June 1, 2006

3 Months, 3 Weeks, 6 Days

Size: Pear

LORELAI POV

"Wow!" I make my way down the stairs where Rory stands proudly. Tonight, she's decked out in a pair of Yale sweats and a t-shirt with her hair pulled up into a messy bun. Having her here with me, feels incredibly good. "You've really outdone yourself!"

"Hey, I can't take all the credit. I learned from the best," She smirks from her spot in front of the coffee table that's littered with all our favorite foods. "One day I'll surpass you. In the meantime, all I can do is practice."

"Well you know what they say," I wrap an arm around her shoulders, pulling her to my side. "Good, better, best! But, I don't know, it looks like that day may be here."

"We're all set. Five different orders of Chinese food; sweet and sour, beef broccoli, kung pao chicken, eggrolls, and an order of chow mein," she proudly points to each carry out box scattered between marshmallows, Red Vines, and Pop Tarts. "Along with the world's most chemical inducing smorgasbord of snack foods and ice cream for dessert and if we're feeling extra ambitious, I thought we could do a sugar crawl to Weston's for some late night pie! I heard they have a new flavor, Death by Chocolate, and I really need to experience that."

"I'm pretty sure if we eat pie after all this, we will die," I say dryly, feeling sick just by looking at all this food, my eyes tripping over one item. My mouth begins to salivate. "What's with the apples?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean what do I mean?" I mock playfully. "I mean apples are not a regular at the Gilmore house, so what's with the little red and greens looking up at us all innocently?" And then I begin to panic. "Oh my god! This isn't you trying to tell me something, is it?"

"What would I be trying to tell you with apples?" Rory asks, confused. "They're just apples."

And then it clicks. She smiles and laughs in amusement, her arms wrapping around her waist. "Oh! Ha! No, Mom, I'm not pregnant. The last time we did this you put carrots on the table. I'm following your example, except I went for apples," My daughter shrugs her shoulders as if the sight of the healthy food is completely normal before motioning me down onto the couch. "Now sit, sit, I have the movie all ready to go."

I take a seat on the couch, wearily take the offered chop sticks and watch as she enthusiastically clicks on the movie, grabs the closest white take out box, curls up on the couch and uses her chop sticks like a pro. She eats happily for a moment while watching the movie credits before glancing over at me curiously.

"Are you going to eat or are you still freaked out about me not being pregnant?" I force an unconvincing smile her way, wondering if now is the right time to tell her she's going to be a sister. Again. Except this time, to my baby. "Oh my god. Imagine the two of us with a little baby to take care of," she laughs heartily, thoroughly amused by the mere idea, and I nearly pass out as she rattles on, consumed by the image, and oblivious to the fact that this will be our reality in just a few months time. "Except I'm ninety nine percent sure that the next Gilmore baby will be a boy. What are the chances of one us having a little baby girl? Not likely!"

"Probably about one in two," I mutter paralyzed by the realization that I have to tell her she's no longer going to be my only child.

"Right, but that's not likely," she waves me off. "Of course, you probably wouldn't want me around a baby, you know how squirmy I get around babies."

And then, for the first time since I've gotten pregnant this time around, an image of a baby boy pops in my head.

Tiny.

Innocent.

Adorable.

Dark hair, blue eyes, warm and cuddly, that delicious baby smell.

I stare at the TV, lost in thought, my mind betraying me by imagining big Luke holding our sweet baby in his flannel covered arms while Rory stands to the side, one finger wrapped in the baby's fist. In my daydream, Luke's making soft cooing noises and gazing at our child adoringly. He looks up at me, a big, goofy smile on his normally serious face while our son turns and looks over his tiny shoulder to grin a toothless grin at me.

My heart twists and that rock that made itself home in my stomach reminds me it's still living there.

"Mom? Are you going to eat?"

I shake out of my daydream. I have to stop thinking about babies. But more than that, I have to stop thinking about a big, rugged, man like Luke lovingly holding our baby.

