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The judge finished reading Lorelai�s letter and gently placed it back in the file. �This next letter is from one Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, on behalf of Lucas Danes,� she said before taking the second letter and smoothing the paper out. She didn�t miss the flash of surprise in Luke�s eyes. She�d seen that look before. Obviously he hadn�t expected this second Lorelai Gilmore to write a recommendation on his behalf. A quick glance at the mother told the judge that she wasn�t expecting this letter any more than she had expected the first. The judge did have to admit that it was rare that ex-fianc�s rarely wrote letters of recommendation in custody cases, but there was something about the look in the mother�s face that told the judge that she hadn�t expected anyone to want to vouch for the father, that she had expected to come in, say how the father hadn�t been around for the first twelve and a half years, and go home with full custody and two one-way tickets to New Mexico.
To Whom It May Concern,
Luke Danes is a proud man who likes to deal with problems on his own, which is why he only asked one person to write a recommendation for him in this matter. The person he asked, though, was my mother, and so I have taken it upon myself, as someone who loves Luke like a father, to gathering stories and testimonies from all the other children of Stars Hollow that Luke Danes has been a sable father-figure to.
Lane Kim-Van Gerbig was born in Stars Hollow, and she has known Luke all her life, but her first really strong memories of him are when he was working in his father�s hardware store while his father lived out the final months of his life. Lane�s father lives in Korea, and her only uncle is only a few years older than Lane herself, so for a long time Lane didn�t have a male influence in her life except for Luke and William Danes. Every so often Lane�s mother, who runs an antique furniture store out of her house, would send Lane to William�s Hardware for screws or nails or varnish or other furniture-restoring items. These trips were always a really exciting thing for Lane because they were basically the only times she was allowed out of the house unless it was to go to church or if she was with a large group of family members. When Luke�s father died Luke closed the hardware store for a while before turning it into the diner he still runs today. When Lane was eighteen and needed money for food and rent Luke gave her a job at the diner, even humouring Lane when she wanted to do a full interview before he hired her because she wanted it to be a real job that she had worked for. When she found out that she was pregnant with twins Luke made sure that she didn�t lift anything heavy, setting slightly over-protective restrictions on which dishes she could serve and which she needed to get someone else to deliver to the customers. When Lane�s doctor told her that she needed to stop working she reluctantly did so, but, since Luke knew that Lane and her husband were going to need the steady income from the diner, Luke offered to not only hold Lane�s position open if she ever wanted to come back after the babies were born, but he also hired Lane�s husband, Zach, to make sure that the expanding family wouldn�t have to worry as much about money. He has also offered to help them fix up their house, and recently spent an entire weekend baby-proofing the small house even though the twins are barely able to hold their heads up yet.
Jess Mariano is Luke�s nephew. Jess� father split on him and his mother before they were even out of the hospital and Liz, Luke�s sister, has had fairly poor taste in men, so Luke was always the most stable male influence on Jess, but, as Liz and Jess moved around all the time, Luke wasn�t able to be as involved in his nephew�s life as he wanted to be. When Jess was seventeen his mother found herself unable to deal with him anymore, his attitude, his truancy, his varied other problems. Luke took Jess in without question, expanding his small apartment so that Jess had his own room, a room that is now April�s. Luke straightened Jess out, got him on the right track. Since leaving Stars Hollow for New York and then Philadelphia Jess has published a book, opened a successful bookstore with some