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“Hey, Jess.”
“Hi.” He swallowed hard right after he said it, still feeling strange on hearing his mother greet him with genuine joy and a clarity she rarely if ever possessed when he was growing up. “You okay?” he said into the phone then.
“Oh, my beautiful boy, I am so much more than okay!” she told him happily. “Son, you got yourself a sister.”
He smiled as he genuinely told her, “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. You gonna come see her?” Liz asked him. “She’s beautiful, Jess, really beautiful.”
“Yeah, well, that runs in the family, right?” he replied, immediately face-palming at his own dumb semi-joke. “Uh, I don’t know when I’ll be able to come visit. Things are pretty crazy here.”
“Really?” she checked, calling him out the way he ought to have known she would, the way he deserved to be called out in the circumstances. “Oh, or is this a Rory thing?”
“What? No,” he told her fast, clearing his throat too much and he knew it. “There is no Rory thing, Liz.” A voice in his head, not sounding unlike Rory Gilmore herself, taunted him with ‘Big fat liar,’ and he couldn’t even say that voice was wrong.
“That’s not what I heard,” said his mother, heaving a gentle sigh. “Jess, I know I wasn’t always the world’s greatest mother - believe me, I know - but you can talk to me, y’know? Things are different now.”
“I know,” he told her, more softly than he meant to, because he knew how true it was, how serious she was about building bridges and doing better. Only an asshole would tell her it was too little, too late. “So, what did you name this sister of mine?”
He braced accordingly, glad that he had when he heard her answer.
“Doula.”
“Huh.”
“You hate it.”
“No. Why would I hate it?”
“Well, you never liked your own name, so....”
Jess shook his head, even though she couldn’t see him. “Only when the other kids were saying it was short for Jessica.”
“Yeah, I remember that.” He could hear the regret in her voice, the wincing expression on her face. “I’m so sorry, honey.”
“For my name?”
Liz sighed more heavily that time. “For a lot of things.”
“Yeah. Me too.” The silence that followed was not as uncomfortable as it could have been, the space between them filling up with something not unlike understanding, maybe even a little forgiveness, on both sides. “So,” he said eventually, “I’ll try to come visit soon, okay?”
The smile on Liz’s face was a mile wide, he just knew it when he heard her say, “Thank you, baby boy. I appreciate that.”
That made him smile too. “I should go,” he told her anyway, because it was actually true. “Like I said, kind of busy here, so...”
“Okay. Bye, Jess.”
“Uh, hey, Liz?” he called, before she could entirely hang up.
“Yeah?”
He opened and closed his mouth twice before the right words came to mind, and even then, he couldn’t seem to say them with his eyes open, despite being alone. “This one’s going to be different. Just because you and me had tough times, and I turned out... well, how I turned out, this’ll be different. You are different.”
It was true. He wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t. Liz had to know that. In his family, they didn’t really sugar-coat or futz around. They said what they meant to say, good or bad, regardless of the consequences. For once, it was actually nice to have something positive to say to her and be able to mean it so honestly.
“Thank you, baby,” said Liz in his ear, soft and sweet as a mom should be. “And y’know, Jess, you turned out just fine,” she assured him, “better than any kid of mine should have, in those circumstances. You made something of your life, and even though I didn’t exactly help, I am so, so proud of you.”
Jess wasn’t much of a crier, even in the toughest times, but suddenly the tears were brimming in his eyes, the lump in his throat so wide he had no idea how to swallow around it. There were no words. In fact, he could hardly breathe.
“Jess?” Liz prompted, clearly concerned over his silence. “You still there?”
“Yeah,” he assured her, swallowing very hard. “And thanks, Mom.”
The little sound from the other end of the line was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “You haven’t called me that in... I don’t even know how long.”
“Yeah, well, you just became a mother all over again,” he said softly. “Make it count.”
“I promise I will,” she swore faithfully, more so than any of her previous vows to give up the booze, the drugs, and more. “And my baby Doula cannot wait to meet her big brother, can you, sweetheart?” she asked the baby who must have been nearby.
Jess smiled in spite of himself, picturing the unlikely scene. “Big brother can’t wait to meet her either. Uh, if I move a few things around, I can maybe make it to Stars Hollow this weekend.”
“That would be so great!” Liz enthused.
It would be worth the effort, Jess was sure. “Okay. I’ll see you then.”
“I love you.”
“Yeah.” Jess sighed into his truthful reply, “Me too.”