Chapter Text
"Mommy, why do you take pictures?"
It's been a while since Lisa heard this question.
Ella was about to go to school and Lisa just finished tying her daughter's hair into her favorite pigtails. She slips on the little girl's jacket, patting it a few times to let her know that they're ready to go.
"We share our mommies and daddies work in school. Yours the only different work." Ella tells her. The little girl wrings her little pinky with Lisa's own, like she always used to. Lisa likes to think that Ella's pinky belongs with her own, that it was created for Ella to hold.
Lisa just likes that thought, it makes her smile.
"Because..." Lisa starts, opening their apartment door. She gently pulls Ella to follow her, which the little girl happily obliges.
"most of our happy moments are in pictures, sweetheart," Lisa replies, closing and locking the door of their lovely home. "I wanted people to have that."
"Happiness? Or pictures?" Ella asks once again, equally curious as before.
Lisa chuckles. Her little girl really is inquisitive. "Both. So when they feel sad they can hold the happiness inside the picture."
"Do you get it?" Lisa asks awkwardly, her eyebrows knitting together in worry. She's not sure if she's making sense to her little girl.
"maybe..." Ella sing-songs. "It's like when I hug my Appa! it makes me happy when I hug him!"
"Yes, that's right!" Lisa chuckles. Ella does have a point. isn't it just the same metaphor?
"Then why is there no picture of mommy Jennie in our home?"
Lisa's face suddenly fell, the laugh lines and silly smiles plastered on her face earlier dissipates.
She totally forgot that she still kept all of the things that could resemble Jennie somewhere in the corners of their home. She hid them so well to the point she forgot where she put them in the first place.
She feels guilt swim in the pit of her stomach. The realization that Jennie became an omen to her and especially their daughter was something she could never forgive herself for. She had reasons, but maybe it was too selfish.
Jennie didn't deserve any of that, especially when she knows Jennie loves...loved her with all she had.
"You know, sweetheart. Back then, when mommy Jennie...left." Lisa swallows the guilt sitting in her throat. She feels her chest constrict at the truth. "I started hating pictures."
"Why, mommy?" Ella asks once again.
"Because it hurt me to only see mommy Jennie in pictures. And not in front of me." Lisa sincerely replies. There was no point in hiding the truth from her daughter. Ella's a kid, full of naiveté and simplicity, but that never became a hindrance for Lisa to tell her little girl her own feelings. Because kids are also like adults, they can tell the feelings of people surrounding them— sometimes even better than most adults.
"I wanted to spend more time with mommy Jennie, sweetheart. But being with you becomes more than enough." Her hand starts to wrap around Ella's hand as gently as it could. Ella is her gravity, whenever she feels lost in a void Ella draws her back from the cold nothingness and into warmth and comfort. Her little girl is the gravity that puts everything into place.
"You look so much like mommy Jennie, Ella." Lisa looks at the little girl with so much fondness, a softness in her eyes only reserved for the little one.
"You make it feel like she's still here. Like she never left at all."
After dropping Ella to school, Lisa went back home. She still had an hour to waste before she has to go to the studio.
Once she closes the door of the apartment she remembers what she wanted to do for a long time now.
She starts to look for the box where most of Jennie's memorabilia and pictures are buried like some sort of time capsule.
"Fuck, where did I hide it?" Lisa groans in sheer frustration after searching underneath her bed and finds nothing but an empty sight. She couldn't recall the place where she left the box to rot.
After sighing heavily she stands up and continues her search. She would probably not hide it inside her room, that's what she remembers. She knows herself enough, that if it was in her room she would've still been a sobbing mess every day for the past 4 years.
She tries searching for the infamous box inside the cramped storage room. She curses again when she opens the door and sees the messy and disarrayed sight that welcomes her with open arms.
After panting too much and the annoying feeling of trickling sweat, she finally found it. It was pushed aside in the farthest shelf of the room, somewhere where dust and long-forgotten memories reside. The box was buried by the other bigger boxes, the only reason why Lisa distinguished it from the others because of what's written in the front.
Never open. was written in bold letters. The font she used when she first wrote the words looked menacing and it would probably scare other people if they ever read that, getting the message right away to never open it, as if it's the pandora's box that could destroy the world is inside that dusting cardboard.
In reality, it was just filled with Jennie's wholesome memories. Lisa curls her hand into a tight fist, also biting her lip in frustration and self-anger. How could she ever treat Jennie like a war zone when all Jennie ever was is home to her.
