A/N Reviews are coffee to the soul. I love my beta's. Stellaluna is wonderful and keeps me posting. Iscah is Pizza, really really good pizza with homemade sauce, fresh ingredients and really stringy mozzarella cheese made in a fire oven. Reviews are coffee to the soul.
It may be that the DNA of fiction is, like our own DNA, a double helix, a two-stranded beast. One strand is born of what writers have experienced. The other is born of what writers wish to experience, of the impulse to write in order to know."
—Mohsin Hamid
Jess paced back and forth, his relentless trek threatening the integrity of the floorboards in the apartment above the diner. The cigarette between his fingers was his third in less than twenty minutes, and he sucked down the smoke so assiduously the nicotine burned his lungs—but it was a pain he needed to feel at this moment. Bitterness still hung in the air, the echo of Liz's tears, her yelled screeching, his answering thunder, it all weighed on his shoulders.
Any minute now Luke would knock on the door and demand to know why his mother ran out of the diner crying—and why the entire town of Stars Hollow was buzzing in ominous whispers about the noise coming from the diner.
He would probably hear from TJ, pretending to be a dad, trying to get him to talk to his mother. Jess was beyond caring. He was used to Liz painting him as the bad son. It was just plain easy to put on the black hat both his mother and Stars Hollow saw him in and ride out of town. But he wasn't going to skulk.
Liz could treat him like he was a child who had misbehaved. He was nothing of the kind. And he'd done nothing of the kind. He packed his bag swiftly and left the diner before he said anything he would regret later.
Deliberately without a backward glance, Jess drove out of Stars Hollow and onto the main highway towards Hartford. While he packed he'd texted Matt to ask him if he could stay with him at the hotel for the rest of the night but didn't elaborate on why he was no longer staying with his Uncle. Luckily for Jess, Matt didn't press the issue.
He was running. He knew he was running and he didn't care.
Earlier That Day...
"You're late," Jess said after April parked her bike.
She rolled her eyes. "Seriously, it takes time to get here on a bike—and not a motorbike, I'm actually using my legs—and it's not like my bike is made for racing..."
"Are we going?" Jess asked with a smirk.
"I reserved a lane for us."
"Well then, let's go," Jess said, heading for the door.
Appraising the place as they entered the somewhat dilapidated bowling alley, Jess stuck out his lower lip and let his eyes roam. The noise level—between people's conversation, the clattering of balls and pins, and the competing music and sound effects from the various arcade games installed in an adjoining room—was louder than he'd anticipated.
"Busy," he commented succinctly.
"Be glad it's not Rock 'n' Bowl," April answered with something of a warning look.
"It's not what?"
"Once a month they have a night where they blare rock music while everyone plays. It's always packed and they crank the music so loud you have to practically scream to have a conversation."
Jess nodded. "Doesn't sound half bad," he remarked, "at least if the music's any good."
April shrugged.
After a brief conversation about the bacteria in bowling shoes and the sizes of people's feet, and another about nicknames, pseudonyms and aliases, the game began. They were both terrible bowlers and ended up in the gutter more times than not. Mostly, they continued to make idle chit-chat in between grimacing at the scoreboard. She told him about her latest science project and a camp she wanted to go to over the summer. He offered to help her with some repairs on her bike when she said she had to borrow one from her cousin because hers was doing something weird when she went to downshift.
April had just bowled her third gutter ball in a row when she was tapped on the shoulder.
"April? Is that you?" asked a girl who looked at least fifteen. She had long, blonde hair tied in a perfect ponytail, and wore cargo pants with a slinky black tank top, despite the January Connecticut chill. To complete her look, she had a black velvet choker adorned with a burnished cross, dangly earrings that sparked, and silver bangles on both wrists that tinkled like wind chimes at every gesture. Her thick eyeliner came to sharp cat-eye points, her lipstick was almost blindingly red, and her fingernails were manicured with rhinestones.
"Trish!" April exclaimed.
"What are you doing here?" the girl, whose name was evidently Trish, asked excitedly. "And who's this?" she added, looking Jess up and down in a way that made alarm bells clang loudly in his head, though he was careful not to change expression.
"That's Jess, my brother," April answered, following her friend's gaze.
