February 1997
The tingling sensations seemed to be emanating from every part of her body. Her stomach, her neck, the soles of her feet…even in her eyes. She tried to ignore it, turning her attention back to Nancy Drew and her search for the missing TV stars that had disappeared from the Mystery Lovers of America convention. But it was useless…it was like being pricked by a million needles and trying not to notice. She couldn't focus on anything but the rapidly multiplying pox all over her. She'd never felt so miserable in her entire life.
She closed the pages of her novel, tossing it onto covers over her legs with a dejected sigh. This sucked. It sucked big time. It was the suckiest of suckiness. She shifted against the sheets, trying to get comfortable, the friction of her flannel pajama pants against her skin giving her just the tiniest smidgeon of relief from the all-consuming itch. It was just enough to remind her of how good it felt to subdue the fire burning all over. She shifted some more, trying to target a particularly nasty bunch of pox on her right shoulder. God that felt good. With that itch temporarily scratched, her attention was suddenly brought to the itch on her legs. She leaned forward, using the heels of her hands to rub her pants over her thighs. Oh yeah, that was it…just a little bit more. Before she knew it, her wrists had become her palms, then the pads of her fingers, until her neatly trimmed nails were digging through her flannel pajama pants into her skin. It was glorious.
She moved onto her calves then her forearms, her chest, then up onto the bare skin of her neck…her chin…her—
"Hey, Itchy McItcherson…" Rory pulled her hands away as though she'd been caught attempting to sneak a vegetable into the grocery basket at Doose's.
"Mom!" she squeaked.
"That's right…Mom. The person who passed on their glowy, peaches and cream complexion to you. The one you're attempting to permanently disfigure with your itchy, scratchy little mitts."
"Sorry." The complexion in question turned red…even redder than it already was from the virus that had invaded her body. She looked up at her mom who was holding a bowl.
"I brought you some mashed potatoes." It was one of the only things she could eat that didn't set off the pox that had set up shop in her mouth and throat. There wasn't an inch of her being that wasn't being attacked by blisters. Still, Rory wasn't going to get her hopes up just yet.
"Okay, but did you actually follow the directions on the box this time? Because last time you forgot to add the milk and it was basically just liquified cardboard."
"I did you one even better…I got them from Luke's." Rory brightened immediately. Luke owned the diner in town. She and her mother went there at least once a week since they'd moved out of the Inn and into their house last year. Rory was pretty sure her Mom would eat there every day if she didn't have a mortgage to pay now; Rory knew she would. He made the best burgers in the world. Not that her chicken pox could handle a burger at the moment. But anything he made was bound to be delicious. He was the best cook she knew…of course she'd never tell Sookie that.
Her mom came and sat on the edge of the bed, handing her the bowl. Rory took it greedily, scooping the mashed potatoes into her mouth. They were smooth and creamy and delicious and they coated her throat like an ambrosia from the gods.
"Hey, slow down or you're going to give Mommy a complex. You didn't scarf down my liquified cardboard flakes this insatiably." Rory stopped shoveling potatoey goodness into her mouth to look up at her mother with a sideways glance. "Okay, fine. I'm a terrible cook. But at least I know my strengths and weaknesses. And my strengths are guilt tripping Luke into promising to make you free mashed potatoes until you have fully recovered. I would never let my little mini-me go hungry."
"You do hold a suspicious amount of power over that man."
"Pfft," Lorelai dismissed. "Everything is suspicious to you right now, you're on your fourth Nancy Drew novel this week. But alas, there is nothing astonishing about my influence over Luke. Greater men then him have been brought down by the hair twirl."
"Well, whatever it is, my throat is grateful," Rory assured her as she scooped the last bite of mashed potato from the bowl and shoved in in her mouth. She set the spoon back in the empty bowl and handed it back to her mom. Lorelai took it and started to make her way out of the room. As soon she had her back turned, Rory was reaching up to scratch at a rather intense itch on her forehead.
