Love isn't easy

Chapter 24: May 21, 2030

bit too late for a tw on this book but tw for suicide

May 21, 2030

Lisa sits on her office chair with Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning" atop her lap. She's revisited this memoir several times in the last year. Getting through his life in the Nazi concentration camps and everything he lost while there was always difficult for Lisa, but it's what came after that made her come back to the book over and over. Lisa wasn't normally one to read philosophy mixed with psychiatry, but something about Frankl's words kept compelling her to pick it from the shelf repeatedly. In the book, Frankl posits that humans cannot avoid suffering but that instead they can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. The topic was something Lisa certainly felt connected to.

Lisa is working through the letter Frankl wrote to friends in 1945 describing his feelings of sadness and hopelessness after learning he was now alone and without a family following his mother's death in Auschwitz and his wife's death in Bergen-Belsen when she is startled by her office door opening. Lisa turns to find a thirty-six week pregnant Roseanne at the threshold fully dressed and holding some shopping bags in her hand. She'd evidently just returned from somewhere.

"It's almost three in the morning, Roseanne."

"You know your kids have no respect for sleep patterns." Roseanne lifts the bags she's holding to show them off to Lisa. "Baby wanted oranges and crêpes. I went on a little trip. Figured you might want some."

"No, thank you."

Forty-year-old Lisa looks back down at the book in her hands. Roseanne sighs dejected and begins to close the door but Lisa speaks before she can shut it all the way.

"You can eat here if you want."

The smile on Roseanne's face when she turns is so wide and dazzling that it's almost blinding. Roseanne steps into the office completely and closes the door behind her. The thirty-seven-year-old sets the bags on the desk and begins unpacking. The oranges were the first items at the top. Roseanne grabs them and hands them to Lisa.

"Can you peel these?"

Lisa closes her book and takes the three oranges from Roseanne's hand.

"All of them?"

"Don't judge me."

Roseanne tells her defensively and Lisa smiles faintly.

"I wasn't."

Roseanne opens the first styrofoam container and the smell of fresh crêpes inundates the office. Both their mouths water.

Roseanne sits on one of the empty chairs across from Lisa and digs in as Lisa gets through the first orange.

Lisa is halfway through peeling the second fruit when Roseanne breaks the silence speaking with her mouth full.

"You sure you don't want any?"

"Is it from La Creme?"

"You know it's from La Creme, Manoban. Best crêpes in the city."

Lisa smiles and nods as she licks her lips. Roseanne gets up from her chair taking the container with her. She practically skips around the desk to Lisa's side.

"Scoot."

"What?"

"Scoot back."

Lisa, confused, does as she's told. The minute there's enough space for her butt, Roseanne sits on Lisa's lap.

Lisa can't remember the last time this happened, but somehow it doesn't feel wrong. Roseanne cuts a piece of the crêpe with her fork and brings it up to Lisa's mouth. Lisa opens her mouth but Roseanne fakes her out and moves the fork to her own mouth eating the bit of syrupy food instead. Roseanne giggles at the disappointment on Lisa's face.