living on a fault line

XII

"What do you think about mommy's new place?" She asks it casually over lunch, while Eli is happily munching away on her nuggets and fries, while she draws with the ketchup on her plate, a lone finger making swirls of red.

Eli has been exceptional about Lisa moving ever since they told her, but deep down, Roseanne can't help but wonder if it's a front. She doesn't think children that young are capable of lying that well, and Eli would never willingly lie to them, of that she is sureunless it was to spare their feelings.

Eli had never said a bad thing about Eunwoo to her face, but she'd told Lisa that she didn't like the way he talked to her like she was a baby.

She wonders if this is like that. But she also doesn't want to call her best friend's 10 year old daughter to ask her if her own daughter is hiding how she really feels. She's not that type of mother.

"I like it," Eli says almost immediately. "It's prettier than her old apartment. Bigger -although her balcony is smaller."

Roseanne nods. She was relieved when she first saw it. Lisa's previous balcony had given her chills, every time she left Eli with her.

"Although?" She notes the word big for her little girl. "Nice."

"River taught it to me," Eli says, obviously proud. "She says it's what fancy people say instead of but'."

"Good description."

Roseanne chuckles, part of it. Maybe she is fine with all of this. Maybe she's even more resilient than she thought, and she thought she was incredibly resilient already. And maybe she's ready to hear what Roseanne is going to ask her next, even if it makes her scared. So many changes in so little time

Roseanne takes a bite of her own food while she thinks about how to phrase her next question. She's thought about it all day, but it's always more challenging a second before she does it. She decides to bite the bullet.

"So what would you think about me doing that, too?"

Eli looks up, frowning at her. Roseanne hopes her nerves don't show in her tone of voice.

"Saying though?"

"No, honey. I mean...moving. To a different place."

Roseanne has given it a lot of thought.

She tossed and turned all night, trying to figure out if it was the right choice for Eli, because she already knew it would be the right choice for them, for her and Lisa. A new house away from the pain, a fresh start.

A smaller place, because she has a hard enough time cleaning when it's just her, and the bill is a little too much for just one salary. But they're doing fine, it's not because of that. This place just has too many memories, and it's hard on Roseanne. And she knows now that it's just as hard on Lisa, maybe too hard.

I can't picture myself living there again, I imagine it and it's like walking through a graveyard.' Lisa had told her that. She'd bared herself to her, and when Roseanne thought about it, it would feel strange.

Like they were trying to mimic what they used to be, trying to fill their previous roles and pretend like those 2 years didn't happen at all. She imagines them both living together again here, and her heart yearns for it, but not if it's going to hurt Lisa further. She can't erase what they lived through, and even if they tried again here, it wouldn't look the same.

So maybe it doesn't need to be here.

But it's the house Eli was born in, the house she's grown up in so far, the only home she's ever known. Back when they first divorced they talked briefly about moving out, selling the house and splitting the money -they'd bought it together, after all. But they both decided that one of them should stay in the house with Eli, and Lisa had wanted her to since she'd already been living there while she was gone.