Love isn't easy

Chapter 22: August 13, 2028

August 13, 2028

[11:58 PM]

Lisa leans back on her chair. Her expression is blank. The bags under her eyes are dark. The look on the thirty-nine-year-old's face is sickly. Across from her hundreds, - if not thousands - of pictures of either Mattheo alone or family pictures he was a part of are strewn across every centimeter of her desk.

—

[11:58 PM]

Roseanne lays in bed curled up into herself with her knees digging painfully into her chest. Her sobs rattle her entire body. The thirty-five-year-old bites on her balled fist to keep the screams that would otherwise pour out and echo around the apartment.

—

[11:58 PM]

Coraline holds a weeping Annie in her bed. Coraline strokes her younger sister's hair and whispers reassuring things into her ear. Annie holds on to Coraline as if her life depended on it.

—

[11:59 PM]

Six-year-old Rose peacefully sleeps face down in her own bed.

—

[11:59 PM]

Lisa is fidgety. Her leg starts to jump up and down. She stares at a particular picture on the pile. It's her and Mattheo. He's sitting on her shoulder while they stand soaked to the bone in the middle of a boat. Her mind starts to fill with memories of that day.

Lisa remembers how the water kept splashing on her face. She can vaguely hear the voice of the guide regurgitating facts about Niagara Falls. She recalls Mattheo being restless and curious and wanting to jump in the water as he always did whenever he saw anything deeper than a two-inch puddle. Mattheo kept getting too close to the edge of the boat and perennially nervous Lisa grabbed him and perched him on her shoulders so she could keep track of him because that's what she always did. Lisa went out of her way to protect him. Lisa always kept him safe except that she couldn't when it counted most.

—

[11:59 PM]

Roseanne's head is buried in the toilet bowl. She dry heaves. Her gags are made worse by the violent sobbing she can't seem to control.

—

[11:59 PM]

Twelve-and-a-half-year-old Coraline has held it together thus far, but as the seconds tick on heavy streams of tears begin to flow down her face as well. She holds Annie tighter and they both weep.

The clock strikes midnight.

"Happy Birthday Mattheo."

Annie whispers. The moment the words leave her mouth her wailing intensifies.

—

[12:00 AM]

The sound of someone stomping down the hallway and slamming the front door behind them echoes through the house.

—

[12:01 AM]

Roseanne walks into Annie's room as she begins to check in on the girls after Lisa's thunderous exit. Roseanne expected them to be sleeping. The last thing Roseanne assumed she would find was her daughters holding each other and blubbering.

Once Coraline and Annie see Roseanne at the door the magnitude of the sniveling coming from the bed exacerbates. Roseanne rushes to the bed and joins her daughters. The girls cling to Roseanne until exhaustion beats them and they fall asleep.