When October Goes

Chapter 12

The next day, Viv was still reeling from her discovery the previous night.  She couldn't believe that her dad and Ritchie's mom used to date in college and before the wedding to her mom.  The letter she found last night was dated about two months before they got married.  She hadn't even considered that her dad was with both of them at the same time.  Ew, she thought.  I wonder if Mom ever knew.  She'd been so caught up in her dad's love story, she'd barely considered how she felt about his less-than-committed relationship with her mom.  Although, it wasn't as if her mother was without fault in everything.

Viv hadn't ever been particularly close to Odette, but she was still her mom.  She had always been more concerned about what everyone else thought rather than how Viv felt or thought.  Her mom tended to focus on societal expectations instead of the human side of the equation.  Viv disliked how obsessed her mom had become with putting on the perfect show for people who barely cared about them.  She'd longed for more of the sense of normalcy that her dad provided.  It was almost an unspoken battle between them with her in the middle.  Once the divorce proceedings started, her mom seemed to give up on that idea.  Odette was almost happy with the new freedom that was within her grasp, but she never got the opportunity to experience it fully.  She died in a car accident about a month before the divorce would have been final.

There had to be some happiness between them at some point, Viv thought.  She knew they'd never been great, but she found it hard to believe that her dad would have married her to simply fulfill the wife role.  From the letters, he wasn't 100% happy with the idea, but he didn't outrightly object to it.  The hidden letter indicated he was still very much in love with Rory, but respected her decision to end things.  It sounded like he pulled out all of the stops to try to win her over and make her change her mind.  She wasn't sure why he didn't say something if he felt so strongly.  It didn't seem like his style to keep mum on any subject.

The smells of breakfast wafted up to Vivienne's room.  She went downstairs to find her dad already in the kitchen.  He wasn't usually up this early.  After her discovery the previous night, she felt a little awkward and didn't know what to say.  He didn't know, but, in her head, things were weird.

"Morning, Viv," Logan said.

"Morning, Dad.  You're up early," she observed.

"I had a couple of early morning errands to run," he explained.

Early morning what? she wondered.  What could he possibly have to do at this hour?

"You're up kinda early, yourself," he noted.  "Are you a little excited about car shopping?"

"Maybe," she said with almost a squeal. 

"I'd love to stay and chat some more with you, but I've got to get to work," he said.

"But, it's still early," she replied.

"If I want to leave early to go car shopping with you, I need to get in earlier," he clarified as she stood up.  He cleared his dishes from the table.

"Alright.  Have a good day!"

"You, too, Viv," he said and gave her a kiss on the forehead.  "I'll let you know what the plans are for this afternoon."

He grabbed his suit coat from the chair and went out the door to the car that awaited him.  Why can't my life just be normal, he lamented silently.  I thought moving back to Hartford would help bring back a sense of normalcy.  Here, I wouldn't have to pretend with Odette, Viv could go to school, and I could just work while raising my daughter.  Instead, I got the biggest shock of my life, and all of my feelings for Rory came rushing back.  I'd worked hard to move on from her, but maybe I hadn't.