It's been almost five years and she still tiptoes around the memories. As if they were puddles reflecting the bitter times, and also the better ones. It's like the heavens knew what the end will be for them, so they made every drop of water count, like the short amount of time Lisa had with Jennie.
Lisa has been staring at the paddles for too long, never really having the courage to step in and jump on it like a child beaming with happiness over such a simple thing, when remembering didn't have to hurt this much. She's too afraid that every drop of water would seep into her shoes then into her socks, then she'd go home with the heaviness of the rain in her feet.
She exits the storage room and sprints into her bedroom, dusting off the box along the way. She places the box on the floor and sits in front of it. She rips off the tape like it was a bandaid, hoping the wound has already been healed.
Then suddenly she feels every emotion swirling inside of her. She doesn't know if what she's feeling is a drizzle or a hurricane.
Inside the box, she sees the pictures of her and Jennie in their easier days, Jennie's sketchbook of her clothing designs that she wished to create when she was still around, Jennie's sewing collection, their picture frames that once surrounded the whole apartment, a few of Jennie's favorite clothes that she can't seem to never get rid off, and a USB drive in Jennie's favorite color.
Lisa takes the pictures first. Staring intently at the different photographs that were taken from different places and in different moments of their lives, but most of them were filled with the same heartfelt smiles, blissful laughs, and loving stares. Lisa can't seem to divert her gaze from the dusting pictures that already lost its vibrant colors through the years.
She looks a little too long at it because she hasn't seen Jennie in what felt like a lifetime, and the version of her that Lisa keeps is starting to go missing.
That was the thing about photography that Lisa loved but despised at this moment.
Photography is a way of capturing a feeling that could last forever. It remembers the little things; like the way how your smile curls, the way how your eyes turn into a different color when it's hit by the sun, the way it could exactly describe your feeling just by the colors.
It remembers the little things, long after you have forgotten everything.
Lisa couldn't help but hug the pictures close to her heart. Still wanting to experience the moments that lived in those dusty photographs, captured and frozen in time.
Right now, being with Ella was enough, it was more than enough, she doesn't want to change one thing about the life she has with their daughter.
But maybe just once, if she's ever given a chance, she wanted to experience what life was once again when Jennie was still here, when she was still with her.
She knows she's being greedy. Lisa knows too damn well that it's wrong to ask for more when you already have more than enough. But having to lose a piece of her, to lose something she has ever known, to lose something that was a part in most of her happy days was too unbearable. God, she wanted to postpone her life so much, and only continue living it if Jennie came back for her.
But in life that was never the case. Time never stops for anyone cause they wanted, needed, it to. And in life, you could never buy time for the people who already lost theirs.
She wants to live without the weight of their shared days losing its color.
The deafening silence surrounds their home, carrying nothing but thoughts too vulnerable to speak out loud.
Lisa embraces the picture tighter, but careful enough not to put any creases on them. Handling the pictures like they were fragile porcelain china.
She feels the ocean of tears prickling her eyes. And she lets it all out. She lets all the kept and caged hurt that had found a home in her heart have its long overdue freedom.
She could still remember that day, from four years ago, when she received the news that Jennie...didn't make it. That's when Lisa's world started to shift in the most subtle way, the one where she couldn't tell the difference from what it was before and from what it will be now.
The news didn't sink in, doesn't want to sink into her. The change was so little, so excruciatingly slow, and before she knows it, her world would be so different; so vast, unfamiliar, it wouldn't fit the way it used to anymore. Like the picture of her puzzle suddenly became an unfamiliar one, and she was lost on how to fit the pieces together.
She never really knew how easy it was to let it just all go. after all these years, all of this pent-up grief and anger that remained in her being slowly came out from the shadows.
There are times when pain isn't as poetic as they seemed. Sometimes, there really is no lesson to be learned, that every question you have is not meant to be answered. Sometimes, all we can do is break down and let it hurt until it doesn't anymore.
Lisa needed to give herself all the space and time to mourn and grieve as of this moment. Because when Jennie left she was also left with a responsibility that she has to tend to for her entire life, and that was to become a parent to their little girl. Lisa didn't really have the time for herself to let it out. She has Ella and she needed to take care of their newborn, and she also had to work to make a living for the two of them. She needed to steel herself, to toughen up, to build walls in order to carry a life for two people. Because a house cannot stand on empty feelings of concrete.
it was so demanding that Lisa forgot to even let herself breathe, it was like being submerged into the waters with only having limited oxygen sitting on your lungs.
