This is a new story I've been toying with for quite a while. It's my usual Sophie but it takes place between 1943 and 1968. It's a love story with a lot of drama. At the beginning of the story Logan is an Army helicopter pilot currently deployed to Vietnam. Rory is at home with their three children just trying to live. She is a teacher at a small private school. Everything else you'll learn as we go. I hope you like it. In the beginning it's not as interesting as some may like but I had to do it so I could get to the romantic part. Without further ado here it goes…
Her alarm clock started to blare the same annoying beeping sound that it did everyday. She groaned. She hated that stupid clock. Logan had been the one to purchase it. He just had to have it. She should have put it in his bags before he left. She sighed. It had been 249 days since he had boarded a plane for Vietnam. It took her five more minutes before she could muster the energy to turn off the noisy contraption and get out of bed. She pulled on her robe before quietly making her way down the hall. She opened the door that was left to hers and couldn't help but smile. She walked over to where the small girl was sleeping and gently kissed her forehead. "Wakey wakey Lola, it's time to start your day."
The small girl moaned before opening her eyes. She was just like her mother in the fact that she hated waking up in the morning. "Morning Mommy…"
"I'm not leaving until you wake up and start getting dressed."
The little girl squirmed a little and then slowly sat up. She was going to be eight in four months. She had blonde hair like her father but eyes that were bluer than the bluest sea just like her mother. She rubbed her eyes and then smirked. "I'm up Colonel."
"Haha Lola, you have thirty minutes to get ready." Rory told her oldest child before leaving the room. She then moved onto the easiest child to wake up. She walked into the room and smiled. "Teddy Bear it's time to wake up."
The young boy sat up. His small smile showed that he was missing four of his teeth. "The Red Sox play the Orioles today. I bet Yaz has at least two hits."
Rory simply nodded and took that as her cue to leave. Her son was obsessed with the Red Sox. It had a lot to do with the fact that her husband named Teddy after Ted Williams, his favorite player. She had given it to him because he had let her name Lola Lorelai Elizabeth. The only child that they named together was Teddy's twin sister Kennedy Rose. It was a weird name but it was fitting. She was their little journalist. She knocked on her daughter's door and found her sitting in front of the mirror pretending to be interviewing Aretha Franklin. Last Christmas Logan had bought her a little microphone. It was her favorite gift that year. "Hey Kennedy you're going to have cut your interview with Aretha short because it's time for you to get dressed."
"But she was just about to do an exclusive performance for me." Kennedy said in her small six year old voice. She had Rory's spunk and intellect and even her mother's looks. People always awed when they sorry Rory and Kennedy together. "Oh but I guess it can wait until after school."
"It'll have to sweetie. Tell Aretha I said I'm sorry." She went down to her kitchen where her housekeeper had already started breakfast. "Buenos dias Rosario." She greeted the woman that had been with her family since Lola's first checkup. She sipped the cup of coffee that Rosario had put on the table for her and felt her soul sigh. There was nothing like the morning's first cup of coffee.
"Morning Rory, are all of the bebés awake?"
"Yep even my little drama queen Lola."
Lola dramatically walked into the room. "Did I hear my name?"
Rosario laughed. "Why Lolita are your ears burning?"
Lola ignored the comment and sat down at the table. She said gracias to Rosario as the woman put a bowl of cereal in front of her.
Rory finally looked up from her paper and shook her head. She looked at her daughter and laughed. "Lola what in the world are you wearing?"
Lola looked down at her clothes and smiled. "What?"
"You look like a gypsy." Rory pointed to the scarf that was holding her hair back. "Are you channeling a fortune teller today?"
"I'm wearing this getup to help me get into character. Today I audition for the role as Madam White, the local fortune teller in the school play "The Futures Always Brighter". It's one of the lead roles." Lola said after taking another bite of her toast. She then decided it didn't have enough jelly on it and smeared some more grape onto the already packed starch.
"I'm sure you'll get it." Rory assured her daughter.
Teddy was rereading the last letter his father had sent him as he walked into the room. Logan often wrote his only son about old games that he had seen at Fenway. Teddy read the letters at least a dozen times a day. Actually he read them so much that he often could tell you every line word for word without any help by the time the day was over.
"Teddy, muchacho, what do you want for breakfast?" Rosario asked sweetly.
Without even looking up from the paper Teddy replied "The usual."
Rosario placed two blueberry muffins that she had made earlier in the week on a plate for Teddy. She knew these three kids just as well as Rory did. She treated them as if they were her own children. She loved them the same way. "Here you go."