"I see that," Lorelai sing-songed without looking back. Rory lowered her hand with a scowl. Two minutes later, her Mom was back, holding a roll of packing tape in one hand and something red and…Rory squinted…claw shaped?...in the other. Actually, there were two of them.
"Are those…oven mitts?" she asked.
"Yes indeedy."
"Oven mitts shaped like lobster claws?"
"It was these or the alligators and I thought red went better with your current complexion."
"Do we even have an oven?"
"I'm told it comes standard order with the purchase of any full-sized house."
"Have you ever used it?" Rory asked. Even when her mom did make food at home it was usually made in the microwave, or at best, on the stove—so long as it didn't involve boiling more than one pot of water.
"I'm not even sure how to turn it on."
"Then why do we have oven mitts?"
"They were a housewarming present from Babette."
"I see…" Although she didn't. Luke was keeping Rory flush in mashed potatoes at the moment, and if Rory knew her Mom—which she did—she was pretty certain that she'd managed to weasel a burger and fries out of him too. There was no reason that her mom would choose this day, of all days, to break in her year-and-a-half old housewarming oven mitts. Also, what was the tape all about?
"Come on, let's have them," Lorelai said, setting the tape and one of the mittens down on the end table and gesturing to Rory.
"Have what?"
"Your hands."
"My hands?" It took a minute for her fever addled brain to catch up, but it did. "You want to tape oven mitts to my hands?" she screeched.
"You'll thank me for this when you start dating in a couple decades and don't have to figure out how to use makeup to cover up chickenpox scars.
"No," Rory shook her head. "No way."
"Listen, Kiddo, until your 18, that skin belongs to me. And I will do what I need to to protect it." Lorelai grabbed her right hand before Rory could react, shoving the mitt over it. Rory tried to pull back but her mother was freakishly strong. Or maybe she was just weak from the fever. Either way, her mom managed to grab the roll of tape and start winding it around her wrist, securing the mitt in place. She bent over, biting down on the tag of the tape and using her teeth to rip it from the roll. Rory quickly used her still free left hand to try and grab the remaining mitt. She'd sit on it if she had to. Her mother wasn't getting that thing on her. Alas, her plan failed and after a very short game of keep away, Rory was fully bound in cotton lobster claws.
She looked at her mother with an annoyed pout. "But how am I supposed to flip the pages in my books? Or do the homework Lane dropped off for me?" With oven mitts on her hands, scratching wasn't the only thing she'd be prevented from doing. She had a history assignment on Ancient Greece she was looking forward to working on that afternoon.
"Okay, up!" Lorelai said. Rory narrowed her eyes at her mom in confusion.
"But I'm sick."
"Yes, exactly. You are sick. You are a 12-year-old girl home sick from school. And it's about time you learned how to do it right."
"There's a right way to be sick?"
"Absolutely!" her mom decreed. "And it doesn't involve homework and reading alone in your room. And it definitely doesn't involve books about the May Lay Massacre…whatever that is."
"It's the My Lai massacre," Rory corrected her mother. "And it was the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by US troops during the Vietnam war."
"You twelve," Lorelai reiterated. "You shouldn't be reading books about wars and massacres. I'm not giving that thing back to you. Now up," she demanded, "and bring Colonel Clucker with you."
Rory reluctantly got up. She clumsily grasped her stuffed chicken between her oven mitted hands and followed her mother out of her bedroom, through the kitchen and to the living room. Lorelai pointed to the couch, her face stern. "Sit!"
Rory took a seat on the couch and watched as her mother walked out of the room, coming back a minute later with Rory's comforter and placing it over her. She went back towards the kitchen once more and returned with a large glass of orange juice and an ice pop for Rory to suck on. Lorelai glanced around the room with a confused look on her face. "Ohhhh!" She finally announced, scuttering away once more to grab something from the storage closet in the hall. She came back holding a black, geometric object with brightly colored knobs on it. "Now, I don't have a bell for you, so if you need something…anything at all…this is very important, are you listening to Mommy?"
