There she was, just sitting at his
kitchen table. Her hair was set around her shoulders, just as it had
been on their wedding night. She stood up, set her cup of coffee on the
table, and walked over to him. He reached out to her, but suddenly
there was a whirlwind of color and she started falling backwards away
from him. He tried to call her name, but his voice came out as a
distressed sob as the whirlwind stopped, and she was gone.
Luke Danes-Gilmore shot up in bed and looked over his shoulder to where
his wife was supposed to be. He fell back, hard and hit his head on the
wall several times. Finally, he got up and headed downstairs.
When he got to the kitchen, his eyes were red and puffy. He went to the
cabinet and pulled out the coffee. He hated coffee, it ruined your
teeth and gave you bad breath, but Lorelai loved it. She inhaled it
like oxygen and never got bad breath or yellow teeth, it was like a
special talent of hers. He opened the coffee and inhaled deeply, he
could smell her, she was right there, and then she was gone.
He turned and looked over to the table, and there it was. The same
coffee cup that Lorelai had been drinking from in his dream. A silent
tear rolled down his cheek as he grabbed it and held it close to him.
This was her favorite coffee mug, she drank out of it every morning,
and she would even bring it to the diner with her so she could use it
there. Every morning, this pink and orange coffee mug was on the
kitchen table and the counter at the diner.
He remembered the last time she used this mug, the last time he had
ever seen her. Like every day since she had found out that she was
pregnant, she had begged for coffee, knowing that Luke would not give
it to her. Still, like every morning she came into the kitchen and
asked for coffee, settled on cinnamon herbal tea, and went to the
diner, asked for coffee, and settled on a blueberry muffin, a kiss, and
one last "I love you" before she had to leave. And she was gone.
His sobs were heard throughout the house, but they were not alone. He
had tried to speak to his daughter, but she had not spoken since it
happened. He almost understood when she wrote the letter to him. It
told him not to talk to her, she was not mad at him, as she may have
implied earlier; she just needed to be alone. He wanted to tell her
that she was not alone, that she always had him, and her sister.
Lorelai Emily Danes-Gilmore had been the bright spot in all the
darkness. She looked exactly like her mother. She had dark brown hair
and brilliant blue eyes. Every time anyone looked at her, they cried.
The whole town was shaken by her birth that brought with it her
mother's untimely departure.
The diner, Miss Patty's, Al's Pancake World, and almost every other
business in Stars Hollow had been closed for weeks. No one really
talked anymore, especially about Lorelai. They just passed each other
in the street and nodded as their once tight knit community slipped
away behind a black cloak of grief. Everyone wore black for a few
months, and then slowly color crept back in, but only because the long
devastating winter had passed, and spring had come, but it did not
matter. She was gone.
Luke looked up as a crying Rory came out of her room and silently went
upstairs. He had been to busy remembering to hear his daughters crying.
He followed Rory upstairs into the baby's room. When he got to the
door, all the emotions he had been trying to forget flooded back to
him. There they were, his daughters crying together, trying to soothe
one another from their grief of a mother lost.
After minutes of staring at them, Luke finally went into the tiny pink
bedroom that Lorelai had decorated herself. He glanced at the rosebud
wallpaper, the same as Rory and Lorelai had had when they lived at the
inn, and the white rocker sitting by the window. She had loved it right
there, she would sit there with Rory for hours and just talk while
staring out the window to the small town. You could barely see Luke's
diner from that window. Every day she would watch him walk home. For a
brief moment, he saw her sitting there in a flowing white dress holding
their baby. She was gone.
Rory sat in Lorelai's rocking chair like she did every night and held
her sister. Some nights she would quietly hum lullabies to her when she
thought Luke was asleep, but he was always right outside the door
listening to her voice for the short time he could, she had a beautiful
voice. It was once so full of opinions and passion for life, now it was
a hollow memory.
Tonight, for the first time in months, Rory spoke. Softly at first,
barely a whisper, and then her tears came flooding through her eyes,
and she began speaking to her sister. She told her about their mother,
and what a strong woman she was, and how she had fought to keep them
both alive. She told her about Luke, their father, and how much she
hated that she could not bring herself to speak to him. He was the only
other person in the universe, who knew her mother as she did, but she
did not want any fond memories, she could not handle it, she just could
not let go. Suddenly, she stopped speaking and sat down, she knew that
her sister would begin to cry as she stopped talking, so she tried to
go on, but her emotions overpowered her. She cried with her sister
until Luke came in and held them both tight. He tried to tell them it
would be ok, but how? She was gone.
After what seemed to be hours Rory and Emily fell asleep in Luke's
protective arms. They had all cried together, Luke had tried to be
strong, but ended up blubbering along with them. They had talked a
little about Lorelai and what had happened. Mostly Luke talked and Rory
nodded along as she drifted off to an uneasy sleep.
Luke sat in silence as his daughters slept. He looked at them with
mixed emotions. They both had so much of Lorelai in them. This warmed
his broken heart and tore him down at the same time. Somehow, this
whole night seemed worse then when he first found she was gone.
He remembered the phone call. She had been late for dinner; he had been
waiting for her call. Finally, it came, but it wasn't Lorelai. Luke
screamed, cried, and drove as fast as he could to the hospital. They
had to be wrong, it was all wrong, it was a terrible dream. It wasn't.
He was too late.
"There was an accident." Those words were burned into his mind, they
replayed over and over. He ran into the hospital and screamed to see
his wife, his one and only love. He was led downstairs. There he saw
her one last time. She was cold, her eyes were closed. She was gone.
He stopped everything. Eating, working, living. He had done this to
her, it was his fault. They had both wanted a child, but he could have
said no, or that he wasn't ready, but he wanted a child. That was the
last thing Lorelai gave him.
Emily started to stir, which drew Luke out of his deep thoughts. He
picked her up and began to sing Lorelai's song to her. "Even the best
fall down sometimes, even the wrong words seem to rhyme, out of the
dark that fills my mind, I somehow find, you and I collide." He had
memorized all the words just because it was Lorelai's favorite song.
They had danced to it at their wedding, Lorelai had sung along, smiling
the whole time. He loved her smile. He closed his eyes and dreamed of
it, and of her. He saw her, smiling and singing their song. Then she
was gone.
Lorelai Victoria Danes-Gilmore shot up in bed and looked over her
shoulder to where her husband was supposed to be. She fell back, hard
and hit her head on the wall, several times. Suddenly, she got up,
pulled on a sweater and shoes, and headed for the door. She pulled up
to the cemetery and walked the all too familiar path to the weeping
willow that sat near the creek. There she fell to her knees and began
to sob.
There he was she could barely see his outline on the horizon. She ran
to him, but he kept moving away from her. Finally she stopped and
screamed the five words she had wanted to scream at him for months.
"It should have been me!"
And he was gone.