"Brother?" Trish repeated, with a touch of a frown. Then her eyes lit up. "The science project! Nice to finally meet you."
"Trish!" called kids from a table nearby the bowling lanes, trying to get her attention.
"Stop by our table - we ordered pizza and everyone will want to meet the long lost brother," she said before walking away.
"Who was that?"
"Trish, she's in my class."
"She's your age?" Jess asked in disbelief.
"She just turned thirteen, and her mother got her makeup and let her get fake nails; and suddenly all the boys are paying attention. I hope it's just a phase because she's a good friend and really good at social studies. She helped me study for a test I forgot about. I got a B but probably would have gotten a C or even lower," she babbled. "That's Sam Tufaro, her latest boyfriend—he's in ninth grade and has an older sister who can drive," April pointed to a wide-eyed boy sitting next to Trish holding her hand awkwardly.
"I didn't need her life story," Jess said with a raised eyebrow.
"She's a good frie—" April turned bright red as another kid turned the corner and sat at their table. "No way," she mouthed. "Act cool," April said nervously, "he's here!" Her last two words came out in an almost terrified whisper.
"What? Who? Are you having a panic attack?"
"That's Freddie Glaspy, he's friends with Sam," April said of the new boy who sat at the table. "He's an eighth-grader. You have to come to their table with me," she insisted in a strange tone. "We haven't eaten lunch; I think we can hardly call this actual bowling. Besides that, we only have one frame left."
"No." His expression was as blank as the tone with which he uttered the single syllable.
"Jess, come on! Trish wanted to meet you," she said, her tongue moving quickly, along with her thoughts, "and lunch is on me."
"I just met her," Jess pointed out.
"But everyone else..."
"I'm not going over there to be your science project," he sighed, not liking to disappoint April, but unwilling to let people treat him like some kind of sideshow act, and uncomfortable that she wanted to join a table with someone who had clearly triggered an adverse reaction.
"You won't be," April insisted. "Trish just knows about it because I did some of the internet research at her house. The rest of them will be completely cool."
"Fine," he conceded reluctantly, being anything but sure about how cool April's schoolmates were going to be, "we'll eat lunch here if you're paying," he added, having seen the arm and a leg the place charged for junk food, "after you throw your last gutter ball."
When she had thrown the ball, a weirdly careless strike, they made their way to the snack counter and ordered food. Jess sat down at a nearby table while April paid.
There was a text message from Rory waiting for him:
"Hey Lane said I just missed you at the diner. She asked who the girl was. I wasn't sure what to say about April or if you wanted me talking about her."
"Tell Lane she's my sister and it's a long story," he wrote back. "I'm currently sitting in the middle of junior high drama. I didn't like this stuff then. It's worse now. And April's friend is giving me the weirdest look... I think she's trying to flirt with me."
"I don't even know how to respond to that...except to say you made my day. And I'll see you on Sunday at my place. Do you need directions?"
"I'll see you Sunday around noon and I have directions."
"He's 21? That's so cool," Trish was saying with wide-eyed wonderment, snapping Jess out of his texting conversation with Rory. Unnerved, he wondered if she'd taken her eyes off him since he'd sat down.
"Hey Nardini, you should see if he can chaperone our dance for Valentine's day," the boy that caused April's earlier reaction spoke above the general hubbub.
"He's not gonna spike the punch for you," Trish called back across the table with a laugh.
"He doesn't need to," Freddie shot back. "He's an adult, but still cool, you know. You're not really an adult-adult when you're twenty-one," he observed as if well versed in the realms of quasi-adulthood. "You should ask him, Nardini."
The way this kid looked at April curled the hair on the back of Jess' neck. The way he spoke her name made him queasy, and Jess had a sudden, desperate urge to punch the kid in the stomach. He wanted to wipe the stupid smirk off his preteen face. Most importantly, he wanted to get April out of the room and away from this little punk, asap.
"And what, exactly, are chaperones authorized to do at a Valentine's Day dance, if students are breaking the rules?" Jess asked, looking Freddie straight in the eye and straightening himself to his full height on the flimsy bench, with the air of somebody who could mistake the role of chaperone for that of a bouncer.
Freddie got quiet.
April stared at the table in front of her, looking mortified.