"Umm, yes…?"
"You are not to get up. If you need juice or mashed potatoes or medicine or anything you BopIt and Mommy will come take care of you. You do absolutely nothing by yourself."
"What if I have to go to the bathroom?"
Lorelai paused. "Okay, that you can do by yourself," she conceded.
"With the over mitts on? Because you're going to be the one who has to wash them…since I'm not allowed to do anything."
"Right…" Lorelai crinkled up her nose. "If you have to go to the bathroom you Bop me and I will come temporarily take off your mitts. Understood?"
"Yes."
"Yes what?"
"Yes, Mommy," Rory rolled her eyes.
"Very good. Now scootch." She scooted Rory over on the couch to squeeze her way in next to her, making herself comfortable under the comforter.
"If you're going to stay on the couch with me, what do I need the BopIt for?" Rory asked.
"Shhh," Lorelai told her, holding her finger up over her lips in a sush-ing gesture. "It's time for the all-time classic stay at home sick TV show. No sick day is complete without it." She leaned forward to grab the remote off the coffee table and sat back, pressing the power button and flipping through the channels until she landed on Bob Barker standing in front of a toaster oven with a Plinko chip in his hands.
"The Price is Right?" Rory asked.
"So?" Lorelai asked, "what do you think? Does the price of the toaster start with a 4 or end with a zero?"
"Umm," Rory considered the item on the TV. "4?" It came out as a question. Bob Barker turned over the placard to reveal the true price of the kitchen appliance.
"47 dollars."
"Sweet!" Lorelai cheered, holding up her hand for a high five. Rory hesitantly took her lobster claw and tapped it against her beaming mother's waiting hand. With a smile, she relaxed back into the couch. Soon, she found herself cuddling Colonel Clucker, her eyes heavy, her head resting in her mother's lap as Lorelai gently stroked her hair, a gesture just distracting enough to make the itching bearable. She supposed maybe this was better than lying alone in her bed doing history homework. But then again, her Mom had a way of making everything better.
December 2005
The bowl of popcorn balanced on her swollen stomach, her fuzzy Rudolf sock clad feet propped up on the fancy, custom designed coffee table as she watched Nicholas Cage hold up a convenience store for a pack of Huggies.
She knew she wasn't supposed to be able to relate to a kidnapping ex-con, but the truth was, she felt just about as prepared to raise a kid as Hi and Ed were. What acts of desperation might she have succumbed to if Logan hadn't found her that day in the bookstore…if she hadn't collapsed at work and had her father as her emergency contact?
In the seven months that she had known she was going to become a mother, she had done nothing to get ready. There was going to be a baby here tomorrow and she didn't even have diapers. At least Hi had that on her, even if he had to outrun the cops in a high-speed chase to get it.
And here she was watching stupid TV while Logan finished college and her Dad dragged her three-year old sister around Pottery Barn Kids to furnish a nursery that would probably get used for a month at most, and Gigi's nanny went to stock up on bottle warmers and onesies. And her Mom…well, she tried not to think about what her Mom was doing but it was probably more productive then watching Raising Arizona…and pausing it every ten minutes to waddle to the bathroom and pee.
And speaking of needing to pee…she removed the popcorn bowl from her stomach and set it on the sofa next to her before beginning the monumental feat of trying to rock herself up off her whale sized ass to a standing position. She had just about succeeded when the doorbell rang.
Crap! "Just a minute," she called. Though in all actuality it would almost certainly be longer than that since the disruption had stymied her momentum and she was now back to square one in the adventure that was getting up. The doorbell rang again…and again…and again. She knew whoever was there couldn't hear her across the enormity that was her father's new apartment, but the least the visitor could do was give her a second; even people who weren't as round as Violet Beauregarde after eating a piece of Wonka gum couldn't just teleport their way to the door in an instant.
