Finally here's a new chapter. I'm glad you all seemed to like the last one, allthough some of you should keep in mind that I as a fan am about 85 percent Emily-fan and 15 percent LL-fan so there's going to be a tiny little bit of them too. But not much. Here comes a long chapter, enjoy! (Thanks to lilienprinzessin for proofreading, those who haven't read the beginning of her latest story, should do so.)
Proudness, phonecalls and bitter tears
"Five times, I tell you! Five times, in a lifetime!" Lorelai told Rory, when they were having dinner in the hospital cafeteria a little later. Emily had taken Suzannah home to "put her in some decent clothes", so it was just the two of them . They were both in a good mood and it felt just good to have a nice time together and to take a break from the sadness and fear they had been caught in since the previous night .
"He only told you that he's been proud of you five times? How can you be so sure of that?" Rory asked while digging through her lasagne with a fork, hoping to find some meat. Lorelai sent her an indignant look."Because I've been counting, that's why. Look, the first time, I was 10. I'd been sent to detention four days in one week, for pulling Maggie Wilkinson's hair. Then on Friday, Maggie Wilkinson was ill or something, I don't know, she didn't show up at school, so there was no way I could have pulled her hair, even if I wanted to. That Friday I came home right after school had finished, and then, Dad told me he was proud of me!"
"What a role-model you are..." Rory sighed. Lorelai smiled at her and took a bite of the fries she had in front of her before she continued.
"The second time, I was 15. It was during the worst fighting period I ever had with my mother."
"You've been worse than now?" Rory asked, surprised.
"Well, it was the worst until then, anyway. I was in my puberty and full of hormones and teenage rage and all that jazz, and my mother was...well she was my mother," Lorelai giggled like a little girl, ecstatic to hang with her best friend again. "And one day, I think it was a Sunday, we were fighting from the moment we got up! You should have heard us, we were snapping at each other like wolfs all day, non-stop, and Dad tried to get us to stop. He kept telling Mum to be the mature one, to ignore me and stuff like that, but it didn't help. So, around 6 or 7 in the evening, when my throat was all sore from screaming and I had run out of accusations, I acted like the mature one insteadI ignored her and went to bed. And just before I went to sleep that night, Dad came up to my room, probably thinking I was asleep already. He was just standing by the door, whispering "I'm proud of you."
"So, when was the third time?" Rory wondered. "That was after you came into the picture," Lorelai explained. "It was Christmas, the year you had turned three, and you had just gotten the hang of reading. So you read out loud the label on? the red wine bottle that was on the table, and your grandpa told you he was proud of you. Then you, being the goodie-goodie you've always been, told him that I was the one who had taught you, so he had to say that he was proud of me, too. And he did, to please you."
Rory started counting, using her fingers. "OK, so that's one time when you didn't really deserve it, one time when he thought you couldn't hear him, and then one time because I forced him..." She sent her mother a sly smile. "Are you sure that last one counts?"
"Of course it counts!" Lorelai claimed. "If I count that one in, then I have five! That's all the fingers of one hand, baby!"
"OK, and the final two?" Rory wondered.
"Now there's a time gap. The fourth time was about two years ago, or something like that. One of Dad's clients had read about me in that magazine..."
"...The one where you said a lot of mean stuff about Grandma?" Rory interrupted.
"Yeah, that's the one," Lorelai continued in an indifferent tone. "Anyway, these people apparently told him I was an up-and-comer, which has got to be a good thing, because that was the fourth time he said it."
"And the last time was like half an hour ago," Rory concluded.
"Yeah..." Lorelai confirmed and took a sip of her glass.
"Hey, it's nice that he's satisfied with your choice of "gentlemen-friends", huh? Rory giggled.
Lorelai started to stir her straw around in the glass, as she got a more serious look on her face. "Yeah, I guess..." she nodded.
Spending most of the weekend at the hospital, waiting for a potential life-saving operation, can make anyone a little edgy. Saturday, everyone was a little more nervous and tense than they had been the day before.
Emily got more demanding than ususal. Nothing in Richard's room was good enough. She demanded new chairs, new sheets, new vases for the flowers... By the end of the day, all of the nurses, doctors, even cleaners in the compartment were afraid of her, and avoided her, when they saw her in the corridors.
Lorelai became very absent-minded. She kept forgetting stuff like keys, her cell phone, her jacket, her purse and a lot of other stuff , something that annoyed Emily immensely.