It's . . . a lot.

Too much.

Heartwarming adorable.

And something my heart had wanted so badly.

"I had a big lun-" I try to start.

"Uh-uh," Rory scoffs, shaking her head. She drops her container to the table, lifts the one with Kung Pao chicken and holds it out expectantly toward me. It's my favorite and I absolutely can not eat it.

I don't move to take it.

"Ror-"

"Sookie called me. She says you're not eating."

I sigh loudly as she lowers the container back down to the table. Leaning forward, I drop the unused chopsticks next to it. "So that explains the surprise visit. And here I thought you missed your Mama," I joke lightly, shifting so my side is against the sofa. I pull my legs up to my chest, cocooning the secret life hidden within me as she pauses the movie. "Rory, I'm fine-"

"Clearly not! You not eating is a strange phenomenon," She turns on the sofa so we're facing each other. "Mom, if you're depressed you should go see a doctor."

"I'm not depress-"

"I knew you'd say that, but come on, Mom, you can pretend that you and Luke breaking up wasn't that big of a deal and that you're happy with Dad, but a part of you must be hurting."

At the mention of Christopher, I shift uncomfortably. I hardly think of him now. Instead, my thoughts are with the life within me and its dad.

If she only knew.

I have to tell her, but finding the strength to allow more people into the truth, is hard. Luke has a way of making me face things without pushing me too hard. He gives me space to deal with things and if I stay there too long, he'll come look for me and then make me deal with it. Rory? I don't get an inch.

I look down at my fidgeting hands.

Everything was going smoothly until that damn doctor's appointment. I was on a path. A path to forgetting Luke and what we had. And if I do say so myself, I was doing a phenomenal job at moving on. Chris and I were getting along wonderfully, finally together as adults with no other relationship in the way. Despite numerous people's opinions on the man, I enjoy his sweet ways and fun personality. It's been fun running around with him and enjoying life with him. There's a lightness I have with him that I don't have with anyone else. Not even with Luke.

Finding out I was pregnant with Luke's baby only dragged me kicking and screaming back to reality.

I have to tell Rory. I pick at a nail instead.

"Mom?"

With a strangled groan, I drop my head into my hands and curl further into myself.

"Mom, what's going on?" Rory asks concerned. "Come on, you're scaring me. Talk to me."

I don't say anything for several seconds, working up the courage to pull out my mom card to get out of this situation, but the moment my daughter touches my knees, I drop my hands and I raise my head. Our eyes meet and when a look of concern races across her eyes due to my wet ones, (let me tell you something, the pregnancy hormones are out of this world) I know I can't get out of it.

I decide to rip off the Band-Aid in one painful swoop. "I'm pregnant."

And then, for perhaps the first time in my daughter's life, her mouth drops open and she goes mute. For about three seconds before breaking out into full blown laughter.

"Ha! Yeah right! Good one, Mom!" She picks up an egg roll, saluting me with it and then biting the end off with gusto. "For a minute there you almost had me!"

"Rory-"

"That was really fast considering the fact that you had no idea I was adding apples to our movie night. Way to go! Kuddos." She chuckles to herself, fully amused. "You will always be the master and I will always be the student. And here you were acting like I was the one pregnant just to lead the joke-"

"Rory-"

"I mean really, you should feel my heart beat, I'm sure it could be a lead in Lane's ban…"

She trails off when I don't join in her laughter, but instead I run a hand over my eyes.

"You are…" she trials off, sitting forward on the couch, eggroll still held between her fingers, and that frown line that forms between her eyebrows begins to make its appearance. "You are joking, right?"

I shake my head once and wince.

And then it hits her. Her mouth falls open.

"Oh. My. God!"

"That was kind of my reaction too."

She shakes her head once, clearly still in shock, before unfolding her long limbs from the couch, dropping her food to the table, and looking around our living room as if she's been randomly plopped down in a foreign country that she hasn't had the opportunity to read and research about beforehand.

