Luke's Daughters

Chapter One

Lorelai

Rory was coming home for the weekend to visit Luke and me, so I took the afternoon off from work to be here when she arrived. I had already cleaned the living room, the bathroom and the kitchen and made her bed. Luke would bring home dinner later, so the only thing missing now was my daughter. I was currently standing in the living room teaching Paul Anka some new tricks, when I heard the front door open.

"Hello? Rory, is that you already?" I called. "I thought you wouldn't be home for another hour." My only answer was the door being slammed shut. "Okay, looks like someone is in a great mood. What happened, Miss Crankypants? Someone ..." I broke off when instead of seeing my daughter coming into the room, I saw my very distressed looking husband. "Hey, hun. What's the matter? Caesar singing on the table again?" I joked tentatively.

"I have a daughter," he simply said.

"I know, hun." I was getting a bit worried now. "I gave birth to her. Her name's Lorelai as well, Rory for short. She's about yea high, has long brown hair, blue eyes, overall looks a lot like me. But she's been your daughter for two years now. Unofficially for over ten years. Remember?" I started rambling as I always did when I didn't know what else to do.

"No, I mean yes. Of course, I know about Rory," he started to explain. "What I meant to say is, I have another daughter."

I started to say something, but quickly shut my mouth. I was completely and utterly speechless which was not a common occurrence for me. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and tried again. "You ... have a daughter? Like ... a real daughter? One that is half yours and half some other woman's?"

"Yeah ..." was all he said. He looked like he wanted to say so much more but didn't know where to start.

"How? When? Who? Where? Why?" I asked. "Okay, skip the how. I remember how that works. But ... the rest please."

"I'm a bit rough on the details myself," he started rambling and pacing through the room. "I just found out 15 minutes ago, then she left, then I fried the burgers, flipped the fries, realized I couldn't concentrate anymore, put Caesar in charge and came straight here."

"Okay, I think you got things a little backwards there, buddy." I couldn't help a small laugh from escaping me. I patted the space on the couch next to me and he sat down. "Just start from the beginning."

Luke took a deep breath and did as I asked. "I was working in the diner like always when suddenly a teenage girl comes in and sits down at the counter – in your usual spot by the way, that's why I noticed. The place was packed, so I had to take care of some other customers first before I went to take her order. Instead of telling me what she wanted to eat, she asked whether I was the owner, Luke Danes. She wanted to talk privately, so I told her to go up to the office and wait until I took care of the other customers. I went up there and, long story short, she told me she was my daughter ..." he paused and looked at me.

There were billions of questions coursing through my brain, but I decided to keep it simple for now. No need to overwhelm him even more than he already was. "What's her name?" I asked softly.

He looked at me gratefully. Finally a question he could answer. "April. April Nardini. Her mother is ..."

"Anna Nardini." I concluded. "You told me about her. Did you ..."

"No, I had no clue. Anna never told me a thing. That's also what I told April, but she knew that already. Her mother never told her much about me either, until lately."

"Then how ...?" I asked.

"She just kept asking until Anna couldn't not tell her anymore."

"Why did she ...?" I started again.