Rory got jumpy?. Even the slightest noise behind her made her turn around and scream as if she was being attacked. If someone brushed her while passing her in the cafeteria line or outside the toilet, she would jerk and start hyperventilating.
Suzannah stopped talking. No one could get a word out of her all day long. Nothing helped, neither Emily's begging and nagging that, as she got more desperate towards the end of the day, turned into yelling, nor Lorelai's attempt to bribe her with candy. Not until Richard whispered into her ear that he missed her voice very much did she start speaking again, but she was still very quiet, and kept to herself most of the time.
Sunday was even worse. Around eight in the evening, Lorelai declared that she could neither stand the smell nor the atmosphere of the hospital anymore. Rory agreed and decided to go home to her own apartment for awhile. She hadn't been there for two days. Lorelai offered to give Emily and Suzannah a ride home to Hartford, because Emily had taken a taxi to get there in the morning. Her hands where very shaky these days ("It must be the terrible draught at the hospital," she claimed) and she felt uncomfortable driving. To Lorelai's surprise her mother accepted the offer.
Suzannah was tired and fell asleep once they started driving. Lorelai wasn't feeling to energetic herself, and wasn't really all that interested in having a conversation, but Emily had a lot on her mind. "Now, remember Lorelai, your father is going into surgery at one o' clock. Do you understand me?"
"One, that's when the tall pointer is straight up and the other is tipped over a little, right?" Lorelai asked dryly.
"This is not a joke, Lorelai!" Emily said, irritated." I expect you and Rory to be there, on time!"
"I'm going to see if I can switch shifts at the Inn, but Rory's not coming..." Lorelai said while making a turn. Emily looked at her, obviously shocked, so Lorelai knew that she had to explain further.
"Well, she asked if she should skip a class so that she could be there and I told her not to."
"Oh, so this is your idea, I should have known," Emily said, indignant
"Look, Mum, seriously, there's no reason why she should come, Dad's going to stay in surgery for hours, we won't know anything about how it went until tomorrow evening," Lorelai tried to defend her decision.
"I know that, but I also know that it would mean a lot for Richard to have her there. I'm taking Suzannah out of school so he can see her..." Emily went on.
"You know what, Mum, that's not for her good, that's all for you!" Lorelai cut her mother off. Her tone was getting more aggressive now. "Suzannah would be much more comfortable if she got to go to pre-school with her friends tomorrow, to an environment where she feels safe. She would be much happier if she could act as if it's a regular day..."
"But tomorrow is far from being a regular day!" Emily interrupted. "If Rory and Suzannah come to see Richard in the morning, it may very well be the last time they see him alive!" Her voice was high-pitched and shaky.
"Yes, and if Rory was there tomorrow, that would be exactly what she'd be thinking! And it would crush her! I want to spare my daughter of that!" Lorelai yelled, but calmed herself when she realized she might wake up Suzannah. "I know what my kid needs to know and to do, and what she doesn't!" She continued in a lower voice as she drove up in front of her parents' house.
"And you're saying I don't?" Emily asked as she loosened her seatbelt and got out of the car. Then she turned and looked at Lorelai. "I'm not going to try and protect her from reality, Lorelai. Not when it hits her as hard as this. And believe it or not, there's nothing you can do about it. I've said this to you before and now I'm saying it again: Suzannah is my child, not yours."
Emily slammed the door and went to get her youngest daughter out of the backseatAs she went inside, Suzannah hanging over her shoulder, the girl woke up and sent a tired smile at her sister. Lorelai waved back before she backed out of the driveway.
When Emily had gotten Suzannah to bed a little later, she became very restless. She started wandering around in the big house, not knowing what to do. She wasn't feeling tired enough to go to bed, and she didn't feel like sitting down to read or watch TV. She tried pouring herself a drink to calm her down, but as it turned out, it only made her feel more energetic.
Finally, she grabbed the phone, brought her drink with her and sat down on the couch in the living-room. After having thought about it for a moment, she kicked her pumps off and pulled her feet onto the couch as well. Then she dialed the number of Richard's hospital room.
"Hello, this is Richard Gilmore speaking?" she heard his voice hissing. He sounded surprised that anyone had called him.
"Richard, it's me..." she answered
"Emily? Is something wrong?""No, Richard, no, there's nothing wrong." She had to take a deep breath before she continued. "Richard, I know you're supposed to be resting before your surgery tomorrow and I know I should let you go to sleep but... I was feeling so alone!" she admitted, almost in tears.
