‘Why would she write to you about… kissing?’ Lila gave a little uncertain laugh but everything in Lorelai’s body was too tense to laugh. Even the sound of her mother’s light, breathy giggle set her nerves on edge.
‘Because I wrote her a letter about something and gave it to her the day before she died,’ Lorelai explained carefully and slowly, making sure she didn’t miss a single detail. The last thing she wanted to do was rehash this story again.
‘OK…’ Lila said, just as slowly.
‘It seems that Grandma and I have… had… something in common.’
‘Right.’ Lila nodded along to show she was receiving and processing the information as it came to her.
‘Something I didn’t know we had in common until I found this letter. She must have written it to me before she died, and it got mixed up in her things when we brought them home.’
‘Can I read it?’ Lila reached over but Lorelai pulled the letter back towards her.
‘In a minute. I promise. But I need to be the one to explain.’
Lila’s face creased in concern, and she nodded, encouraging her daughter to continue. This was the moment everything was going to change. Lorelai looked down into her tea and squeezed her eyes shut.
‘I can see the way people are going to die when I kiss them. And Grandma could too. That’s what she told me in the letter,’ she said quickly. It came out in a rush, and the silence that followed was deafening. She so wanted her mother’s approval. Her acceptance. She wanted a warm hand on hers and for her to say, ‘It’s going to be OK.’
Instead, she heard a short, sharp, muffled sniff. Lorelai opened one eye and looked up at her mother warily. Lila was staring at her in shock, her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide. Tears were pooling in the bottom of her eyelids. She looked devastated.Oh no, no, no!Lorelai’s head began to thump.She thinks I’m crazy. This was a mistake. Deep down she had known her mother would never understand. How could she? But Lorelai now realised that a part of her, the small part where a smidgen of hope remained,had expected her mother to be there for her anyway, no matter how far-fetched her words sounded to her. Now, as she took in her mother’s appalled expression, the reality she was facing was more crushing than she could have imagined.
‘You don’t believe me, do you? You think I’m mad. I’m so sorry, Mum. I should never have come here, I should—’
Lila waved her hand for Lorelai to stop, swallowing back her emotion so that she could talk. ‘It’s not that…’ She gulped in between sniffs and swiped her tears away. Her expression cleared. ‘It’s just that… that… well…’ Lila put a hand to her chest and said two little words that changed everything, ‘…me too.’
There was silence. Of all the ways Lorelai had imagined this conversation would go, never in a million years did she expect those two words to come out of her mother’s mouth.
‘What do you mean?’ Lorelai whispered, her voice catching. She had expected to explain, to have to answer a million questions, to spend hours trying to convince her mum she was perfectly sane. She was wrongfooted now, and no plan for what might come next. Lila used her sleeve to wipe away the rest of her tears.
‘I’m saying you and your grandmother aren’t the only ones who can… do that.’ She laughed a laugh that Lorelai recognised as relief. She could feel it too.
‘And you and Grandma never talked about it?’
Lila shook her head and burst into tears once more.
‘I think you need to read this.’ Lorelai slid the letter over to her mother and waited patiently for her to read it as many times as she had to before she felt ready to talk. It didn’t take her long.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she breathed.
‘Youcan’t believe it? I had no idea I came from an apparently very long line of Grim Reapers!’
‘I’m so sorry you’ve suffered in silence for so long. And I can’t believe I didn’t put two and two together. I assumed it would have been more obvious and I would have figured it out if you were the same.’ Lila reached over the table and took her daughter’s hand. Lorelai squeezed back and laughed.
‘I thought I was being super obvious but then again I thought the same about you, too, that if you had the same power, I would have spotted it a mile off. Maybe that’s part of the curse. It makes you feel so isolated that you don’t see how you could all be in it together. That we could have helped each other through it, if we’d just looked past the end of our own noses.’
‘Well, not anymore,’ Lila said, squeezing her daughter’s hand even harder. For the first time in Lorelai’s life she felt like she could accept her mother’s love and affection. Her fears had evaporated entirely. Lila couldn’t reject her because they were one and the same. Peas in a pod. An apple fallen from a very nearby tree.
‘Why did you never say anything? To Grandma?’ Lorelai’s brain was itching with questions.
‘Me?’ Lila squeezed Lorelai’s hand then opened it and began to trace the lines on her palm with her finger. ‘Why didn’t she say anything to me?’
‘For the same reason you didn’t say anything to me, and I never said anything to you!’ Lorelai would have felt frustrated if the relief washing through her wasn’t so soothing.
‘This explains so much.’
Lila sat back in her chair, her gaze drifting away from herdaughter. Lorelai knew what she was doing, because she was doing the same – Lila was reliving all those moments with her own mother that must have left Lila feeling confused, and all the times her mother got too close to the truth so Lila had pushed her away.
Lorelai ached for her mother. She was still here, Lorelai could talk to her mother about this now, but Lila’s mother was gone. How must it feel to find out they had this hugely important thing in common now, when it was too late to talk to Sylvia about it? Lorelai was so grateful that she could have this conversation now so she could begin to mend what had been so broken for so many years.
