September 2000
61 South Fairway Drive, Hartford
18:25
IT WAS always easier with Harrison.
The house never felt so big when I had him beside me. My arm linked through his, fingers curling over his bicep, squeezing so hard I'm pretty sure I left bruises. He always wore long sleeves so I never actually saw any hand marks, always too cold in a house that was warmed solely by fireplaces he couldn't stand the smell of. He always wanted to install central heating. I should have let him.
I raise my wrist to catch sight of the time on my watch. Six twenty-five. Perfect timing. Or, I'm already five minutes late. Early is on time. On-time is late. Pretty sure my father said that to me once. How old must I have been? Seven? Eight? I'd been coming in to dinner from playing with the next-door neighbours, perfectly on time, forgetting all about the mud trailing in behind me. I've been early to everything ever since.
I know when I ring that doorbell, my mother is going to swing open that door with the hinges that never squeak despite its age and I'm going to have to face her. Like, actually speak to her. And I know, somehow, that all she's going to want to talk about is Harrison. And I'm going to spend the whole of dinner missing him because at least he'd actually be on my side.
I can't keep doing this.
Pressing the doorbell is the hardest thing I've ever done.
It doesn't take long for the door to open and I step into the in-between. My mother helps me slip off my long leather coat, her nose curling up at the sight of it. It's not something she would choose, therefore, it's bad. I think, therefore, I am – that kind of thing. Soon, it is her eyes that are unstripping me, flaying my skin from my bones, figuring out exactly where in my DNA the problems started.
I wish I knew too.
"Your father is through here."
Hello to you too. No worries, I've been perfectly fine all by myself. No, I don't need any help with anything.
She'd just scoff and keep leading me through to the sitting room. She asks about work as she sits me down across from my father, but when I talk about my new classes, I can tell she's not listening. Not when she's too busy picking a stray piece of lint from the shoulder of my white turtleneck. I can almost imagine the disgust on her face. But she turns away to pour champagne before I can spot it.
When did it all start becoming so obvious?
"You're working hard?" my father asks. He doesn't look up from his newspaper. Nobody is exciting enough to make him put it down.
"Yes." I let my hands run over my pencil skirt. Who's idea was it to wear this? Every breath I suck in makes it tighter, and tighter, and tighter. Soon, I'll spill right out of it. Like ink bursting from a pen. "And my students too. All of them work so hard. Paris Geller – you know the Geller's, right? – somehow got hold of my syllabus during the summer and has been studying in preparation. She probably knows more about Riemannian geometry than some guy called Bernhard." I laugh softly at my own joke. Sitting in a room with mathematicians would have at least offered me a laugh, even if it was just out of courtesy. Sitting with my parents, however, offers me stone-cold silence.
My mother hands over my champagne. "She is a very smart girl." I focus on the swirling clear liquid. I don't even think I like champagne, but it's too late now, she's already handed it over and now I have to drink it.
It'll be my only respite throughout this whole night.
The doorbell rings, again. The champagne falters on its way to my lips. My mother definitely never said anything about guests but she never would have prepared for anything less. Somehow this is some sort of an intervention that I've been caught up in, but nobody is filling me in on the facts, just letting me tag along while they hustle their friends into a business deal that makes them look like imbeciles. I'd been at too many of those to count when I was younger, jostled along by my parents so that their friends could all coo about my pretty hair growing longer or my 4.0 GPA that saw me granted Valedictorian of Chilton Preparatory Academy. I was their poster child while Lorelai went rogue, and here I am, even with my own life falling apart, somehow entangled in all of this again.
My mother, poised as always, pushes herself to stand and brushes invisible dust – as if she would allow dust in her home! – off of her grey satin shirt. Every step she takes reminds me of watching a figure skater on television, gliding gracefully across the ice, every step glimmering and gleaming, swirling until it makes me dizzy. She steps out of the room and I'm alone with my father. If it's possible, the air grows even more stifling. I take a few more sips of my martini, unable to hear anything of my mother's greetings except the falsely excited high pitch she puts on to make people more comfortable. The thing is, it doesn't work. It just puts us all on edge. Even now, my back straightens with the knowledge that at any moment she'll enter the room again.
I never used to notice when I did that.
God, why did I divorce Harrison again?
My father barely glances up from his newspaper, but every time he does, I can feel those eyes of his drilling tiny little holes into the armour I've had to build up over my skin. My father has these eyes that are such a deep grey they feel like metal blocks just to try and look at, usually carved into a languid glare that he passes off as uncaring but I know better. I've been made to know better. When those eyes are on you, nothing goes unnoticed.
There is nothing more unnerving than my father.
But don't tell my mother that, she'll turn it into a competition.
"Richard, look who's here."
Their heads all swing towards the young girl being carted into the room by her grandmother. Are you able to feel the tensing of every muscle in your body? You know it's coming, that oddly unnerving storm and yet when it blows in it still manages to take your breath away entirely. Why did I agree to this? Why did I let my mother talk me into having dinner with her and him and them? She knew that I wouldn't be able to say no. I've never been able to say no to my mother.