"Emily, don't worry. Ever since you girls left I've been feeling very lonely, too. Lying here, all alone with my thoughts...I'm glad you called!" Richard assured her.
Emily was relieved. "You know what?" she asked. "Tonight, I don't want to talk about cancer and hospitals and death...I think we need a break from all of this, don't you?"
"Absolutely!" Richard agreed. "What do you want to talk about?"
Emily had to think for a few seconds before she answered. "Let's pretend, you're not ill. Let's pretend you're not in hospital."
"All right..." Richard waited for his wife to explain further.
"Let's pretend you're on one of your usual business trips, and that this is one of our usual nine o'clock phone calls. Let's act normal. I think I need to get away from reality for a little while tonight..."
"I see what you mean." Richard cleared his throat as if he was taking on a new character. "So, how was your day, dear?"
Two other people were also feeling lonely that night, Rory, and Lorelai. Luckily Rory got a call from Logan not long after she got home, and she stayed on the phone with him until his phone bill was the size of a small European country's national budget.
Unfortunately Lorelai couldn't reach Rory because of this. Instead, she decided to call Chris, who was supposed to be back from his trip the same morning.
She only heard about half a beep before he picked up.
"Hey...it's me," she said, glad to hear the voice of another human being.
"Hey Lor! I've missed you. Just got back a few hours ago, it's been kind of crazy around here, or else I would have called. See, GG got all worked up and..."
"Chris..." Lorelai wasn't in the mood to hear about GG or Chris's mother or anything else that wouldn't make her feel better right now. "Chris, listen...I'm...I'm having a tough night. You know, my father is really ill, and..."
"Yeah, Rory, texted me, saying he was going to have some kind of surgery or anything like that? Sorry to hear that. How is he doing?" Christopher asked.
Lorelai had to bite her lip, and she blinked away a tear before she could answer. "He might not make it...Oh Chris I'm so scared!" She couldn't stop a few tears from escaping her eyes.
"And it's not just that," she continued. "I had to promise him if he... passes away, that I'd stop getting into conflicts with my mother all the time, for the sake of the family." She took a break to sniffle "Well, guess what, he hasn't even had the surgery yet and I managed to break that promise already!" At this point it wasn't just a few tears anymore, Lorelai was weeping bitterly.
"Oh, Lor, don't cry!" Chris tried to calm her down. "Come on, I'm sure your dad will be back on his feet in no time, don't worry about it."
"That's easy for you to say! Remember when your father was ill, right before he died? It wouldn't have done any good if we had told you not to worry about it then, huh?" Lorelai was getting upset.
"OK, I admit that was awful. But I managed to get through it, thanks to you. And I'm going to help you to get through this, Lor, I owe it to you," he said in a comforting voice that made Lorelai hope he knew a way of making things seem a little less hopeless.
"What do you say, I come and pick you up, and take you to a bar somewhere? We'll get really hammered, and you'll forget about all of it?" Christopher suggested.
Lorelai was shocked by what he was saying.
"Chris, you know I can't do that! Didn't you hear me when I said my Dad is going to have surgery tomorrow? I have to be at the hospital in the morning and..."
"You don't HAVE TO do anything, Lor! They can't make you sit around there and feel terrible about yourself" Chirs interrupted. "Listen to me, Lor, your parents have been as terrible to you as mine have been to me over the years. You don't owe them anything." He took a deep breath before he asked again. "I'll come and pick you up, all right?"
"You know what, Chris?" Lorelai brushed away a few tears with the back of her hand. "I get why you and I were such a hot couple in high school. If you had said something like this to me back then, I'd be all over you in a second." She changed position on the couch before she continued. "But Chris, I've grown up since then, I'm not at that place anymore. But obviously, you still are."
She took a break and waited for him to say something, but he didn't. She could hear him breathing at the other end, but he didn't say a word. Lorelai had to pull herself together before she could open her mouth again. "I guess we shouldn't bother taking this any further...There's no point in it. Bye, Christopher." She hung up, tossed the phone onto the table andpulled her feet onto? the couch, so she could lean on her knees. "One broken promise, and now one of the reasons why Dad said he was proud of me, out of the window, both in one day," she thought to herself, as she cried, louder and more desperately than before.
When Emily and Richard hung up on each other later that night, Emily noticed that she had gotten a new text message. It contained only one rather short sentence, but to Emily it said more than a thousand words.
I texted Rory that it would be good if she could come to the hospital tomorrow morning. Lorelai.