She finally managed to get up off the couch by the fifth ring, and she waddled her way to the door while the bell buzzed twice more. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she grumbled. "Jeez, have you ever heard of the concept of patie…" she trailed off as she swung the door open to the sight of one Lorelai Gilmore. "Mom," she squeaked.
"Hi." The word was clipped, full of nervous energy. Lorelai lingered in the doorway looking more than a little harried. She was wrapped in a black pea coat with pink trim, a pink scarf wrapped hastily around her neck. He hair was in disarray as though her fingers had run through it a few too many times. And her blue eyes were large and wild looking.
They stood there in the entryway, neither knowing what to say to the other. Rory knew she should invite her in, if for no other reason than screaming at each other in the hallway for all her father's bougie ass neighbors to hear was probably less than ideal. But she couldn't…wouldn't…If Lorelai wanted to come in, she was going to have to take the first step and ask.
"Dad's not here."
"I wasn't looking for your Dad."
Her ire grew, she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was just the shock wearing off. "Well Gigi's out too. And so is Miriam, by the way, so sorry you wasted your time." Rory started to shut the door in her mother's face.
"Wait! Rory!" Lorelai held her hand out to stop it. "Please. Just hear me out."
"Unless you're here to apologize and admit you were wrong about Logan and accept that we're together…"
"I'm sorry," Lorelai said before Rory could finish. "I was wrong about Logan and I will support your relationship."
Rory blinked. The shock was back. That was the last thing in the world she expected from her mother. Lorelai Gilmore was nothing if not stubborn…and steadfast in her opinions of others. Rory was sure her mother would go to her grave hating Logan.
"Can I…" Lorelai gestured to the inside of the apartment and Rory stepped aside to let her in, then shut the door behind her. They both got quiet again. Rory had let her in, but she still needed to hear more before she was convinced.
Lorelai didn't seem to know what to say. Which was equal parts reassuring and terrifying. Lorelai always had something to say. When she went quiet, something big was brewing. It could be some big, heartfelt emotion, or it could be some terrible confession. Her mother stood there, arms crossed over her stomach, looking down at her feet. The quiet stretched on long enough for Rory to remember she needed to pee. But as soon as she was about to excuse herself, Lorelai spoke.
"I did something bad." And terrible it was. Rory's stomach sank. Which was an odd feeling considering that it had spent the last couple months thrust up into her diaphragm. It really had nowhere to sink to these days. And yet, she couldn't help the overwhelming foreboding sensation that seeped downward in her abdomen. She put her hands over her belly as though that could protect Samuel from the fear and disquiet that was settling there.
"What did you do?"
"I umm…I went to talk to Logan."
Now the sinking feeling was gone. Replaced by a tingly tightness in her chest, burning its way up her throat and stinging at the back of her eyes. What had Lorelai said? What had she done? Had she threatened him? Said terrible things to him? Had she scared him away? Was she going to have to do this all alone? Because she didn't think she could do this alone. She knew she'd spent most of her pregnancy planning to do it alone. But now that she had Logan, she'd grown kind of attached to the idea of having a partner. Someone there to share the load…to be a father to her son. "Is he…did you…?" She couldn't make the words form, her throat was too tight and the tears were too close to falling.
"I…" A pause. "Oh god…" Lorelai started pacing, her hands wringing in front of her. She stopped moving suddenly, looking straight up at Rory who was frozen to the ground. "I ran into Dean."
Rory blinked in confusion. Dean? But Lorelai had just said she went to talk to Logan, what did Dean…Oh no! Rory swallowed down the lump in her throat as the realization washed over her. "He told you?" Why would he even do that? Why was he in town? Had Lindsay left him? Had he moved back? Did he suddenly decide he wanted to be a part of this? Now? After everything she'd been through? After Logan had done the most amazing thing anyone had ever done for her? After she'd promised Logan that they would be together…a family? Now Dean was going to insert himself and ruin everything she'd just started to put together? This couldn't be happening.
