51

                                    

                                          
Celeste was up earlier than the rest, having gone to bed early, and in the morning been driven out of bed by her bladder, she now felt like her body needed a change of positions, no matter how appealing the idea of curling up in Jess' arms might have seemed. Hence she went downstairs to get herself a cup of lemon grass tea and perhaps do something producive with her morning. To her surprise, she found Lorelai sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, and by the stories she'd heard, Lorelai was the last person she'd expected to see up this early.
"Good morning," Celeste greeted, wrapping her robe a little tighter around her body, having not expected to see anyone.
"Hey," Lorelai said in a weak voice. She looked tired. "The room was lovely, thank you," she added.
"You're up early," Celeste noted, putting the already warm water to boil again, and getting her cup and tea out of the cupboard.
"Yeah, I woke up and then couldn't get back to sleep," she explained, swirling her coffee in her cup.
"I'm sorry," Celeste replied. "Do you want some breakfast?" she asked, pouring hot water into her cup.
"I'm good right now, the guys will be up soon enough, I better let them make it," she added in a slightly humorous tone, trying to appear cheerier that she clearly felt.
"I was thinking of going up to the nursery to unpack some stuff. Do you want to join me?" she said, as she allowed her tea to brew a few moments before lifting the tea net out of her cup. If they weren't going to eat, she might as well do what she would've done otherwise, adding some activity to their awkward dialogue.
"Sure," she agreed and trailed after her with her coffee cup in hand.
The nursery was beginning to look more and more like a real nursery, the abstract flower pattern now across one wall, the rest white, a super soft light grey carpet on the floor. They'd chosen white furniture with some wooden accents. She had bought a rocking armchair and as the room was rather large, having previously been two rooms, instead of one, added also a small pink velvet couch, changing table and a wide dresser, leaving still plenty of room for toys.
"It looks adorable," Lorelai said, as she glanced around. She couldn't help but to feel a little emotional when it came to nurseries like this - this was something she'd never been able to offer Rory, excluding what her own mother had set up for her, and having missed her second chance at this and now being distanced from Finny, it stung a little.
"Thank you. I've gone a little overboard with this, I know," she admitted, taking a few totes of clothes she'd been meaning to untag and put into the wash.
"Anything I can help with?" Lorelai asked. While she missed having this for her - or for Rory, this felt almost as nice.
"You really don't have to, but if you want you can unwrap that diaper bag and those items over there," she said gesturing towards the corner.
"You're probably wondering if I talked to Rory?" Celeste began after a while. She didn't really need to reply, she could read the reply in her face, Lorelai having gone all quiet. "Well I did, but I'm sorry that I don't have anything positive to tell you. She seems to believe that it is in her best interest to limit contact, she fears your judgement - your opinions and it's not helping you that her therapist seems to agree that this is the best course of action," Celeste explained.
"Yeah, I figured as much," she sniffled, getting a paper napkin from her jeans pocket.
"For what it's worth, I do think it'll get better - she just has so much going on right now, this entire year. Once things settle - I think she'll start to see it again - how important a mother can be," Celeste explained.