When their order number was called, Jess asked for the food to go. "We gotta go," he said to April. "Your mom wants you home," he muttered quickly, "we can eat in the car."
"Seriously, did you have to do that in front of them?" she asked as they walked out the door.
"Yes, I seriously did," he mocked. "That kid is an idiot."
She rolled her eyes and ignored him the entire way home. When he parked the car behind the diner, Jess got out. She… sat in her seat.
"Are you coming?" he asked, a tinge of worry in his voice.
"You embarrassed me," she said, her anger having grown in the time they were in the car. "I really like Freddie—"
"He's a moron…"
"And you just dismissed him."
"Because he's a moron," Jess repeated abruptly. "Most boys are for at least the next ten years."
"That makes you a moron."
"Never claimed it didn't."
"So, I guess it takes one to know one," she shot back, getting out of the car.
They walked into the diner; Luke and Lane were serving customers. "Hey, you two," Luke greeted them. "You want something? A milkshake?"
"Yes please," April answered, forcing a closed-lipped smile.
"Coming up," Luke smiled at the girl.
April sat down at the counter, pointedly ignoring her brother as he sat down on the stool beside her, leaning forward to peer into the kitchen, then turning to look behind her as the bell chimed.
Lorelai and Rory came through the door and exchanged glances, seeing the two occupants of the barstools they frequently occupied. Sitting down next to April, Lorelai took on her usual effortless charisma. "You must be April," she said. "I'm Lorelai, Luke's fiancee."
"It's nice to officially meet you," the young girl replied cordially.
"So," Lorelai smiled, "How was your afternoon?"
"Good, until Jess embarrassed me in front of my friends," April spoke darkly.
"I didn't embarrass you, that punk is trouble."
Lorelai choked on a laugh. Coming out of it, she raised her eyes in time to see Luke giving her the same pointed look she was shooting in his direction.
"...little creep…" Jess muttered under his breath.
"He got caught up in middle school drama," Rory cut in, a mischievous grin playing on her lips.
"I would have paid good money to see that," Luke said before Jess could even open his mouth.
Instead of protesting, he just rolled his eyes.
Doris said there was no right way to do this.
There was no book on the proper procedure to follow upon discovering you have a long lost sister, courtesy of the man who never had the guts to be a father to either of you.
For that matter, there also was no chapter detailing how your mother—who was no relation to this newfound sister—fit into the whole mess. Then again, there had never been a chapter in any book Jess had ever read that gave him a clue what to do when it came to Liz.
No book Jess had ever seen went into the responsibilities you do or don't have to said newfound sister, and both whether and how to integrate your life with hers.
There was a very wise philosophy Jess had often come across in the writing world: If you can't find the book you want on the shelf—write it yourself (paraphrased from a quote by someone famous who probably ripped it off someone else). And so, since 'Long-lost-sister Discovering' was one such gap in the universal library, and since by the time all of this was over and he had that infamous 20/20 hindsight, he would be one of the few people equipped to write it, he started mapping out the prospective book in question:
Chapter 1 - Impromptu Hair Removal
Chapter 2 - Introduction to the Fine Art of Exploratory Genetics
Chapter 3 - Emotional Archaeology and Its Minefields
Chapter 4 - Sidewalk Levelling and Other Tasks That Involve Smoothing Things Over
Chapter 5 - Attempting to Throw Heavy Spherical Objects at Light Cylindrical Objects, But Instead Getting Hit On by Underage Girls Who Discover Their Friend Has an Older Brother and Making Veiled Threats to 14-year-old Punks Because You Suddenly Discover the Big Brother Gene Hasn't Skipped You After All (that one would need some cutting down)
Chapter 6 - The Dreaded Call Itself
...He knew she'd eventually ask. He'd seen that one coming since the moment it was confirmed that Jimmy was indeed April's father. He'd even tried to mentally prepare for it, figure out how to act as a buffer between estranged father and daughter so that Jimmy's cluelessness wouldn't wound April any more than was inevitable.
He certainly hadn't seen it coming that night, though. As far as he knew, she was still mad at him for embarrassing her in front of the guy she liked. But, just after Luke closed the diner so he and Lorelai could take off to go to a tux fitting, she made the request he'd been dreading from nearly the moment they met.