"Rory! You're tall."
She is. The last time they saw her was Easter, and she's grown a few inches from then, with her hair much longer too. She looks just like her mother. It transports me back to a time I thought I had forgotten, having to watch my big sister leave me behind with nothing but a sneer on her face. Do not try to contact me. I never would have been able to anyway, I had no idea where she lived, what her number was, any of it. All I knew of Lorelai for years was that searing image of her turning her back on me. My big sister – gone.
And here she is, walking in behind her daughter, calling out a greeting to our father. She barely glances at me. Still mad she wasn't invited to the wedding, I guess. Oh well, we all know how that ended. Can't she get over it and let us be sisters again, close confidants or whatever it is we're supposed to be? I have no idea. What are sisters like?
In this household, we're all just people brought together by the blood in our veins.
"Lorelai, your daughter is tall."
My father doesn't seem so surprised to see my sister. Almost as if he saw her just earlier, now somehow used to the way her dark hair bounces around her shoulders. Lorelai's hair has always been longer than mine. An act of rebellion maybe. I was never allowed to grow it past my chin.
What would I look like with hair like Lorelai's? Just like her, I suppose. I hope.
"Oh, I know. It's freakish. We're thinking of having her studied at M.I.T."
We don't laugh and the joke hangs in the air. At least it's not just a me thing. Turns out my parents just don't have a sense of humour, or if they do it doesn't involve mathematics or freakishly tall people.
My mother hands over the last two glasses of champagne and Lorelai notes how fancy it is. Champagne is usually reserved for Christmas day, when we all gather right here in the sitting room and carefully unwrap superficial gifts that feel more like placeholders we hide away in cupboards than a present from someone who raised us.
"Well, it's not every day that I have my girls here for dinner on a day the banks are open." My mother's smile is viciously nostalgic and I take a sip of my champagne to flood away the rising nausea. Somehow, it's all our fault. "A toast. To Rory entering Chilton."
The champagne sprays out of my mouth. I do a quick job of trying to clean it up off of my skirt, but my mother's displeased glare is already piercing through me and even Lorelai looks upset that I would try to ruin this moment for her daughter. Rory's cheeks flush pink. My father's eyes freeze me in place over the top of the newspaper. I used to be at the top of the food chain. Now, I am a maggot barely even on the bottom.
"Sorry." My hands are shaking. "I was just–"
My mother's voice cuts through my own. A knife. Twisting further into the bottom of my spine. I never should have come. "Is something the matter, Leighton?" I shake my head. My knee is bouncing. I want to go home. If Harrison was with me – but he's not. And it's just me against my family, brandishing a sword cut in half while they all have guns.
"No. I just – sorry, was just surprised. I didn't know you'd started at Chilton." I direct the last part at Rory, who flushes as she sits down next to my father, nodding. My mother sits down between Lorelai and I, like a stone wall. It is oddly reminiscent of our childhood, the one true wall we never could break down.
"I start on Monday."
Monday. Two days to go and my niece will be haunting the hallways of my work, a ghost I will never shake off. She might not be in my class, but I will know that everywhere I go, I may turn a corner and find her standing there, watching me. What a horror movie my life has become without me even realising it. I paint on a smile.
"It's hard work but you'll love it. You really have to put your head down."
"My Rory is smart," Lorelai cuts in before anybody gets the chance to breathe. I suck in the sigh that desperately wants to escape me. When did everything I say become wrong? "4.0 GPA, all that kind of stuff. She's gonna go to Harvard. Chilton's basically a daycare."
How I wish that were true.
"Ah, yes. 4.0 GPA and Harvard dreams, just like every other student in my class."
Lorelai side-eyes me, sipping on her champagne. "Rory is different." Sure, she is. She didn't grow up in that kind of environment, constantly pushed to breaking point by a school that cares more about your grades than you. She probably would have been better off staying at Stars Hollow High. But, it's too late, and she's going to stand out like a sore thumb. How long will it take before the boys start calling her Mary?
Everyone's kids are different. Until you throw them into one big vacuum and expect the same results.
I let my eyes focus on the bubbling liquid in my glass instead of arguing. Lorelai never would have lasted ten minutes at Chilton, not because she wasn't academically smart enough – sometimes, I think my sister would have done better than me at school if she was given the chance – but because she caused so much trouble our parents were constantly called to the principal's office. They were far more acquainted with Evergreen Preparatory School than Chilton, to the point that they hardly knew the hallways when it came to parents' evening.
Is that why she wants so desperately for her daughter to do well?
"An education is the most important thing in the world," our mother cuts in, as if it will be enough to satiate the glare Lorelai is trying to burn through me. I refuse to look up from my drink. "Next to family."
"And pie."
Yet again, nobody laughs. Add pie to the list of jokes my parents don't quite understand. I take another sip of champagne. I hate it. I have to drink it. It is all I have and I'm too afraid to ask for anything else. You get what you are given. You should be happy with it.
