talk inside?" Rory suggested, hesitantly.
Lorelai could already expect something ominous and didn't hide it. Either way she unlocked the door and let Rory inside, who'd already realized ten minutes ago how sitting on a cold stair step had not been her brightest idea.
"So?" Lorelai asked, as they got into the kitchen.
"I don't want you to panic. I don't want you to… I don't know… just I can't handle your sad eyes right now," Rory began, fretting saying what she needed to say already.
Lorelai looked anxious too now.
"I lost the baby," Rory spit out with a sigh, needing to clear her voice and keep her head clear. "But it's good…," she began to add. It was supposed to come out as something about how it was not meant to be and how this made thing so much easier, but before she knew it her mother wrapped her in her embrace.
"Oh, honey…," Lorelai said, rubbing her shoulder.
Rory wasn't crying, she'd already done that and would do some more. But for now she'd been determined to focus on the positive even if it meant lying to herself.
"Are you okay? What happened?" Lorelai asked.
"It was a missed miscarriage, it happened a couple of days ago. Dad came to be at the hospital with me, he helped me a lot," Rory explained, failing to mention the major blood loss. No good would've come of it and she'd even talk to her dad about downplaying the whole thing for Lorelai which he had surprisingly actually agreed on.
"Oh, wow…," Lorelai reacted, not knowing what to say. "And how are you feeling?" she had to ask. Frankly Rory was so tired of answering that question already - all the doctors, nurses, her dad, Paris… even Emily's maid at the house who'd noticed her blodshot eyes - they'd all been asking her that, but she didn't really know what to say to it.
"I just need to accept it, you know," Rory replied and that was certainly something she believed in. There were a lot of reasons why it was good this happened - she didn't have anything to tell Logan, she didn't have to mess up his life. She didn't need to figure out how she was going to support her baby all by herself. She could maybe even explore this thing, this new friendship… or maybe something more that was developing between her and Jess. She'd even confessed to Jess she'd had some medical emergency, adding something vague like 'female stuff', but that had actually made him want to chat with her even more - similarly asking her if she was feeling better and distracting her with his literary banter, as if knowing that was exactly what she needed.
"I guess," Lorelai chimed, holding her hand. Rory couldn't help but to hear some relief in her tone too - whether she was imagining or not she couldn't be sure.
Rory was actually a little surprised her mother hadn't been offended, or at least didn't mention it, that she hadn't called her.
"I'm going to get past this," Rory said, assuring herself more than anything.
"You are," Lorelai said. "You just need time," she added.
April 5th, 2022
The weather was too nice to be sitting inside a stuffy conference room, and the one at Chilton was no exception. Rory had been scribbling at the side of her notebook - well, at least it wasn't her phone, which many others were using as their escape during the monthly faculty meeting in the teacher's lounge. Smelling the coffee, others had been sipping throughout the meeting, made her taste buds awaken, but she knew she'd already reached her caffeine limit that morning.
"Prom for the senior class is on May 25th, the graduation ceremony on June 16th," Max read out a message from the school's marketing assistant, who was home sick that day, finishing up a long list of practicalities still due in these last few months of school. The first date rang a bell for Rory as Mitchum's birthday - a rather random fact to remember, but the brain worked in mysterious ways sometimes. But Rory knew what these things meant - these meant chaperoning for the former and needing to get a few more maternity dresses if she were to attend them.
Some of the teachers continued to ask some questions, mostly inquiring where the prom was going to be, in case they'd missed it, or how to deal with some last minute changes in their curriculums. Nothing out of the ordinary. And Rory had to admit that she'd never been less interested than this. It was doubled by some strange sense of guilt too - like perhaps she was getting too comfortable - taking this position too much for granted and she hated that some may think she was about to blow her fairly fresh career simply because she was getting married. The thing was that a lot of people didn't know Logan still hadn't accepted his father's inheritage - and marrying him still meant 'landing the whale' to many, especially to those who knew nothing of Rory's own well-hidden wealth.
As the room emptied, most of the people heading over to their classes, Rory stayed behind, knowing she needed to at least tell Max what was going on.
"Hey, can I have a word?" Rory began, cautiously.
"Sure, Rory. What's up?" Max asked.
Rory glanced over her shoulder, making sure everyone else left the room, and this certainly caught Max's attention.
"I just wanted to give you a notice that I won't be back in the fall. I'm not quitting, I am going for a leave of sorts," she said hesitantly, not quite knowing where to look. But it was supposedly that she couldn't hide that weak smile of hers that betrayed her before she needed to spell it out for him. "So, I'm sorry I won't be able to help you with Mr. Cavanaugh's classes either," she added, mostly feeling guilty because of giving him false hope, even though the gap she was leaving herself was probably a lot larger than the one left by Mr Cavanaugh.
Max eyes at her suspiciously, her cautious message finally hitting him.
"You mean…?" Max inquired in a chuckle, glancing at her midsection and back up at her face. He looked genuinely happy for her, just like an old friend might be.
