Regrets and mistakes, they're memories made || Jenlisa Adaption

Chapter 2

"What are we having for dinner?"

"What do you want?" Jennie makes an effort to sound cheerful, but after six hours of surgery with a plethora of complications, she's drained. She just wants to get home, curl up on a blanket with her kid and decompress. "We could order pizza," she suggests.

"Could we get McDonald's?" Tae asks, gap-toothed smile making an appearance.

"Okay," she says. "But we'd have to take it home, okay, baby? Kai's coming for dinner."

Jennie sees her face fall through the rear-view mirror, and her conversation with Lisa jumps to the forefront of her mind.

"But I wanted to play," Tae whines.

Jennie rubs between her eyebrows.

"I could take you after dance class on Wednesday, what do you say?"

"But I have to leave with mommy..." she says, in that slightly worried way she always does after the most minimal changes to her schedule.

"Uh, no, you're sleeping at the house with me," she explains, looking quickly over her shoulder. Tae is sporting a confused little frown. "We could have another movie night..." Jennie singsongs.

"...okay." Tae nods, smacking her lips like a frumpy old man who's decided something is acceptable. She reminds her of Lisa, in moments like that. "If mommy is okay with it."

Jennie bites her lip.

"She is, I promise. And you can always call her—"

"I know," Tae says. "But I just don't like mommy being alone. When I'm with mommy you have aunt Jisoo and aunt Irene over, and Kai—" Tae scrunches up her nose and Jennie chuckles despite herself, despite her hard day. Her daughter always cheers her up. "But mommy doesn't have anyone over, ever."

Her daughter can always break her heart, too.

She's every bit Lisa's kid, biology be damned.

Jennie was heartbroken, for a good while. And then it was just anger. She was so angry at Lisa for so long. She gave up on them. That anger has faded now, it's shrunken away until it has left her feeling empty.

Jennie is trying hard to not feel so empty these days.

"You can Skype mommy," Jennie offers, thinking of the awkward set-up. She and Lisa have avoided interacting with each other for so long now that it only feels normal. "She could join in the movie night through her laptop."

"I guess," Tae says.

"We'll figure something out," Jennie tells her, turning off the street and on to the drive-through. "So what do you want?"

***

(September 3rd, 2023.)

Jennie dreads walking through the door.

It makes her sick, makes her stomach hurt and twist in the worst possible way, because getting home after a long shift and seeing her girls has always been the highlight of her day.

She takes a breath and opens the door.

She's immediately enveloped by a pair of small arms, and she smiles for the first time that day. Her backache from standing for hours in the OR goes ignored in favor of picking up her daughter.

"Hi." She kisses her cheek, and Tae squeezes her. She drops her purse on the couch, looking around the quiet house. "Hey, where's mommy?"

"In the kitchen," Tae enunciates clearly, like a big girl. Jennie misses the babbling a little.