"Okay," She turns to me, a hand to her head. "You're going to be okay. I was okay," She motions to herself and then at me, "You were okay." She waves her hand between the two of us. "We're going to be okay. All three of us," she looks at me and then runs a hand to her temple and into her bangs panicking. "We just need to make lists of things to do and everything will be okay."

"Rory, hon, calm down."

But she doesn't hear me, and now I realize the error in the way I shared this news with her. She's in a panic. A Mariana Trench deep panic, a panic that challenges the Rory Gilmore with not enough volunteering hours to get into Harvard Rory.

Her reaction is so out there, it's as if she's learned she's pregnant, rather than me.

I watch helplessly as she rushes over to the desk, takes out a notebook and grabs a pen from the glass cup before taking a seat next to me on the couch.

"We're all going to be okay," she mutters, flipping open the notebook. Her eyes stay on the paper for a few seconds before drifting slowly over to my stomach. I watch as tears flood her eyes as she looks up at me. "Why would you do this, Mom?"

"Oh hon…I didn't mean-"

"I know you're determined to forget Luke and your engagement, but letting Dad get you pregnant? Are you out of your mind?" She stares at me wide-eyed, tucking a leg under her to turn toward me. "Dad isn't the most reliable guy out there and maybe this time it will be different, but he's not known as Dad of the century. You should have waited until the two of you had been together longer! What was this? Some attempt at tying yourself to him so you two have to work?"

"Rory, no, that's not what this is-"

"Then what is this? Because from where I'm sitting this is another one of your self sabotaging way-"

"Rory! Hey!"

"No!" she calls back. "It's like you have an inability to take things slow. Before I know it, you'll be marrying dad! And let's be honest the way you got with him isn't heal-"

"I'm three months pregnant," I interrupt. She raises her eyebrows in surprise and I keep going just to get it all out there in one fell swoop, "And it's Luke's baby."

I watch the news swarm through her as the fuzzy picture shifts into crystal clear focus. The crease between her eyebrows smooths out. "It's Luke's?"

I nod in confirmation.

A hand rubs across her face once again. And with that, she tosses the pen and notebook onto one free corner of the coffee table and sags into the couch in total and complete relief. "Oh thank god."

June 3, 2006

4 Months, 0 Weeks, 1 Day

Size: Avocado

LUKE POV

"Are you sure?" Tom asks with a frown as he glances at the house. "White isn't reall-"

"I'm sure," I cut in sharply. "As long as it's clean, it's fine. Whoever buys the house can paint the inside however they want."

"It's just sometimes an all white interior comes off a little cold. People half expect penguins to come waddling alon-"

"I really don't care," I mutter rubbing at my dry, tired eyes.

Hardly any sleep happened last night. No siree. I managed to fall asleep, but woke up exactly at midnight.

June third.

For the majority of the night, I stared up at the ceiling, imagining what today could have been like had I not had my head up my ass. It's not hard to imagine considering every time I managed to fall asleep, I dreamed of marrying Lorelai.

The perfect dress.

The daisies.

The church with Pastor Todd with the carousel.

The date that worked for everyone in town.

Lorelai. Beautiful, Lorelai, walking down the aisle toward me. I was supposed to promise the rest of my life to her and promise to love her and be there for her until death do us part. We were supposed to be together.

But we didn't and we aren't.

"It'll be clean and finished. That's all that matters, Tom."

"Okay. We'll finish up the carpentry and drywall today and tomorrow and start painting the day after." He turns, as if to make his way to his crew inside before turning back to me and cautiously asking, "You doing okay, Luke?"

I know exactly what he's asking.

"I'm fine," I snap, chagrined he'd even begin to bring today up, even if he hasn't directly. He grimaces and I force a sharp nod to end the conversation before making my way out to my truck and pulling out a chainsaw and a pair of loppers.