So, she did the only thing that was logical to do.
She ran away.
Not from the responsibilities—she tries her best to be there for Ella, she could almost give her life to that little girl of hers, that's how much Lisa loves her— but away from the burning anger and sorrow she feels in her being.
It was easier to run away, to disappear, to pretend it no longer exists. It was so easier to put as much space between you and that place of hurt.
That's why she decided to put away all the things that could resemble Jennie, all of her remnants and fragments are kept in the coldness of the dark or were thrown away into oblivion, like she was never there at all; like she and Jennie never created their own little world inside their apartment; Like she never spent the happiest days of her life with Jennie; like she and Jennie never spent their days waiting for their little family to be complete.
But then, she's left with such vast space in her life that it became hard to navigate the direction she wanted to go, she became lost, and she was left with a big hole of emptiness in her heart.
And the only way to close this gap is to face it. To stitch it back and close it. There's no guarantee the scar would heal, but at least it would be able to heal itself in its own phase. Perhaps, that's why it's called closure.
And for the first time in almost five years, she's here finally facing everything she ran away from, step by step, little by little. Her sobs were the only thing that encompassed every corner of their home. The walls hearing every heartbreak that comes out of her mouth, they were silent like they were also mourning for the love she had lost too early. She lies down on the floor, curling herself into a vulnerable ball of human mess.
Lisa had been stuck at the bottom of the pit for far too long. In that pit, reality becomes irrelevant, the overwhelming sensation of eternal haunting embraced her whole being without hesitation. It made her lose the ability to think in words, her mind becoming an isolated world, like a star exiled into the terrifying void of the universe.
she was so damn scared that numbness and the darkness were all going to be her companion for the rest of her life.
she calms down after what seemed like forever. Shifting her position, now she was looking at the ceiling, the light bulb looked like the sun at that moment. Lisa checks the time on her phone, she didn't realize 2 hours had already passed.
She's late for work.
She unlocks her phone, and quickly went to her contacts, when she sees Yeri's name she immediately rings her trustworthy junior up.
"Hey, unnie." Yeri answers in a blink. "It's the first time you've been late."
"Yeah, about that..." Lisa pauses briefly, her voice hoarse from the sobbing earlier. "I'm gonna take a day off today. I feel sick."
"Yeah, no problem, unnie." Yeri says with relief. Lisa raises her eyebrows in sheer confusion.
"Why do you seem alright with it?" Lisa can't help but ask.
"I've been waiting for you to rest. Ever since I had my job here in your studio I never ever saw you rest for once." Yeri tells her sincerely. She feels shame creep into her when she realized that she has been exhausting herself for a long time.
"You deserve it, unnie. Every bit of it." She could vividly see Yeri's genuine soft smile through the phone. "I could take care of the studio for you for a whole week if it means that you'd stop looking like a zombie every time."
Lisa chuckles at that. "Ha ha, very funny, Yerimie." She rolls her eyes.
"Anyway, I have to get going. Since you're not here, I'll handle everything."
"You sure you can do it?"
"Duh, of course. You're a great teacher." Her junior replies as if it's the most obvious thing ever. "Don't worry, we have people here that could help me. Go on and take care of yourself, unnie. Everything will be fine." And at that, Yeri ends the call.
Lisa throws her phone on the bed and lets out a heavy but relieved sigh. She stays on the floor for a couple of minutes, closing her eyes and just relinquishing the silence and closure it gives her, while still holding onto the photographs of the love of her life.
She slowly sits up and takes another look at the inside of the box. She smiles softly while her fingers run through every memorabilia. Then her fingers stopped on a USB drive, she clearly doesn't remember Jennie owning something like this.
confusion and curiosity were written all over her face. She picks up the USB drive and stands up from the floor, walking towards her desk where her laptop is situated. Lisa turns on the device and patiently waits for it to come alive. After a minute or two, her laptop's wallpaper finally appeared and in a blink, she quickly plugged in the USB in the outlet.
A folder with dozens of video files then pops up on her screen. Curiosity is already eating her, so without letting a second pass by she opens the first file.
When the video started to play she was dumbfounded, she feels something inside of her churn, but couldn't pinpoint what.
"Lisa, what the hell are you doing?" Jennie asks her in the video, a playful frown on her face. She could hear herself chuckling behind the camera.
The camera is fully focused on Jennie who was busy eating her favorite food, mango graham. she and Jennie probably made it that time.