Silence bears down upon us all. A heavy-handed slap in the face. A room of mirrors forcing us to stare at ourselves and realise the reflection is the person next to us we thought we'd left behind.
The maid calls us through for dinner. The silence doesn't disappear just because we move to another room – actually, it seems to get worse. The salad course goes by too fast. I sit across the table from Lorelai and Rory. My parents are at either end. Beside me is the empty seat that used to be Harrison's, where he would sit and press his leg against the length of mine, always warm in the house heated entirely by fireplaces. How long have I been drowning? He was the only thing keeping me afloat and I let him go.
I cut through the lamb. Maybe I'll call him when I get home – will he even pick up? Will he even want to listen to me? I would just be stuck there, listening to the phone ring, over and over and over again. The minutes would tick by. And he wouldn't pick up. I shove some lamb into my mouth. I don't even like lamb that much – why can't my mother just make roast chicken like a normal person?
Around me, they end up talking about work. The insurance business my father works for. The Independence Inn where Lorelai works. We've already talked about Chilton and nobody here cares enough about the mathematical learnings of bored teenagers to ask me how it's going – as well as it always does, I would say, because nothing in maths changes. Just how I like it. Nothing has to change.
"Speaking of which, Christopher called yesterday."
I take a sip of red wine. At least it's not Harrison.
"Speaking of which? How is that speaking of which?"
"He's doing very well in California. His Internet start-up goes public next month. This could mean big things." My father's eyes switch over to Rory and he grins brightly. Prouder of the man who left behind his granddaughter than the woman who raised her. "Very talented man, your father." They loved Harrison too. They probably still do. Because, even though he got divorced, he didn't leave behind Gehrman-Driscoll Insurance Corporation. How noble of him. "He was always a smart one, that boy. You must take after him."
Lorelai gets to her feet. "Speaking of which, I'm gonna get a coke. Or a knife." I wish I could follow her, and it seems from the way her eyes jump from her grandfather to grandmother, that Rory wishes she could too. If we could all run away would it give us something to talk about?
My mother follows Lorelai into the kitchen five minutes later when it's obvious she's not coming back. Every word can be heard. I hold my breath – it hurts my throat, my lungs, the back of my eyes. It's like being thirteen again, sitting with my father, listening to my mother and sister scream themselves hoarse in the kitchen. Every Friday night, it was a tradition.
Rory glances around. She looks to me, first, for relief. I wish I could help her out, but it is also tradition for my father and me to sit in silence, as if this argument is our after-dinner coffee. Chuck a splash of liquor in it and it might just be digestible through this thick atmosphere.
I take a sip of my wine and watch my father slowly fall asleep. This is how it always happened. We would spend the first half of the argument trying to avoid eye contact, drinking our respective drinks, and trying to ignore the vicious way we were brought into it without even being able to defend ourselves. And then, my father would fall asleep and I would slink away to hide in my father's study until I was called down to eat dessert.
I do the same now. When I get to my feet, Rory's eyes find me, silently pleading for me to stay by her side even though we've never had a conversation without somebody else nearby. I nod to the door and she's quick to follow after me, smiling when I grab the bread basket on our way out. We sneak across the creaky floorboards to the study and close the door behind us, thankful that no doors creak in this household, and we drop down into the two armchairs closest to the long window. I set the bread basket on the small round table between us and we tear bread in our hands and eat it without speaking.
We can't hear the shouting from here.
"What's Chilton like?"
I freeze just as the bread reaches my mouth. Rory stares at me, large blue eyes so round they look just like they did when she was just a baby. So small and perfect in her mother's arms.
"It's gonna be hard. They barely give you time to catch up. Almost every class has a quiz every week, all your essays are like three times longer, and every kid in your class is gonna be vying for an Ivy League spot, so you need to work."
"I will." I nod. Rory tears at the perfectly baked bread in her hands, nibbling at the ends as her thoughts spin around her head. Chilton is hard. But, Rory works harder if what Lorelai says is true.
"You'll be just fine, Rory. You're a Gilmore after all. We always get through."
Rory grins. It's the same sort of smile my father has. It almost closes her eyes, and she tilts her head to the side a bit, so happy just to receive any sort of praise. As a sixteen-year-old, I was the exact same. Aren't all sixteen-year-olds like that? Just waiting for a little drop of praise to inject into their veins and lift them above the crowd. When do they go crashing down?
I push the bread basket a little closer to her.
"Eat up. I don't think we'll be getting dessert."
Rory laughs and grabs a few more pieces of bread. She doesn't feel the need to fill the silence and I let it wash over us, both of us filling up on bread while our mothers tear their throats open to shove knives into their hearts. It is the only way they know how to love. It is the only way any of us know how to love, tearing ourselves apart and handing it over to someone who has no idea how to handle us. I hope Rory is different, raised by a mother who actually wants her, as a friend, as a child, as a part of her that doesn't have to be shown around like a brand new ring that looks good on your finger.
I hope Rory knows that love is not a part of being a Gilmore.