"He assumed I already knew."
"Oh god." Rory's feet finally started to unpeel themselves from the floor and began to tred the same pacing path her mother had been on just moments ago. "He can't…he can't be a part of this. He had his chance. He said no. He picked Lindsay. Logan picked us. He picked us. Logan is Samuel's father. He has to be Samuel's father. This can't be…" The end of her sentence was swallowed by a sob.
Lorelai took a slow step forward, tentatively putting a hand on her daughter's shoulders to stop her frenzied movement and Rory let her. In that moment, she needed the reassurance. She needed to hear her mother tell her everything was going to be alright. "He's still with Lindsay, I don't think he's interested in having this come out."
The panic abated, just enough to let the anger rise to the surface again…this emotional onslaught combined with the pregnancy hormones made for a perfect storm of rapid mood swings. Her eyes flicked up to meet her mother's with fury. "You went to Logan."
"Yes," Lorelai confirmed. Rory shrugged her mother's hands off her shoulders.
"Behind my back, you went to Logan to tattle on me like…what? Like we're in preschool?"
"Okay, yes, but let's look on the bright side here," Lorelai's voice had that forced peppiness to it that just made Rory angrier. "He already knew so…"
"Why would you do that?" Rory spat out.
"I don't know, I thought…"
"You thought what? That I would try to entrap a man with a baby that isn't his?"
"No! Well, I guess technically yes, but it was more that I thought Logan wouldn't agree to…"
"You know nothing about Logan." Rory bellowed, cutting off her mother's feeble excuses. She was so tired of it. She'd hated Logan on principal since the moment she found out about him. And everything he'd done to help her, to keep her from falling off the precipice, it only made Lorelai hate him more. Her mother saw only what she wanted to and nothing more.
"I know," Lorelai said, her shoulders slumping in shame. "I screwed up. I know that."
"If you'd had it your way, Logan would have left me. You went there to break us up. You can't stand the thought of me having someone else in my life. You're supposed to be my mother but instead you're like a jealous, resentful child," she spat.
"No! I wanted to protect you."
"You wanted to protect me?" Rory scoffed. "By trying to destroy my relationship and run my son's father off right before I go into labor?"
"I didn't want you and Samuel to get attached if he was just going to leave."
"You need to leave." Rory pointed at the door, her face stony. She couldn't believe Lorelai had done this. She knew her mother wanted Logan out of her life but she never thought her capable of going to these lengths. She didn't know how she'd ever forgive her for this.
"Rory, please." Her voice was desperate, her blue eyes frightened. "I know I messed up. I know I was wrong. I was wrong for going behind your back and I was wrong about Logan. He loves you and he loves Samuel."
"I know that. I told you that. But you were so sure you knew better than me." Lorelai always thought she knew better than her. She didn't care that Rory had spent months agonizing over—and realizing she was wrong about—the very things that Lorelai was so sure about…that Logan would leave, that he wouldn't want to be a father to Samuel, that he would break her heart. She didn't care that Logan had gone above and beyond to be there for her despite how hard she'd tried to keep him at arm's length. She didn't care that Logan had more than proven himself to her. Lorelai saw him as a spoiled, fickle, rich kid and her view was the only one that mattered.
"I was wrong."
"So you said." Her arms were crossed over her chest, resting on her baby bump as she waited for Lorelai to leave.
"I let my hurt and my anger make me stupid," Lorelai protested once more. "I was just so scared of losing you again. I'd just gotten you back and I was losing you to him. I just…I wasn't thinking straight."
"Stop!" Rory insisted. She couldn't listen to this. Partly because she was enraged and partly because she was starting to feel herself break. She was starting to feel herself filling with the desire to succumb to her mother's pleas. She was starting to feel guilty for not accepting her apology. Lorelai was clearly suffering from her choices and a part of Rory wanted to forget about her own suffering and just put her mother out of her misery. But the anger was still so strong. She couldn't deal with this warring inside of her. Certainly not now. "I'm supposed to be avoiding stress. This isn't good for my blood pressure."