"I'm filming you. What does it look like?" Lisa replies, her voice laced with playful sarcasm.
"Yeah, but why? You idiot." Jennie chuckles.
"Nothing reasonable..." Lisa prods. "I just want to film our life while waiting for the baby. So, I could get to watch it if I'm feeling nostalgic." The camera moves a little, she probably shrugged.
"You literally just gave a reason, you idiot." Jennie rolls her eyes in a good-natured way.
"Yeah, I'm your idiot." Lisa says smugly. She enjoys painting irritation on Jennie's face when she tries to be greasy with her.
Lisa smiles at her screen. She missed Jennie calling her her idiot. It was a dumb nickname Jennie gave to her when Lisa wants to irritate her just for fun.
"Yeah, yeah, you are." Jennie sighs, letting Lisa win this time. "Now can you put your camera down and eat with me," Jennie demands rather than ask, giving Lisa her infamous pout.
The video ends shortly, it only lasted for a minute and a half. Lisa completely forgot that she did this four years ago, time really did pass in a blink of an eye.
She plays another video.
"Mrs. Manoban," Lisa calls out to Jennie, who was now sketching another design she thought of on her sketchbook, she's sitting across the desk that used to be on the corner of their living room.
"Lisa, we literally just got back together for like 2 weeks," Jennie replies, trying to push the camera away from her face. "And let me work, you annoying piece of-"
Before Jennie got to finished what she has to say Lisa cut off her off. "Don't curse! Our baby might hear it!"
"Our baby's literally just turning 2 months old." Jennie chuckles.
"No," Lisa whines. "what I meant was our baby might hear it in the future. I would let our baby watch these short vlogs."
"I will tell our baby in the future that her mommy Lisa is the most annoying person in the world." Jennie grins at her, crossing her arms with an attitude.
"But..." Jennie adds, suddenly softening and completely turning into a big mush. Like she wasn't being Regina George earlier. "Mommy Lisa is the person I love very much."
Lisa smiles longingly at the video as she watches their useless and petty arguments. Reveling every little moment they used to share together in these short clips of the life they used to share. She was too engrossed at the film that she forgot she doesn't live there anymore, that it was just something of the past.
Jennie's the first person, the only person, to come so close. and Lisa doesn't know how to let anyone else do the same. Has not found anyone who can reach. And that is what scares her the most.
She couldn't believe she forgot how beautiful Jennie truly is. It's been years since she had last seen her, her memories of her face became a victim of time, slowly fading until she could only remember remnants of it.
Jennie remains unchanged.
It seemed like time didn't touch her at all, yet Lisa loves her still.
Maybe that's why it was so hard for Lisa to move on.
She didn't only have to let go of the past but also the future Jennie and her wished to spend together. But maybe she didn't have to move on at all. Perhaps, she just needed to heal from all the hurt that was painted in her heart.
Jennie was too much of a special memory to forget, she was someone that meant everything to her. Jennie didn't deserve to be forgotten, she deserved to be remembered, to be treasured. She deserved all of that because Lisa loved, still loves, her.
And, Jennie loved her too.
Ella squeals with so much enthusiasm when she sees her own mommy pick her up from school. And without missing another beat she runs into Lisa's open arms where she always felt like she belongs.
The two of them walk back to their apartment, Ella happily skipping and jumping while Lisa holds onto her, not wanting her daughter to lose her balance and trip, also to refrain her from running away.
It was silent for a quite a while, Lisa was in her head while Ella's attention is focused on not stepping into the lines of the cemented tiles on the pavement.
"was it really mommy Jennie, sweetheart?" Lisa couldn't help but ask. She wanted to ask this question ever since that night had happened. The lack of answers eating her system up.
Though it sounds, feels, like her daughter said the truth about knowing the presence of Jennie's ghost, she couldn't help but feel this lingering doubt in her heart, it almost seemed impossible.
"the one you said who protects you?"
Lisa knew, even from the start, that Ella never knew anything about Jennie, even her name. She kept her locked away in the dark crumpled storage room. So, the pang in her heart when their little girl knew of her mommy Jennie's face in the picture she only kept for herself was more than a surprise, it wasn't confusion or shock it felt like everything in between, mixed with other emotions she has a hard time deciphering.
A part of her didn't know what to believe. Ghosts aren't necessarily supernatural beings. A ghost could be a lot of things; a memory, a daydream, a secret, grief, anger, guilt. But most times, in her experience, it's a wish.
But how could a little girl wish for something she never even knew of.