For the next few hours, I work away on the overgrown brush on the front of the house while fruitlessly wracking my brain in an attempt to remember what night Lorelai was asking me to remember. I create a pile of cut limbs and when it begins to loom behind me, I haul it into the bed of my truck. Sweat collects and slides down my gray t-shirt covered back as the early June sun beats down on me, but truth be told, I don't care. I really don't care much about anything. I hack away at the overgrown bushes, taking my anger and hurt and frustration out on them, not caring much about how my arms are being scraped up.

What does it matter anyway?

This house has been good for me.

Nights when I can't sleep, I walk through the deserted town to the house and work alone. When I purchased the house, the inside wasn't all that bad, although the previous owner, a widow, passed and her children who live out of town left her unwanted belongings for the next buyer to deal with. I sifted through the belongings, donating what was salvageable and tossing the rest. It took an entire week and by the end, I was determined to never own more than I need. In fact, I think I could become a minimalist without any problem at all.

As far as the actual bones of the house, there wasn't anything major that needed to be redone. Thankfully, most of the work needed has been cosmetic. I tore up the old outdated carpet only to reveal the beautiful inlaid oak hardwood floors of my childhood in pristine shape though they need sanded and refinished. Why anyone would cover hardwood floors with carpet, I'll never understand, but it worked in my favor.

I did what repairs I could inside, patching small holes in the drywall, finding and replacing missing baseboards and other woodwork. I hired Tom and his crew for the rest. Since then, everything has been moving quickly. No walls needed to come down or go up and the only major drywall to be done was in the attic where the previous family had begun to drywall the space, only to forget about it and keep it half finished. A finished attic would only increase the value of the house and increase its living space.

By and far, the biggest areas to tackle are the kitchen and bathrooms. They're severely outdated and in dire need of TLC. The day I closed on the house, I met with kitchen professionals to get cabinets ordered since that would take the longest to get in. Tom has been helping me figure out the bathrooms.

I run my forearm across my forehead to collect the sweat and force myself from outwardly groaning when my sister comes waddling up the sidewalk.

"I still can't believe you bought Mom and Dad's house!" Liz exclaims as she follows me to my truck with my last load of limbs from the front of the house. "Dad would be so proud!"

Yeah right. I'm pretty sure Dad would not be proud of me right now, but I don't tell her this. I'm not ready to tell her about the baby. If I did, I'd have to have dinner at her house again and listen to her and TJ give me their opinion on every aspect of becoming a parent. No matter how well intentioned, I don't want to give TJ any excuse to explain any part of my sister's pregnancy to me ever again.

"Liz, we have this conversation every time you come over," I brace and haul the limbs up and over the side of my truck. "Can you maybe move on to a new topic?"

"You wanted to get out of this house more than I wanted to get out of town!" she exclaims enthusiastically as she leans against the side of the truck and looks at our childhood home. Her hand rests on her large pregnant stomach. Wiping my forearm at the sweat on my forehead, I stare at the sight, wondering when Lorelai's slim frame will begin to show more than the little its begun. Thankfully, Liz is oblivious to my awkward man staring. "You could have saved a lot of money if we just kept the house in the family instead of selling it the moment Dad died."

"Too many memories," I grumble, picking up the chainsaw from the ground and begin walking to the backyard.

"And what? The memories are suddenly gone now and it's okay for you to be back here and save the house?" She sprints as best and carefully as a pregnant woman can to keep up with me. I slow down, not wanting her or my little niece or nephew to get injured just because I'm a grump today. "Why not just let them tear it down?"

"Liz, our grandfather built this house with his own two hands," I remind her. "There's no way in hell I was going to let Taylor tear it down. There are too many memories for the house to be demolished and it really wasn't in bad condition. It would have been a complete waste."

She wouldn't know. I won't let her inside with all the dust floating around. There's no way that is good for her pregnancy.

"You know, big brother, you're a big sentimental fool."

"Yeah, I know," I mumble forcing opening the broken white picket fence gate and allowing my sister into the backyard before following her and closing it behind me.

