living on a fault line

XI

It's easier to pack this time.

Lisa hadn't expected it to be. In fact, she'd thought it would be harder if anything -but it isn't. It only takes her a day to have her entire apartment sitting neatly inside cardboard boxes. She's not surprised. She'd never set roots down in this place, had only ever tried to turn it into a home in deference to Eli. Her daughter's room in the small, two bedroom apartment was the only place that held warmth for Lisa. After she'd packed it up, though, the space was as empty and cold as the rest of her apartment had remained from the moment Lisa began renting it.

It's empty now, all of the boxes on the back of a large moving truck on their way to Philadelphia. Her car waits downstairs, to make the hour-and-a-half trip she's mastered during the past month. She's not sad to be leaving this apartment that saw so many of her worst nights, but there's still some melancholy in the air. She'd grown accustomed to being here.

The place had been small enough to make her feel safe, the balcony just open enough to keep her from feeling trapped. It had been what she needed, once upon a time. She's past that now. And she wants to leave, she knows she needs to, but her fingers still itch to touch the walls one last time.

Eli had taken pictures of her room and the apartment before declaring she liked her new one way better, even if it was very far away. Lisa did it now, in her own head. Her eyes scan across every surface, the white walls and the gray curtains that had come with the place, and she'd never bothered to change. It's a welcome goodbye. Good riddance.

Her cell phone buzzes. She takes it out of her back pocket, a single text from Roseanne lighting up her home screen. She reads it quickly, and then grabs her purse from the back of a wooden chair. (Those, too, had come with the apartment.)

A quick look at the hour lets her know she's still on time and-

She must have missed it.

Between packing and signing her new lease and setting things up with the moving company. She didn't have time to think about today's date.

It's their anniversary.

Lisa presses her lips together, feeling emotion bubble up in her throat. There's a certain irony to the date, isn't there? They'd started a life together way before that day at the country house, but signing her name -her new name- next to Roseanne's had only cemented that. They were married, wives. For better or for worse.

They went through the worst.

Lisa remembers every sleepless night, every fight, every tear and scream they pulled out from the depths of each other in their shared pain and frustration.

As she walks out from the apartment she feels like she's walking away from it.

She locks the door after herself, pressing her hands against the wood one last time. She won't be back here again. This chapter of her life is over.

(August 21st, 2025.)

"Trying to move was a mistake," she says. She doesn't care if she has an apartment waiting for her, if she's cleaned up her office and her new one is ready for her, so many miles away. She'll find a way to take it all back.

Roseanne shakes her head.

"It's what you wanted," Roseanne says. "It's what you needed."

"Before," Lisa intervenes. "Before." This. But she doesn't know quite what this is. She loves Roseanne, and she feels the same. It doesn't change things but it feels monumental.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying you can't just derail your plans."

Lisa looks at Roseanne, laying in the hospital bed, a bruise like a blooming violet covering her cheek, and she can't quite believe her words. This isn't merely a derailment. She had given up on it, but Roseanne was her plan. She and Eli were her world.