Somehow he'd never foreseen her asking him to make the call in front of her. He had a hard enough time talking to people on the phone just in everyday, run-of-the-mill life. Talking on the phone in front of people was harrowing. Talking to the father who'd been absent most of his life, in front of the sister he didn't know till recently he even had, to tell his dad that he had a daughter twelve years ago that nobody bothered to tell him about? ...this was the stuff nightmares were made of.
But, he'd promised himself that when the time came, he'd be there for her. And, apparently, the time had come.
"So, can you call right now?" April asked, moving toward the upstairs phone as if to hand it to him.
"Wait," Jess stopped her. "Before I do this, why now? Did something happen with your mom?" He knew she'd taken a phone call outside a few minutes before, and that she'd looked unsettled when she came in. So... logical deductions.
April didn't meet his eye or speak for a few moments, "No, it's not that. She's fine. We're fine…" she paused again. "My uncle is moving away, he got a job at another lab and...there's this father/daughter dance that I usually go to with him, but he can't make it. And I could bring a number of other people; but why do I always have a different date and my friends get to bring the same dad every time?"
Jess drew in a deep breath and nodded. He'd lived through those supposed-to-be-with-dad moments his whole childhood, only without any kind of decent substitution. He knew how they played with your head.
He closed his eyes, trying to formulate words to say into the telephone… "Okay," he finally said with resolve and picked up the receiver. He fumbled with the rotary dial, but placed the call, all the same, listening to the mechanical ringing for several seconds. Much to his relief, neither Jimmy, Sasha, or, god forbid, Lily answered; so he left a message. "Hey, it's Jess. Um, I'm… calling for Jimmy, so… uh, give me a call back," he swallowed and took a breath, "...or have Jimmy give me a call back if you're not...Jimmy… when you get this… obviously…" Jess hung up before he could ramble and sound like an idiot any further.
"Sorry, they're not home," he'd said quietly and redundantly after he'd set the phone into its cradle. It was a thing to say. And, ironically, he had to say look on April's face was killing him.
"Okay." Her chin quivered as she took deep breaths, unable to mask her disappointment. "Thank you." She paused. "I should... go home… I guess." Her voice had been skirting the breaking point, and her eyes were welling up.
"Hey, April," Jess said, stopping her before she could reach the stairs, "I'll talk to him. He should know who you are. He probably always should have."
"Thanks," she smiled at him through the brink of tears, hardly able to get the words out, "... and I won't… tell my mother you said that… even though I said the same thing."
"He'll call back," he assured her. "He usually does in a few days."
"I'm gonna go get my stuff," April said, swiping at her eyes, forcing a brave face, and leaving the room.
"Okay, I'll be down in a minute," he answered, though he wasn't sure if she heard him.
Jess closed his eyes and took three slow, deep breaths. When he opened his eyes again, he wanted a cigarette… badly. He fished around for his lighter and the pack he knew was in his computer bag.
He hadn't smoked in Luke's apartment since his first night in Stars Hollow, and he'd honestly only done it then to piss Luke off… or, more accurately, to see what he could get away with in his new living quarters. Stressed or not, he now opened a window and leaned as far outward as he dared before taking a drag, making a mental note to clean the apartment.
He only smoked half of it. Well aware that April was waiting for him, he stubbed out the end, and went downstairs. His heart stopped at the voices he heard behind the curtain.
"Are you related to my brother? I've been meeting so much of his family. None of them are connected to my dad though, just his family."
"Whose family?" Another female voice - Liz's voice.
"Sorry, I'm still getting the hang of trying to explain it. My brother's uncle owns the diner, and then there's his fiancee, Lorelai, and her daughter, Rory," came April's voice.
"Your...?" Liz asked, her voice strained.
Jess opened the curtain to find April behind the counter, with Liz on the other side, "Brother," Jess supplied.
"Brother…?" Liz questioned, looking back and forth from Jess to April. "That's... impossible… because I'm...not…" Her brow furrowed together, uncomprehendingly, and she looked like she was going to be sick.
"Mom... this is Jimmy's daughter, April Nardini," Jess said softly. "I thought you weren't gonna be home?"
"I wanted to surprise you," Liz said hollowly, unable to take her eyes off April. "I thought we'd go to dinner or something."
