[karana]

Chapter 6: Abilities as a mother


For a few awkward moments she just stood in the doorway, her eyes fixed on William’s tear-clouded ones. William looked at her and for some seconds she thought he would come to her. But that would have been too easy. He just buried his face on his father´s flannel covered shoulder again.
The twins, both on Emily´s arm now, held their arms open for her to take them, but she just gave each one a kiss before she walked over to Luke and William.
She stroked over William’s hair, while he still refused to look at her, and kneeled down beside Luke.
“William, I would never leave you! I don´t hate you. I could never hate you. You are my son, my baby-boy, and I love you so much. Will, I know I´ve been an awful mother for you in the past, but I promise you that I will change. I promise that I will have more time for you. I missed you too during this year. William, sweety, look at me please!” Lorelai begged and was surprised when he really lifted his head.
She took his face in her hands and wiped his tears away.
“I love you and I promise you that I will change!” She said again.
“You never keep your promises!” He whispered and sniffed. Lorelai had the urge to run again, just to get out of this situation. Or to cry and Luke would have to soothe her. But she stayed strong.
“This one I will keep. I will spend more time with you, I will be there when you wake up and I will be there when you go to sleep at night. It will be like before, okay?” William just looked at her. That was enough for Lorelai at the moment and she placed a kiss on his forehead, giving him a small smile.
“Should I walk you to school?” She asked him then.
“You are not going to Rory?” William wanted to be reassured.
“I am not going to Rory!” She gave him the reassurance. William nodded once.
“And, what do you say: Should I walk you to school?” She asked him again and hoped for him to forgive her. But again: It wasn´t that easy.
“No daddy!” William said, but stopped crying and looked questioningly at his father.
“Okay,then let´s go!” Luke said and stood up. He placed William on the floor and he ran off to put on his shoes.”We will talk later, okay?” Luke told her and gave her a kiss and a reassuring shoulder squeeze.
“Okay! I will be here the whole day and look after the twins” She told him, which made him smile.
“Really mommy?” Sara asked with her hoarse voice, but still sounded excited.
“Yes, really, my baby!” Lorelai laughed at the excitement of her daughter, but was touched at the same time. She took them both from her mother.
“God, you two are heavy! Put on one more kilo and I will crumble to the floor!” Lorelai joked, but felt lighter than ever. She had a whole week with her kids in front of her. She would have time for them. For them and for Luke. They would need some time to themselves also. But her main focus would lie on William, because the situation as it was, broke her heart.
The girls laughed at Lorelai´s joke, but then had to cough again.
“Oh my poor babies! Did you already take your medicine?” She asked them and they both shook their head no.
Luke just smiled at the scene. This was the way it was supposed to be, Lorelai was home and had time for them, finally. He walked over to where she stood and gave her another kiss, just because he could, just because she was there.
“They want the spoon-airplane for their medicine!” Luke explained to her.
“Ah, good choice! I think the departure will be very soon! You ready?” She asked them and gave Luke another kiss. The girls nodded.
“Mommy, look, I tied my shoe laces all by myself!” William said, still shyly, as if Lorelai could walk away again any second.
“William, you have known how to do that since you were one and a half years old!” Luke said, still smiling.
“Oh shush you! He could have slipped on his sneakers, they have no laces! But he didn´t and chose the ones with laces, which is a great thing!” Lorelai said and winked at William. He gave her a shy smile.
“Can we go?” Luke asked William.
“Yes!” He said and walked over to Emily.
“Bye grandma!” He said and she leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“Bye William! Have a nice day!” She said. William then stood there and had the same look on his face like yesterday: He was thinking about what to do. His forehead was wrinkled, his head slightly tilted to one side, he bit on his upper lip.
For Lorelai it was like the time stood still. He just looked at her and she could hear the wheels turning in his head. Slowly he walked towards her and then held out his right hand. She had to smile at the gesture, set the twins on the floor, took his hand and shook it.
“Bye mommy, have a nice day!” He repeated his grandmother’s sentence.
“Bye sweety. See you later!” She told him and stroked over his brown hair again before he and Luke left.


“Mommy!” the twins started to whine as soon as their father was out of sight.
“What? I think you should take your medicine now, huh? Otherwise the spoon-plane will be flown away and you will stay sick!” Lorelai told them.
“But the spoon-plane isn´t real!” Sara said.
“No? Oh my god, I thought it was!” Lorelai said and faked surprise.
“Take your medicine now, your cocoa is getting cold!” Emily said and by the way she looked at Lorelai, it was clear, that she had some things to say to her daughter.
Lorelai took the twins and gave them both their medicine and they took it without complaining. She used the time during breakfast to catch up on the stories her daughters had to tell.
Afterwards she lay them down on the couch in the living-room, and turned on Willy Wonka for them. Before she walked back into the kitchen she covered them both with a blanket.
“Mommy, where are you going?” Laila asked and sat up when Lorelai wanted to leave the room.
“Into the kitchen, princess” She said and smiled.
“Not to the Inn?” Laila wanted to know.
“No, I´m not going to the Inn.” Lorelai confirmed.
“And not to London?” Sara also sat up.
“No and not to London. I´m staying here with you the whole day. Is that good?”
“Yeah!” Sara smiled and lay back down.
“Mommy?” Laila wasn´t finished.
“Yes princess?”
“Kiss?” She asked shyly. Lorelai walked over to her and kissed her, first on the mouth, then on her forehead. She also gave Sara a kiss before she walked back into the kitchen.