"Yes, it's not quite through the first trimester yet, but I think you should know… And I have to say that while I am not saying I won't be back, I am not too sure when…, as this past year - I just haven't felt as invested as I feel I should," Rory blabbered. Having some more time with the baby at home, now that she actually felt like she had the opportunity sounded incredibly appealing to a person who was not yet quite ready to admit, that maybe deep down she wanted to change her career altogether.
"Can I just hug you?" Max said, not caring about any of the latter. His smile broadly, having that same approachability about him that he'd had when he'd still been her stepfather to be.
"I guess," Rory replied, awkwardly and accepted his hug along with his congratulations.
"And seriously - as long as I'm here my door is open and you are welcome back any time," Max assured.
"Thank you," Rory replied, having been more worried than necessary about his response.
Suddenly Rory also felt a bang of guilt for having told a number of other people about the pregnancy before her mother. But she hadn't been connecting with her mom like she used to - especially now that Logan had stepped up into the role of her very best friend, next to Paris and her mother. Naturally she knew she had to, but as admitting to her mother she'd lost her first baby, years ago, had been one of the most difficult things she'd had to do and part of kept saying that she only really needed to wait a little more than a week to be more sure. But she had to admit that the four weeks jump she'd already made in time, having miscalculated the gestational age, already felt like a huge relief though.
And in the comparison of telling her sister cautiously that she would need her help to get a back up dress in case she didn't fit into the first one by the end of July, worrying she might be hurting more inside than she let on, telling Lorelai actually didn't seem that bad.
It was for that reason why she texted Logan to go pick up Em from school that day, and drove to Stars Hollow once her classes finished.
Rory found her mother at work, in the original Dragon Fly that while still just as cozy, was now for the second time during its existence beginning to look a little worn down and she knew Lorelai was already planning a round of renovations after the summer.
"Hey, Michel," Rory greeted, glancing around hoping to see another friendly face. There used to be so many people she knew around this place, and now, more and more, she didn't. Part of the problem was that a lot of hospitality staff was young, like early twenties young, hence people who had been just toddlers when Rory had lived in Stars Hollow.
"Hey, Rory," Michel greeted her, following it up with a couple of cheek kisses. The man was a lot more affectionate these days too. "How's the wedding planning going? I heard Nantucket - brave choice," he inquired.
"It's going great," Rory replied, looking forward to it. "And it's not that brave, it's just casual," she replied, downplaying it a little. "Have you seen my mom around?" she asked, not caring much for small talk with something more urgent on her mind.
"In the kitchen," he replied in passing and pulled one of the waiters to whisper something to him about table number 4.
"Thanks," Rory replied and went through the dining room to head to the back of the building.
She could hear her mother's voice before she saw her, talking about something concerning the next delivery. This would've been Sookie's job normally, but finding that one good chef was so hard, she'd heard all about it.
"Hey, look who's here! I didn't know you were coming!" Lorelai exclaimed leaving her former discussion at that by a quick, "Mark will tell you the rest."
"Can't a daughter come to see her mother anymore," Rory teased, as she followed her mother towards her office, which used to be one fo the downstairs guest rooms before. But now that they had a lot more rooms at the Annex it was no longer as vital to save on office space, as working from a closet hadn't really worked out in the long run.
"So what's up?" Lorelai asked.
"I…," Rory took a deep inhale. "I need to tell you something," she added.
"What? The anticipation is killing me," Lorelai urged seriously but eagerly.
"I'm pregnant," Rory exhaled.
"The dizzy spell at Jess'?" she suggested, knowingly, as if she'd known.
"You knew?!" Rory exclaimed.
"No, I didn't know. But the thought did cross my mind, seeing you pale like that. I mean it's one of the least scary scenarios next to all the more serious diseases out there, of course I thought of it. And you did talk about considering this, I kind of figured it was a matter of time," Lorelai explained, shrugging her shoulders.
"I guess," she replied.
"I'm happy for you if it matters," Lorelai added.
"Of course it matters, you're my mom," Rory said. The fact that she was here alone, without a man supporting her in saying those words, was a bigger deal to her than her mom probably realized.
"Good, I just… the way you handled it last time, and the time before… I just wasn't sure telling me was that important to you," Lorelai replied, explaining herself a little. She hadn't even realized what a source of insecurity this had been for her.
Rory had to admit that it really wasn't that different this time, considering she wasn't the first to know, now that she pointed it out. But she wasn't about to tell her mother that.
"Last time was different," Rory said, hoping her mother would understand how without having to go into great depths. Most importantly, leaving all the hurt aside, this time - she had no doubts about wanting this baby with this man.
"Okay," Lorelai replied, accepting her response. "So - how far along? Any pictures yet? Have you thought of a name yet - ugh, I think I got one…Daisy from Great Gatsby. Just watched it the other night," Lorelai began, diving right into grandmother mode for the second time around.
