Gemma made a sound that was half a laugh and half something else.

And then Lorelai broke, all at once, the way a dam goes, and came forward and hit him around the neck, and Gemma was a half-second behind her, and he got both of them against his chest and put his face down into their hair and held on, and for a while nobody in that room said anything at all.

Over their shoulders he found Rosamund.

She had stepped back to give them the space, and she had her hand over her mouth, and she was crying without any sound, which he understood by then was a thing that happened in this house.