"Let's talk privately," Jess insisted in a low voice, stomach clenching, never certain what level of hysterical might strike his mother at the worst possible moment. Taking the opportunity afforded him by her dumbfounded state, he guided her by the shoulders, leading her back up the stairs.
When the door was closed behind them, he spoke. "She contacted me a few months ago."
"And this is for sure? Jimmy's kid?" she asked, incredulous.
"Yeah, it is."
"How did she find you?"
"It's a long story," he answered.
"So tell me," she emphasized, eyes pressing.
He summarized the history of the plucked out hair, the guys, the diary, and the picture. He told her about the science fair.
Liz glared at him, frozen, motionless, while her son told her about the existence of this other person who vaguely looked like her ex-husband and was connected by blood to her son.
Jess tried to think of a time he'd seen Liz sober when she'd kept her mouth shut that long at a stretch. Not a single memory. He knew the glint of anger in her eyes, though.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Liz finally asked, voice hard, accusing, hurt.
"I was processing the whole thing," he hurried to answer, while mentally assessing the real reason. The big reason. "I couldn't possibly tell you before Jimmy knew. He doesn't know he has another kid! How could I possibly?"
"Oh, so now you're worried about Jimmy," she snapped. "Funny. He never worried about you!"
Jess drew a breath and swallowed the blow. It wasn't like he didn't expect below-the-belt from her.
"And, you know what? Bullshit! Luke knows! Lorelai knows. Apparently, even Rory knows! But, god forbid you should tell your own mother!"
He held up his hand in a gesture he hoped would make Liz lower her voice. "You're his ex!" Jess countered. Can you yell quietly? Because right now that was what Jess was aiming for - yelling quietly. "Are you telling me, freaking honestly, that it's all fine and dandy that a guy finds out he has a 12-year-old daughter AFTER his ex-wife has been alerted to the fact? 'Cause, I'm thinking that he's gonna care a little less that his ex-wife's brother's fiancee's daughter knows!"
A knock came at the door and Jess was grateful that he'd had the sense to err on the side of quietly, rather than on the side of just plain yelling. Hopefully, his voice hadn't carried through the door...in full sentences at least.
"Jess, my mom is here," April called in a tone that made him worry about that judgment call. "I told her you were talking to your mom. She'd really like to meet you."
"Down in a second," Jess responded before Liz had the opportunity. "You don't have to come," he told her, dropping his voice a couple of decibels once he heard April's steps descending the stairs. "I'll make up an excuse."
"No, don't," Liz said, heaving a sigh. "This is a lot to take in, but I would like to meet the mother of my ex-husband's child."
Jess shot her a look.
"I'll keep my claws in."
He breathed deeply again, then mumbled, "Please god tell me that you're capable."
The meeting was quick. April and Jess stood in the background as Liz shook hands with Anna and they chatted. Anna apologized on behalf of April for prying into her life.
"Prying into my life?" Liz was still smiling, but her forehead furrowed at this and Jess' stomach knotted.
He opened his mouth in an attempt to make a pacifying explanation; but Anna answered the question before Jess got the opportunity.
Liz was surprisingly gracious and accepting to Anna and April.
After Jess helped load April's bike into the back of the car (he made sure Anna came with - no way was he taking the chance of leaving her and Liz in an empty room together), mother and daughter said their goodbyes and drove off.
Jess walked back into the diner and Liz's eyes were filled with fire.
"How could you?" she said in a low rumble, voice tremoring as if the words were curdled in her throat. "How could you embrace that demon of a kid after she dug through all the trash she could find about my life just to get to what she wanted? How dare you keep her secrets from me, that little snake in the grass HYPOCRITE!"
"Stop it," Jess ordered, not without volume, but without inflection.
"Oh, you love her now. She's your family. Protect her." Liz's eyes flashed.
"She's a kid! She's a 12-year-old little girl who wanted to know who her Dad was. She didn't have some kind of evil plan. She did nothing - to you."
Liz spat out a laugh.
"She just waltzed into your life - my son - trying to poison you against me so you would trade me in for her and her bitch of a mother! She did this after spying into my personal business and literally PUBLISHING it for anyone to see!"