"yes," Ella answers like it was such a simple question for her. "mommy Jennie has pretty smile. Like me!" she giggles as she continues to skip around but never letting go of Lisa's hand.
"mommy Jennie wears same sweater too! it's yellow and has ducks!" Ella adds animatedly, like it's an important information she has to share.
Lisa feels paralyzed right there and then. That was her favorite sweater back in college, it was the sweater Jennie stole from her and she never had the intention of returning it back. It was also the sweater she wore the day they both rushed to the hospital in 2 in the morning when she was already in labor.
Yeah, it was Jennie. That was her.
"Ella, I want to show you something." Lisa smiles widely as she watches the little girl take off her shoes.
"What, mommy?" Ella couldn't help but curl her lips into a smile as well when she sees her mommy's big happy smile.
"C'mere." Lisa holds the little girl's tiny hand, pulling her into her own bedroom. Ella happily follows, feeling giddy and excited at what feels like a gift her mommy has fo her.
Lisa carries the toddler to her bed and hurriedly takes her laptop that's sitting idly on her desk. She jumps in the bed beside her daughter, Ella laughs loudly when the mattress felt like waves the moment Lisa plopped beside her.
Lisa quickly opened the laptop and Ella waits patiently. Once the laptop was open Lisa immediately went to the folder where their short vlogs are. Ella's gaze never wavering as the first video pops up.
"You're eating mangoes, again," Lisa says in the vlog, clicking her tongue afterward.
"Ella loves it, mangoes are her favorite." Jennie replies, happily eating what seemed like her 4th mango that time.
"Mommy Jennie?" Ella asks with so much excitement. Her eyes beaming with so much brightness that it could engulf every corner of their home with light.
"Yes, sweetheart. It's her." Lisa replies as she boops her daughter's nose. Ella crinkles her cute and tiny nose and focuses her attention on the screen again, happily watching her parents throw jokes at one another.
Ella laughs loudly when Jennie starts pinching Lisa's sides when Lisa took the last mango, and Lisa starts screaming like a pterodactyl.
Lisa silently watches their daughter be engrossed with those short vlogs that she gladly filmed almost five years ago. Lisa thinks that she and Jennie were something else when they were still together. It was such a vague description for such wonder.
"Ella..." Lisa quietly calls out to her daughter. Ella then fixates her gaze at her.
"I'm sorry..." Lisa tells the little girl.
"Why?" Ella's face contorting into confusion. Her mommy is not making sense right now.
"I'm sorry that home sometimes feels like a storm on sunny days..."
Ella doesn't say anything for a moment, her lips just curling into a soft smile, as if a 4-year-old girl like her could perfectly make sense what Lisa was trying to say.
"Mommy, you are my sun." And with that Ella continues watching their videos once again.
Lisa feels her heart smile at this. Lisa looks at her like she is the answer to every question she ever had, she loves her with peace, she loves her with absolute clarity. She loves their daughter so much that she wouldn't know what to do if she ever lost her. The thought makes her mourn instantly.
Lisa thinks, perhaps, that grief is really just love. All the love you could give but cannot. It's just love with nowhere to go.
She joins her daughter to watch the life she had captured by the camera, forever frozen in time. They both watch the many short vlogs Lisa had with Jennie, until Ella had fallen asleep in her bed. Her little snores now filling up her entire room and Lisa doesn't mind.
Lisa chuckles at her little girl sprawled on her bed, she lovingly ruffles Ella's hair first before she puts the laptop back to her desk. Without letting another minute pass by she quickly joins her daughter on the mattress, scooting as close as she could near the toddler. She softly traces the soft lines on her daughter's face, engraving every detail in her head.
This is the quietest room she's ever been in, but just the mere sight of her little girl ignites fireworks in her being like New Year's Eve, reminding her of loud and carefree happiness that exists at that time of the year. She wraps around her arms around Ella and wanting to be as close as ever, after having a love that was lost so early she's afraid of losing another one, so she holds on as tightly as she could.
This feels like home. This makes every heartache disappear.
Ella nuzzles much closer to her, feeling the safest and secure when she's in her mommy's embrace.
"Mommy?" Ella whispers quietly.
"Hm?"
"I love you," the little girl says like it's her last breath and she just couldn't save it. Lisa adjusts herself so she could look at Ella better.
"You're crying..." Lisa says, also feeling the prickling of tears in her own eyes.
"I miss mommy Jennie..." there's a softness in Ella's innocent doe-eyes, one that says everything her tongue can't.