"Right," her mother replied, sad, but relenting. Rory had said the magic words—blood pressure. Lorelai wouldn't stay now and risk making her pre-eclampsia worse. "I guess I'll just…" Lorelai gestured to the door.
Suddenly Rory's legs felt warm; a moist sensation that tracked down her thighs, seeped through the brown felt of her Rudolf socks, and pooled between her feet. She reached out and grabbed for her mother's hand to stop her from turning away.
"Is that…" She tried to look down and check, but she couldn't see past the protrusion of her newly outtie belly button which was visible through the stretched cotton of the once oversized Yale t-shirt she had stolen from Logan.
"Well, it's either that or you just peed yourself." It was such a Lorelai thing to say and in that moment, all the anger and disillusionment with her mother was gone. A part of her knew that everything wasn't fixed. That they were going to have to deal with everything that had happened between them. But there, in that moment, with amniotic fluid oozing down her legs, she needed her mommy. She needed the woman who'd slept by her bedside when she broke her arm. Who'd taped oven mitts to her hands to keep her from scratching her chicken pox into permanent scars. Who'd kissed her scraped knees and held her when she had a bad dream. Lorelai was her Mom…always. And there was no one she wanted by her side more in that moment.
"I did have to pee when you got here," Rory said hopefully.
"Do you still have to pee?"
Rory turned her attention to her lower abdomen and the throbbing pressure in her bladder. "Yes."
"Then it's probably not urine that just ruined your father's hardwood floors."
"Oh my God! This can't be happening."
"It's happening, Kid," Lorelai said, her voice gentle but matter of fact.
"No," Rory shook her head, whisps of hair that had fallen out of her messy bun swirling around her head like an auburn halo. "No, it can't be. Because you just called me 'Kid'. I'm not ready for this. I'm just a kid. I can't be a kid having a kid." She shook her head again. "I'm not ready."
"I had a kid at sixteen, you think I was ready for it? I got my pre-natal checkups at the school nurse. I had a baby shower in homeroom. And until about an hour before you were born, I had planned to name you Punky because of the cool new TV show that had just aired. But none of that mattered because the parts of being a parent that really matter…there's no preparing for those. You're not any more ready for it at 37 than you are at 16. But you deal with it. Sometimes badly. And you hope in the end, you don't mess them up too much and that they know how much you love them." Lorelai shrugged. "That's all you can do."
"I can have diapers," Rory shrieked, throwing her hands up in the air. "I don't even have diapers…Miriam is out picking them up now. And Dad is still out picking up the crib and the stroller."
"You let your family worry about that. Right now, all you have to worry about is deciding which nurses to pelt with your ice chips."
"But…"
"Do you have a bag packed?" Lorelai asked, ignoring Rory's protests and focusing on the problem at hand.
"It's in my bedroom." It was one of the only things she had ready. Probably because it was one of the only things she was physically capable of getting ready these days. She couldn't go shopping for baby stuff or go to work. But she could sit in front of her dresser and pack a bag. Of course, she'd had to have her Dad come in and move it when she was done because it was over the ten pound limit the doctor had given her. But it had at least given her a solid twenty minutes of feeling productive.
"See, you're already more prepared than me. All I brought to the hospital was my Walkman and the Push, Baby, Push mix tape your father made me."
"Well, the right soundtrack is everything," Rory replied with a tentative smile.
"Exactly!" Lorelai agreed emphatically.
There was a moment of silence; comfortable, reassuring. She had missed this. She had missed her mother. "Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you're here." And she was. Despite everything that had happened between them, she couldn't imagine doing this without her.
"I'm glad I'm here too. Now go put on pants that won't develop icicles when you walk outside and I'll call Logan…
Rory's moment of calm was short lived, the panic was back. Logan! Logan needed to be here. She promised him he'd be here for this. But—she looked at the clock on her father's home entertainment system… "NO!"