Jess' eyes squinted to slits. "Of all the paranoid, narcissistic-"
"You SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"
"And you WONDER why I didn't TELL YOU about this?!" Jess hurled back. "Do you HEAR YOURSELF? Do you HEAR how crazy you sound right now?"
"She admitted to it! She and her mother both admitted to it - even pretended to apologize for it!" Liz panted from the exertion of shouting and the effects of the vitriol/adrenaline cocktail she'd mixed for herself.
Jess stepped in a sideways circle around his mother, shaking his head and leaning up against the counter. "Admitted to what?" he asked levelly. "To looking through public records that are already out there for anyone to see. To accidentally opening my eyes to potentially vital information that you've been trying to keep from me since I was six years old? Is that what they admitted to?"
"That's not-" Liz began as Jess walked around the counter and poured himself a cold cup of coffee.
"'Cause, yeah…" he drew out. "about...that..."
Her son looked her in the eye sadly and without flinching.
"You were a kid. I was protecting you."
"Whatever you need to tell yourself," Jess muttered.
"I WAS PROTECTING YOU!"
"One day Barry was taking me to school and the next we moved in the middle of the night, and I had no idea why, and I never saw him again. Thank god. But, what if I had? What if he'd showed up at my school? What if he drove up to me when I was walking home one day and told me that you two had made up?"
"He wasn't going to do that," Liz said with deliberate steadiness, staring to one side at some of the diner's tables and chairs.
"What's the point in a restraining order if he wasn't going to do that?"
She talked faster. "The point is that I was the mother, and I was protecting you from knowing about any of that. I was giving you a safe childhood-"
"-please-"
"-a safe childhood. I was the one who put bread on the table and clothes on your back. And-"
"-here we go-"
"And all you ever did was-"
"-make your life miserable," Jess finished for her, tiredly. "Go ahead, say it. Why not? We haven't had this argument in a long time. Tell me how I caused all the problems in your life. You've completely derailed the original subject; so why not go ahead and say how miserable I made you, and what a great mom you were to me. Tell me how terrible I was. How impossible I was to manage. How you patiently struggled for sixteen years with a total screw up before you finally faced reality and sent me away-"
Liz cut in, "And it was the best thing to happen..."
"To you!" Jess shouted. "Sending me to live with Luke was the best thing for you. You got sober. You met TJ. You moved back to Stars Hollow. Meanwhile, I've been on my own since I was seventeen."
He scraped his teeth deliberately along his lower lip, absentmindedly flipping through a container of napkins as if it were a deck of cards. "You wanna know why I didn't tell you about April? Because I had this sneaking hunch that you would find a way to make it about you. - HUH - Look at that. You did. Quicker, and on a much grander scale than I ever gave you credit for. It was all an EVIL PLAN to steal my deep affection away from you. To make you look bad. To…"
Jess laughed bitterly and his voice broke, continuing. "Nevermind how finding all this out changed April's life. Her mother's life. How it's going to change Jimmy's life. Don't stop for a second to take into consideration how it made me feel to find out Jimmy left another kid in his wake… or whether it screwed with my mind that he was back on the East Coast making another kid just after we had to run in the middle of the night and secure police protection from my step-dad; and he didn't even bother to, I dunno...look us up...stop by and say, 'Hi, I'm your Dad'... or that for the last twelve years I had a sister the next town over from Stars Hollow...that I missed those twelve years because I didn't even know she existed. Don't worry about whether I'll crack up trying to figure out how to tell Jimmy he's got a daughter without letting Jimmy hurt… that daughter."
"I-" Liz began.
"No, seriously. Don't worry about it," Jess halted her words with a gesture. "Luke's got it covered. You don't have to care. Just do what you do best: Worry about what's best for you. You don't have to care. Just do what you do best: Worry about what's best for you. "
He didn't see it coming until it was too late, her open hand making contact with his face. The CRACK of it echoed in his ears. He could see tears staining her cheeks as she ran out of the room. He touched his face where her hand had just been, it still felt warm. He closed his eyes, hoping to disappear at that moment. He climbed the stairs numbly, blindly… reached where the window sill ought to be for the unfinished cigarette and re-lit it, inhaling deeply as the smoke infiltrated his lungs.
"