Love Never Dies. Chapter Seven. Tale of One Friends Marriage. Autumn.

Autumn went crying back to Dave. We didn't speak for quite some time so I really don't know what happened in any detail for a while. They faked a marriage for a period on the surface, but Autumn was living in her one son's room. This worked perfectly well for Dave I imagine. I don't think he had any interest in being divorced unless he had someone else to "call his own." 

Autumn went and lived with her parents at the beach for a period, waiting on tables. This sounded like it worked OK for the season and a little beyond. In fact, she was a waitress or hostess for a few years having no success finding work in her earlier profession. Dave believed this was her way of not contributing to the family. Autumn cared for her boys and wanted her own success but could care less about caring for the home. She never wanted to live there. One of my first memories the only time I visited was of a press board kitchen cabinet door that was half hanging on to the hinge. It was soon to fall like many others already had in their very poor quality and dated kitchen. The house had foundation issues, they had multiple floods in their basement, the windows all were shot, needed to be replaced and costing them a fortune in unnecessary energy costs, the home was old with small, awkward sized rooms, small closets and then poor additions. I had suggested more than once it was a tear down. It had three things going for it; it was walking distance to water with a dock if I remember correctly and there were some newer, much nicer homes right behind them. Secondarily, at least to me (I don't know what the comparable are in the area), the lots were substantial in size. Their landscaping or lack there of was another story. Dave grew up in one of the most affluent communities in the United States. I don't know a whole lot about his family but they sound like they were more refined than hillbillies, yet this place reflected more that of a red neck haven. I didn't get it.

This will probably upset Autumn more than anything I have said thus far, but while I know it wasn't anything she aspired to, the home did remind me some of her childhood home. Her parents place wasn't as disheveled, but I always remember that there was an addition, I think a sunroom or something, that the siding was a different color forever and never painted. I recall the dining room table pushed against a wall and piled with things. I never spent a lot of time in her home when we were in high school, largely as she didn't like it, but it was of similar age, with awkward additions and cluttered and the interior was not particularly inviting to say the least. Her Father did a nice job with landscaping, however so at least the curb appeal, baring the mismatched siding, was far better.

I do recall one of my few visits to her home I learned that her parents had regularly scheduled sex. I found this hysterical. I am not really sure why other than I was 16 or 17 years old, but even today I find it somewhat odd. I know they aren't alone, but their schedules weren't that regimented and I just don't know how anybody is that "on demand", especially as they get older. I mean, when I was around 17 I probably could be, but Autumn's Father was far from 17. I seldom saw Autumn's parents ever together, so the idea of intimacy was hard to imagine and, of course, teenagers really don't want to visualize parents and the idea of sexuality at all. But Autumn's Mother was a true introvert probably with mental health issues of her own. She most often hid in her bedroom most of the day for years. I think she still does today at 80. Yet she lives alone so I don't know who she is hiding from really.

At some point, Autumn decided to reinvent herself. She always had an interest in law and I think also had some fantasy that if she enhanced her legal training she could handle more of her own divorce without paying so much for outside counsel. She fancied the idea of going to law school but she couldn't phantom the idea of the debt she would incur and perhaps logically wasn't sure it would warrant a reasonable return on investment at this stage in her life. It was a huge gamble and she had so much up in the air, was so unsettled. I believe in dreaming, I believe in risk taking, I also believe in being pragmatic and logical. I think we have a generation of dreamers today where we have raised some that will be tremendously successful because they were fearless, others that are forever in debt and very bitter by the time they are in their 40s. It is starting to happen now with some millennials.

Autumn decided to become a paralegal. This seemed to be a logical choice. She could have gone to her local community college and done so for very little money. Rather, she was accepted and went to Georgetown University. I am not always swayed about school rankings, but the difference between a community college and Georgetown is huge, especially when your end goal is to get into a DC law firm. Suffice to say, as we began speaking again and she began on this effort, I was greatly supportive.