"What?" Lorelai looked at her with confusion. After all the fighting they'd done over the subject of Logan and his role in Rory and Samuel's life, it was no wonder Lorelai would be confused. But Rory couldn't let her mother call him now.
"He's in the middle of his last final."
"Rory, hun…" Lorelai replied, coming up to her daughter and placing her hands on her arms. "He's not going to care about that. He wants to be here."
"No." Rory shook her head adamantly. "You can call him in an hour. It's only an hour…"
"Plus another two to drive here from Yale."
"That's plenty of time. Who knows how long I'll even be in labor for. It could be days. I haven't even had a…" Her stomach cramped, shooting an unimaginable pain outward in every direction. Her upper body was involuntarily wrenched out of her mother's grasp as she doubled over from the intensity. It was a miracle she didn't puke all over the Jessica Simpson pumps she was suddenly staring at.
"Contraction?" Lorelai finished for her.
The pain subsided and Rory was able to stand up again. "Holy shit, are they all like that?" She'd seen Sherry go through this when she was in labor with Gigi and she knew it wouldn't be fun, but the woman had been making business calls and sending faxes—how bad could it really have been? Bad, apparently. Rory hadn't wanted to be in the delivery room back then and she sure as hell didn't want to be in the delivery room now. But even Lorelai couldn't save her from her fate this time.
"Not once they give you the epidural. It's all about the drugs my girl."
"Right, well then, let's go get some…" Rory started to head for the front door.
"Rory!" She stopped and turned to face Lorelai.
"Wet pajama pants…20-degree temperatures," she reminded her.
Rory looked down. "Oh, right. Also, I still have to pee."
"Go to the bathroom and get dressed. With your water breaking we need to get you to the hospital, but you've got enough time to change at least. I'll call your dad…I can page Logan, this way he'll know to come over when his final is done."
Rory shook her head. "He'll have his pager with him in the final. The proctors take your phone." That was specifically why he got the pager. So he could be reachable at all times. But Rory couldn't risk him not finishing and getting an incomplete, or worse…failing. He couldn't exactly take the course over next semester.
"He has his pager with him because he wants to know." It was weird, hearing Lorelai defend Logan. To argue for Logan's presence. It was like some kind of topsy-turvy world. And as much as Rory didn't want to risk interrupting Logan's final and putting his degree and his job in jeopardy, she had to admit it was heartening to hear her mother finally show him the respect he deserved. Maybe she really had learned her lesson. Maybe it was going to be possible for them to get along after all. Maybe they be able to celebrate birthdays and Christmases and milestone together…as a family. It was all Rory wanted…for the people she loved to get along. Well, that and to get this baby out of her and to be able to see her feet again—preferably at their normal, not swollen size.
"He also wants to be able to graduate college and support his family."
"Hey, you don't need a fancy degree to raise a family," Lorelai pointed out.
Rory winced, partly in embarrassment—her mother had eventually gone back to school and gotten a degree, but she'd raised Rory for 17 years on her own without one—and partly because her uterus was once again contracting. At least this time it was mild. "I know that," she told her mother. "It's just…Logan's not exactly inclined towards a trade profession."
"You mean you can't picture him unclogging toilets with his pants down below his…"
"Mom!" Rory shouted. She shook her head in a combination of annoyance and mil amusement.
"Fine," Lorelai, I relented. "If he only has his pager on him during the test, that means I can call and leave a voicemail. That way he won't get the message until he finishes but if he finishes early, he'll know to come straight down.
Rory let out a resigned sigh. "Fine." She was a little worried that maybe he would have tried to sneak the phone in with him. Or purposely left the ringer on high so he could hear it from the front of the room. But it was a chance she'd have to take. She really did want him here as soon as possible. At least now, though, waiting for him wouldn't be so bad…not now that she had her Mom back. And maybe, if she was lucky, The Price is Right would be playing on the TV at the hospital.