Love isn't easy

Chapter 30: November 22, 2039

Tuesday November 22, 2039

It's Thanksgiving week and the Manhattan District Attorney's office building is eerily quiet, something that Lisa is taking full advantage of. Just as Josie had promised, the moment Lisa was ready to come back to work she was welcomed with open arms and reinstated to her previously held position. Within days of talking to Josie, Lisa found herself being Manhattan's First Assistant District Attorney once again. Lisa has not taken Josie's considerations towards her for granted and ever since returning to work five and a half years ago she has been in prime prosecuting shape.

Lisa sits in her top-floor office with her elbows resting on the dark oak desk and her hand tucked deep inside her hair. She reads through the piles of folders scattered across the large wooden surface and takes notes on her legal pad as necessary. She shifts her hand and a long, wavy strand of hair escapes the hold her fingers had on it obscuring her vision. Lisa huffs frustrated.

Her frustration certainly stems from the intricacy of the case and the roadblocks she's coming across in trying to prosecute it, but for the moment she'll pretend this is only about the unruly bit of rogue hair. At fifty years old, Lisa's mane has more than a few speckles of gray in it. The unfamiliar color has also brought forth a new - and unmanageable - texture to Lisa's hair, one that is even wilder and less cooperative than before. Lisa swats the hair away from her face, runs her hands through her tangled locks undoing knots as best she can, and leans her head back allowing it to hang freely. Her fingers adeptly move, seemingly with a mind of their own, and begin to braid her curly mop as she continues to read attentively.

Little did Lisa know someone was watching from the doorway and brimming with amusement.

Lisa completes a loose, messy braid and whacks it over her shoulder but never once took her eyes off the document she was reading. A knock on her cracked office door is the thing that finally manages to break Lisa's concentration.

Lisa lifts her eyes from the array of papers in front of her and is taken aback by the twenty-two-year-old standing with a huge traveler's backpack still hung on her back. Lisa's face can't help but light up in a warm, effusive smile.

"Annie?"

"Hi, momma."

Annie smiles from the door and waves once.

Lisa propels her chair away from the desk and rushes to the entryway, wrapping her daughter up in a firm hug. Annie immediately reciprocates and chuckles at the bewildered look she is certain her mother has painted on her face.

"You weren't supposed to get back until tomorrow! We had a whole thing planned!"

Lisa pulls back and places her hands on either side of her daughter's face.

"I was kind of over Beijing. Took an earlier flight. I had a feeling you would be here even though no one else is so this was my first stop."

Lisa wraps her arms around Annie yet again and nuzzles into her neck.

Lisa hasn't seen her daughter in six months, not since Annie left to explore the world after her college graduation. Annie had an itch to live the things she had read about in her books. She wanted to meet people who would inspire her, who would make her grow. As a result of this burning desire, Annie packed the one bag she was still carrying, got on a plane, and left the city she had called home her entire life.

Annie spent a month on every continent. She climbed mountains, rafted down rivers, saw art, ate food, broke two fingers, got food poisoning more than once, fell in love with a different soul in multiple cities, but more importantly she lived. Annie would not tell Roseanne and Lisa this, but she wanted to go out there and do everything, to see all there was to see not only because she felt like she needed to but also because her brother would never be able to. Annie wanted to live fully for both herself and for Mattheo.