"Me too," Lisa whispers. "But I'm here... and I wouldn't go anywhere else."
"Thank you." Ella replies. Lisa could hear the faintest breath struggle in her throat, a small but calmed whimper escapes Ella's lips.
Lisa could only hold her, and she wishes that's enough. and it seems like it is because Ella has calmed down now.
"We're gonna be alright." Lisa pulls away for a brief second to wipe the tear stain on her daughter's cheek. "I promise." She sincerely says, booping Ella's nose, earning a soft smile from her daughter.
This is the quietest room she's ever been in, but Lisa has never heard love be this loud.
"Mommy, what is mommy Jennie like?"
Lisa strays her gaze away from the egg she's beating in the bowl to look at her daughter with a soft gaze. The corner of her mouth curling into a soft smile at the question.
She sighs dreamily, letting herself reminisce and revel in the memory of everything that was once Jennie.
After last night, she finally submerged herself into the waters of the past. Treasuring every memory that she ever had with Jennie. She's still learning how to let go of the pain and hurt she felt when she lost the love of her life, and in those trying times, she realized how the love and warmth Jennie left her with was much more important than mourning over the life she had lost with her.
And in her healing, she could finally share the love Jennie left her to their own daughter.
"Mommy Jennie was..." Lisa paused briefly, thinking of a word to describe her to their daughter. Ella patiently waits for a response, her small hands wiping away the sleep from her cat-like eyes, her eyes that she got from Jennie.
The thing is, Jennie was never just a word. she was everything to her. Everything that meant to her. So, sentences and words were never enough to perfectly explain the Jennie she knew by heart. She was more of a puzzle— something you have to see and feel, and also learn, to be able to piece out the picture that she truly is.
But she would gladly explain Jennie in a way their daughter could understand perfectly.
"Mommy Jennie was beautiful," Lisa says, plain and simple. That was probably enough explanation because their daughter's eyes light up at the word.
"Wooowwww..." Ella prolongs the word, like she couldn't believe such a thing. Lisa chuckles at that and continues her chore to cook breakfast for the two of them.
"How was she beautiful, mommy?" Ella asks, completely intrigued. her eyebrows knitting together in curiosity, her cute pout as the cherry on top. Lisa smiles at the sight. it feels like looking at Jennie like she never left at all.
"She was so beautiful inside and out, sweetheart," Lisa replies. "She was already so beautiful outside. Mommy Jennie looked like the prettiest person in the world, you know? I mean, for me."
Ella giggles childishly at the cheesiness of it. Her face scrunching up into what's supposed to be a grimace. Lisa just finds it funny and boops the little girl's nose playfully.
"But then, I started to get to know her. I slowly learned who she was, and I asked myself how can a person be that pretty." Lisa sighs dreamily.
Every word that came out of her mouth was overflowing with fondness and love in them. And Lisa questions herself how can she ever spit her name in vain and in anger when all she ever felt for her is love.
"She was so lovely, baby. I really wished you got to meet her when mommy Jennie was still around." Lisa's voice that was filled with saccharine and life became quiet and gloomy, if it wasn't for the serene atmosphere in their apartment Ella wouldn't be able to hear her.
Ella notices the change of mood in her mother. The little girl suddenly feels bad, thinking that she was the one who made her mommy sad. So, she slowly wrings her pinky with Lisa's own. "It's alright, mommy." Her little thumb starts to caress the back of Lisa's hand, the way her mommy does when she feels sad too.
Lisa smiles at the limitless comfort her daughter continues to give her. Having Ella gives this indescribable joy that fills her being, and she couldn't thank Jennie enough for bringing an angel into her world.
Forever was impossible— Lisa knew that all too well, forever is something people can't reach.
But a lifetime... it's there, attainable, and Lisa wants that with no one other than Ella, their daughter, the most memorable thing Jennie left her with, aside from their memories.
Lisa and her daughter talked until the morning light starts peeking through the blinds of their apartment's windows, the sun-rays hitting their sleepy faces, and beaming a light enough to wake their drowsy yet twinkling eyes.
They spoke in soft giggles and lived in the stories of the easier days.
Stories of Jennie and Lisa, and the life they used to have. Lisa wanting her daughter to experience (even if it's just imaginary) how it was like when her mommy Jennie was still around.
And through tired eyes and heartfelt smiles, Lisa felt her heart swelling at the sight of their daughter.
she loves her because this is real, she is real, and she couldn't believe that the truth doesn't have to hurt all the time.