I haven't been in this backyard for years. In fact, when I bought the house, I didn't even come back here to assess its current state. Too many memories of throwing a ball around with my dad happened in this backyard and seeing it before purchasing the house didn't matter to me. While some things are hard for me, other things in life are simple for me, and buying this house was a simple.

Marrying Lorelai should have been simple. Loving her was simple for me. Wanting her was simple. Marrying her should have been the simplest thing in the entire world for me.

I shake my head at myself. What an idiot.

As I take the backyard in for the first time, I begin to understand why Taylor wanted to take a bulldozer to the place. The backyard is a jungle. It's a large space, with a couple mature sugar maple trees in dire need of a trim with a white picket fence running the perimeter of the property. A garage sits offset from the backyard, and a gravel driveway runs from the front of the house to the back of the property leading into the garage. Thick weeds, the size of my forearm, grow up and through the trees and flower gardens. The grass comes to my knees. As such, it'll take me a couple weeks and several trips to the compost to clean it up.

Mom would have been heartbroken to see it in this state. She used to come outside when Liz and I were playing and spend hours tending her flower gardens. When she passed, Dad took over, wanting to honor her memory. A few of the daisies are still here, hidden and shaded from the sun.

"Okay, so here's what I'm thinking," TJ starts. Wanting to get off Liz's topic, I listen to him explain his idea of how we tackle the backyard for a few minutes. And for once, TJ's suggestion actually makes sense.

With it being a comfortable, not overly warm late spring afternoon, Liz finds an abandoned chair, takes a seat and watches the two of us happily as TJ takes a weed eater to the overgrown grass. Once it's down below our knees, he uses his mower to finish the mowing and bag the cut debris. Just that one simple task is encouraging. It already looks one hundred times better.

I make my way to an area near the far end of the yard and begin to tackle that section. I pull up weeds, trim overgrown branches, and rake out the natural debris that has blown between the plants into a pile behind me.

A couple hours later, I step back to assess how it's all coming along and freeze in surprise. Because there, looming tall and strong above me, is the tree from my dreams. Except now, there's no tree house built between its branches. I glance over my shoulder and then turn around completely to take in the backyard and come to remember that in my dream, the backyard didn't belong to Lorelai's house. It had confused me then, but now, it all makes sense. This is the backyard enclosed with a white picket fence. I look back at the tree. This is the tree from my dream. I look down to my right, half expecting to see my thrilled little boy next to me, but he's not there. At least not yet. I glance back up, my mind recalling Lilly's sweet pink cheeks and the delicate stray curls around her neck.

My heart lurches as reality smacks me in the chest. I've spent the last few days shocked and panicked about Lorelai being pregnant and the apparent hate she now seems have toward me. But now? I can't help the thread of delight and excitement that runs through me.

I'm still getting them. Or, well, at least one of them.

I turn, take in the sight of the still messy backyard once again. And then I know.

It's simple.

"I'll be back," I yell over the noise of TJ's chainsaw. I half walk and half jog into the back door yelling, "Tom? Tom!"

Rushing through the house, I weave my way around the workers in an attempt at finding the contractor. Sunlight dapples through the dirty windows and onto the hardwood floors that are currently being prepared to be sanded. The smell of sawdust permeates the air, restoration being done. I find Tom working in the entry of the house. He turns to me as I rush to him.

"Is it too late to change my mind on the paint colors?"

A look of relief fills Tom's face. "Not at all. I'm going to send Joe out tomorrow afternoon to pick it up so we'll be ready the following day. I'm glad to hear you've changed your mind, you're not going to sell the house with it looking so cold. No one wants to live in a hospital. What made you change your mind?"

Turning, I shove my hands into my back pockets and take in the sight of the house with a different perspective. It's beautiful. Not so large that it feels cold and impossible to fill, but spacious enough for a family.

This house is filled with memories from my childhood. Before Mom got sick, this house was filled with laughter and love. I can see Will or Lilly running around this house, giggling. April will be thrilled to have her own room with a door.

"I'm not selling the house. I'm moving into it."