"Teddy, did you forget something this morning?" Rory asked. Teddy had a tendency to forget where he put his tie. She found herself always reminding him about it.
Once again Teddy didn't bother to look up from his letter. "It's in the backseat of the station wagon so I don't forget it."
Kennedy was the last one to join them for breakfast as always. She was always the last one to join them. She was also the only one to be completely ready for school when she sat down at the table. She ate the same breakfast as her mother two slices of bacon and a waffle. She also drank coffee like her mother except it was basically milk with two teaspoons of coffee in it. Still it made her feel grown up.
Rory sat there staring at her young children for at least five minutes. None of them realized. They were all caught up in themselves. It was moments like these that she struggled. Her husband had been fighting this complicated war for nearly a year and in that time her children had grown so much. She knew it was hard for him. His letters were mostly about how they were doing and how much he missed them. She wondered if he did that so he didn't have to focus on the war or if he did it because it was all he could think of. Either way it didn't make her miss him any less. When Logan had told her that he was going to go to West Point she had thought without question that he was out of his mind. It was 1955 and the Korean War had just ended. It had been the first year that her father hadn't been sent to a foreign country since 1947. Everybody was talking about nukes and Communism and he was talking about following in her father an Army Colonel and his father an Army General's footsteps. Still she had never even contemplated that it would have led to this. She was practically a single mother. She closed her eyes for a moment and remembered his smirk. Logan oh so cute smirk that made her weak in the knees.
Rosario untied her apron and then clapped her hands. "Give your mother a kiss and then it is time for us to hit the rode. We don't want to be late now do we?"
One by one Rory's precious kids kissed her softly on the cheek. She loved them so much. If it weren't for them and her job she didn't think she would get out of bed in the morning. After they left she got up from the table to get dressed. She put on her usual sweater and skirt. She kissed his picture before leaving the same way she did every morning. This was going to be her third year at St. Andrew's. It was a small private school that was filled mostly with children whose fathers were presently in Vietnam. She had been working there since Logan had been transferred to Ft. Detrick. She loved it even though it was small.
She walked into her small classroom where she taught three classes a day. Two of them were World History and the other was Civics. She was the only female teacher in the history department. She scrawled topic for today's discussion on the board and then sat down and waited for her day to begin.
Sister Mary Diane was in the middle of disciplining one of her two hundred pupils when her phone began to ring. She immediately was alarmed when she heard who it was. She quickly pushed the intercom button. "Mrs. Huntzberger?"
Rory was in the middle of discussing why the Roman Empire failed when she heard Sister Mary Diane's voice on the intercom. She could tell that the older woman was worried. "Yes Sister?"
"I need you to come down to my office immediately you have a phone call."
Rory quickly stood up. She never got phone calls at school. If something was going on with the kids they called Rosario at home. It hit her that something might have happened to Rosario. "I'll be back in two minutes continue to ponder the downfall of the Roman Empire. I want everyone to have a flaw figured out by the time I return and I want them all to be different." She then left the classroom and hurried down to the office.
"Go ahead and go back to class Mr. Sullivan but if I find out that you are still giving Mr. Ferguson's substitute a hard time then I am going to have to contact your mother and you know she doesn't need any extra stress right now." Sister Mary Diane threatened before dismissing the boy. She had a feeling that Rory would need some privacy.
Rory picked the phone up off of Sister Mary Diane's desk rather timidly. "This is Mrs. Huntzberger."
"Rory its Mitchum."
Her heart began to pound fast. Mitchum wouldn't be the one to call her about Rosario. She had a feeling she wasn't going to like the reason he was calling. "Oh hello Mitchum. I don't mean to seem rude but I was in the middle of a class. Is everything okay?"
Mitchum struggled to maintain his composure. He didn't want to have to call her at work but he knew she had to know. She had to know before the press got a hold of the story. "Not so much actually Rory. I've got bad news."
"Go ahead…" Rory said. By now she was steeling herself for the worst. The worst being that Logan had been shot down in combat and was dead.
Mitchum took a deep breath. "Yesterday Logan was shot down while on a mission. The good news is he's not dead. The bad news is that he's currently a prisoner of war. That's all we know as of right now." Mitchum felt tears spring to his eyes. His only son who had bravely found in his footsteps we currently a P.O.W. It was so hard for him to accept. It had taken him twenty minutes before he was able to call Rory to let her know.
She wasn't sure what say or do. Her knees suddenly went weak and then she hit the floor.
So you read the whole thing? What did you think? Let me know by leaving me a review. I want to know if there are other people who think this is an interesting premise. Thank you for giving it a chance. I'll update this as soon as I can.