When You Least Expect It (Chaelisa)

4

By St. Patrick's Day, it's a routine. Two days a week, she picks up Abbie from school and they hang out at her place. Her entertainment arsenal – movies, games, books – that she's built up over the last decade from her family is put to good use.

Abbie is smart and remarkably well-adjusted, both of which are traits she attributes to Roseanne. And the meals Roseanne brings her, anything from lasagna to roasted chicken to chowder, are all incredible. Lisa does have a lot of babysitting experience, but not quite such a frequent schedule.

Being the diligent student she's always been, she sits down with Abbie to figure out a routine that works for them in the first week. A snack and homework first, and then they can play. Abbie's content to play video games or watch a movie or read, to entertain herself when Lisa needs to finish up some work. But she likes to hang out with Abbie.

Hanging out with kids, getting to see their particular insights and excitements has always been something that's fun for her. They go out, mostly on weekends, but sometimes after school – to the aquarium, to the Museum of Science, the Children's Museum – and occasionally her nieces or nephews join them. But Abbie is always thrilled to go anywhere, and her enthusiasm is contagious.

Her mind is like a sponge, and she asks Lisa a thousand questions, several of which she has no idea how to answer without Googling first. It's fun, and Lisa feels like it chases away those cobwebs of loneliness that have been making their home in her life for the last few years. Boundaries, she tells herself, are still somewhat in place. Right.

***

Her relationship with Roseanne also grows. She comes over to pick up Abbie and often ends up staying for dinner. The first time, she'd lingered in the doorway, looking tired after her double shift. And it had only taken Lisa a moment of enticement with Roseanne's own home cooking having been freshly reheated to lure her inside to relax.

After Abbie regales her with the stories she'd told Lisa earlier, Roseanne takes over and talks about the clientele at The Bean Dream. She learns about the intern who comes in every morning at nine fifteen sharp and is wildly frantic, every single day.

The businesswoman who comes in and orders without looking up from her phone, to the point that Roseanne doesn't even think she knows what she looks like. The foreman who grumbles about coffee prices. She's invested in the drama between Roseanne's boss Jo and her revolving door of suitors.

Roseanne deserves something easy for once. A break from the hoops she's been jumping through for years and from the uphill battle she's been shouldering alone for the last year. And Lisa finds that she's happy to co-shoulder. It's easy and warm and feels a lot like her house is a home.

As they stand literally shoulder-to-shoulder to wash dishes after dinner, Roseanne admits, "I never thought we would become friends." And she pauses as she rinses a glass, the term throwing her for a loop. "Is that what we are? Friends?" Roseanne gives her a look like she's absolutely insane. But her voice is gently teasing. "Yes, Lisa, we are." She plucks the glass from Lisa's fingers.

"If I were just anyone, would you be watching my kid or having dinner with me? Because if you weren't my friend, I wouldn't be trusting you with Abbie or wanting to hear your stories about your work and family."

"You have a point," she concedes with a grin, even though she thinks I don't really do that with my friends, either. But she likes this routine. She likes these nights, the weekend outings. She likes that they are friends. Sometimes, she thinks, boundaries are overrated.

***

She wishes she and Roseanne hadn't only known each other peripherally for so long. It feels like so much time wasted, when they could have had this friendship years ago. One where they catch each other's eyes and roll them at the same moments when they hear stupid things when they're out and about, where they read the same books, where they realize they're both history nerds.