In the kitchen Emily was already waiting for her.
“Lorelai Victoria Gilmore, have you completely lost your mind?” She fumed.
“My last name is Danes mom!” Lorelai pointed out.
“It doesn´t matter if your last name is Gilmore, Danes, or Weasley you are my daughter and are neglecting my grandchildren by running off to London to hold the hand of your twenty-six year old daughter! What were you thinking?” Emily asked.
“I thought that Rory needed me. And she is your grandchild, too! I thought that Luke could look after the kids, because it didn´t matter anymore if I was sitting a whole week at the Inn or flying to London. Where´s the difference?”
“If you can not see it, then I will certainly not point it out for you! Don´t you ever dare to judge my abilities as a mother again after what you did to your children over the last year!” Emily said and it was hard for her to keep her voice down, so that the twins wouldn´t hear every word.
“I failed, I know that. I failed completely as a mother. There is no need to rub my nose in it; my five year old son told me that he hates me and threw me out of his room!” Lorelai said louder than intended and rubbed the tears away, which, beside her efforts, had spilled.
“Well you were three when you first said it, so it took him two years longer. Not pleasant, is it?” Emily said.
“Not pleasant? It broke my heart mom!I want my kids to love me as much as I love them. This is my worst nightmare! I did this to him! I made my own son hate me and I am devastated. I can not stand it when they are looking at me and I all I can see in their eyes is mistrust. The twins were afraid that I might leave them in the living-room and run off to the inn, because that´s what I did the whole last year. They hate me, they all hate me!” Lorelai said and wiped away some more tears.
“They don´t hate you! They just miss you and William is being William, which means he is like you when it comes to those things, wanted to pay you back. Wanted to hurt you as much as you hurt him when you pushed him away.”
“Why didn´t you tell me?”
“Why didn´t I tell you what?”
“What a bad mother I am! You and Luke should have stopped me. You should have locked me in and talked some sense into me. It would have never gone this far.” She said, suddenly angry at her mother and her husband.
“Oh please, Lorelai! I´m surely not the person you would have listened to when it comes to your children. And Luke tried. We got into a fight over it about three months ago. He told me that he tried, but that you are too tired to listen, doing bills while he was talking, just leaving mid talk because the phone rang. You did this, Lorelai, not him. He was here, every day, he called me and asked me for help when he couldn´t take the kids with him to the diner because he was busy or the kids were sick. He never complained about it to me, but I could see that it exhausted him. He had to hire extra help at the Diner to get all the work done somehow. Don´t blame him for your failure!” Emily told her harshly. Lorelai smiled, but it was a sad smile.
“I never thought I would hear you defending Luke some day!” She said.
“He is a good man and an amazing father.” Emily shrugged.
“I know. He is the best. Thanks mom for being here and looking after the kids.”
“It´s okay. But you really have to think about your priorities Lorelai. Don´t make the same mistakes we did!”
“Oh, I thought about them! It had never been clearer than this morning after the call that my priorities are mixed-up.
“Which call are you talking about?” Emily wanted to know and they both sat down on the chairs in front of the counter in the kitchen.
“I called Rory this morning to tell her when I would arrive in London. She was at a party and pretty drunk. She had no idea that she called me yesterday and had begged me to come and be there for her. She was a mess and I promised her to come. So I call her this morning and she has no idea and tells me that everything was just a misunderstanding and she and Logan are fine, no need for me to come. She didn´t even call me yesterday to tell me that they reconciled! She went to party with her friends and just didn´t care that I was worried, booked a flight, whatever.” Lorelai vented.
“She is grown-up. She is an adult now. And she is used to the fact that you always come running to her rescue. Lorelai, it might be good for the two of you that Rory is in London now. It will get you some distance. And if she really needs you, she will come back. As long as she is not standing in front of your door asking for help, it can´t be that bad. Logan will cheat on her again. We both know that. And as long as these two don´t break up for good, she will call again, she will be devastated, but then they will reconcile and you are not needed anymore.”
“You´re right. I know that now. I just have to deal with the consequences of my behavior during the last year and hope that it´s not too late.” Lorelai sighed.
“It´s not too late. There is no such thing, I think we two proved that!” Emily smiled. They were both quiet for some time.
“I never hated you mom.” Lorelai said then.
“Good.” was all Emily said, but gave Lorelai´s hand a squeeze.
“I think I’ll go and check on the twins. Are you staying?” Lorelai asked her then.
“No, I think I will go home and give you some time alone with your children. Are you going to stay home this whole week?”
“I think so. I got the Inn covered, so no need for me to go.”
“Luke told me that he took a break from the diner also to distract the children while you would be away. Since you both are home now for the week and the twins are sick and can´t go to kindergarten anyway,why don´t you go away for some time? You could use the house we bought at Martha´s Vineyard.” Emily proposed.
“I would like that. I will talk with Luke about it and call you!”
“I will hear from you then. Goodbye Lorelai!” Emily smiled.
“Bye Mom and thanks again!” Lorelai smiled back at her mother and went back into the living-room.


TBC