11. Juniper
Juniper
When Juniper made it downstairs the next morning – no small task when she couldn’t even see her own feet – she found her aunt already in the kitchen.
“So?” She hurried across the kitchen and peered into Emma’s face.
She blinked at her blearily. “Good morning.”
“How did it go?” she demanded.
“How did what go?”
“Your date!” She couldn’t tell if her aunt was being purposefully obtuse or if she was just half asleep.
“Oh, that.” A shy smile crept over Emma’s face, and she turned away to pour them two cups of tea from a pot that had been warming on the stove.
“Yes, that,” Jun huffed, exasperated.
“I saw whales. I swam with whales!”
“That’s awesome.” Juniper frowned at her as she picked up her tea. “But how was your date ?”
“That was the date.” Emma looked at her, wide-eyed. “We went sailing, and there were whales. It was beautiful.”
Juniper sighed and moved to sit at the kitchen table. The sun wasn’t even up yet, and already her bones hurt. She lowered herself carefully into one of the chairs, and Emma joined her.
“But how was it between you and Keith?” she pressed. “Did you kiss?”
A line appeared between Emma’s eyebrows, and she looked away.
“That bad, huh?”
“It wasn’t bad,” she said quickly, her tone scolding. “I just…”
Juniper waited, sipping the mamaki ginger blend while Emma gathered her thoughts.
“It was a perfect first date,” she said at last. “Right up until the end. He pulled up in front of the house to drop me off, and I basically bolted for the door.”
“Ouch. Poor Keith.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just overwhelmed by this sudden, thoughtless panic. He gave me an absolutely perfect sunset picnic out on the water, we chatted the whole drive home, and then I just ran away from him.”
Juniper blinked at her, at a loss for words.
Emma groaned and put her head down on the table with a thunk .
“He loves you, Auntie Em.” Jun was trying to comfort her, but all she got was another groan of despair. “He’s been patient so far.”
Emma said something, but the words were lost somewhere between her throat and the wooden table.
“What did you say?”
She picked her head up and inhaled a sharp, deep breath. “I said, I don’t think I can do this.”
“Do what?”
“Date. Kiss someone else. It’s terrifying.”
“Do you want to kiss him?”
“I don’t know.” She put her hands over her face, embarrassed. “Yes. I think so. I mean, I do.”
“So?”
Emma dropped her hands and met Jun’s eyes.
In the pearly morning light that filtered through the kitchen widows, with her sleep-tousled auburn hair framing her round face, she looked very young.
Juniper was able to see past the woman she had known all her life to the girl who had fallen in love with Adam at sixteen – the girl who had never even been out on a date with anybody else. Until last night.
“Keith’s a good guy, Auntie. It’s okay to take things slow.”
“What if I’m never ready? What if I’m just stringing him along?”
“He’s well aware of your trauma. He knows what he signed on for.”
“I just… it’s been less than two years since Adam died.”
Two years seemed like a long time to Jun, but her aunt and uncle had been together for longer than she had even been alive. She had no idea what that was like, either to have a steady partner for most of your life or to lose them when they were all you had ever known.
“What if I’m not ready?” she asked.
“Do you want to be ready?” Jun reached across the table and took her hand, warm from the cup of tea she had been clutching while they talked.
“Yeah.” Her voice was quiet, her eyes down. Even so, there was a steadiness to her answer. “I do.”
“Then just take it one day at a time.”
Emma grinned and met her eyes. Her smile was almost shy. “How did you get so wise?”
“It’s the trauma,” Jun quipped, and she laughed.
“Change of subject?” She picked her tea up in both hands and leaned back in her chair.
“Sure.” Juniper shifted in her seat, trying to get comfortable – a nearly impossible task. Deep in her belly, her son turned and shifted as well, trying to stretch his legs in the narrow confines of his living space.
“Nell moves out today.”
“Already?” Juniper had heard about the proposal, but moving house one day to the next seemed extreme.
“She’s basically been living there for months already,” Emma reminded her. “We hardly see her anymore. I think she’s already moved her life over there one bag at a time, but she and Hugh are coming for one last load today.”
“Wow. Okay.” Juniper frowned at her aunt, who was looking at her expectantly. “What?”
“I’m wondering if you’d like to move into the ‘ohana.”
“Me?” She shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. The ‘ohana unit was just across the yard, but it was a whole home of its own. Her own kitchen, her own living room… the thought was dizzying.
“Do you really want to keep climbing the stairs to the tower room?”
“I love the tower room,” Jun protested, and then she sighed. “But yeah, the stairs are getting more and more difficult.”
“I’ll be a stone’s throw away,” Emma reassured her. “Shouting distance. I’ll still be right here.”
“Yeah. Of course. It makes sense.”
“I can help you move your stuff over today, if you’d like. Maybe we could go shopping for some odds and ends to make it feel more like home? Add your own touch?”
Juniper shook her head, overwhelmed by the thought of trying to redecorate the place.
She had never lived on her own before, not unless you counted the treehouse behind Aunt Toni’s yurt – and she didn’t.
That had just been like having her own room.
It was technically detached from the main structure, but she had still showered in the yurt and cooked with her aunt in the kitchen. This was… different, somehow.
“What’s up?” Emma asked quietly.
“Are you sure you don’t want to rent it out?”
“I don’t need to. I would rather have you there. It’s the ‘ohana unit, after all. It’s for family. You and the baby are going to need a bit of room.”
Juniper nodded slowly, and Emma reached for her hand.
“What’s really bothering you?”
“I’m not a kid anymore.” Juniper’s throat was tight; she suddenly found herself holding back tears. “I know that sounds stupid when my belly’s out to here and I already run my own business and everything, but–” Her voice broke, and she paused to collect herself.
“That doesn’t sound stupid.” Emma’s voice was soft. “You’re seventeen, Junebug. You’re very grown up, and you’re brilliant, but you’re still… well, I’d say that you’re a newborn adult.”
“I’m not sure I’m even that yet.” Jun dashed away a couple of tears that had escaped. “Have you ever read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ?”
“Of course.”
“The memoir, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Remember how it ends with her baby? Because that was the end of her childhood, becoming a mother. Even though she was still a minor. Actually, it ends when her mom hands her the baby and tells her to handle it, and she sleeps the whole night with her son without crushing him or anything, and she realizes that she’s more capable than she thought.
” Juniper paused for breath. “She was my age.”
“She was.”
Juniper thought of Angelou’s second biography, of the utter shambles that was her life between seventeen and twenty… and she decided not to talk about that one. They lived in a much softer world than Maya had, with an immense amount of support.
She would be okay. She had to believe that she would be okay.
“Mama!” Kai’s voice sounded from upstairs, high and reedy, and Emma was on her feet in an instant.
“He’s been having nightmares again,” she explained, already halfway across the kitchen.
Juniper finished her tea, and then she heaved herself to her feet and started making waffles. By the time Kai and his friend came downstairs, the first two were already done.
“You’re a rockstar,” Emma said gratefully.
She and Kai left after breakfast to take Prince home to his grandma, and Juniper puttered around the house.
Despite her best efforts to keep things organized, her knitting projects and library books were scattered throughout all three floors.
She moved slowly, collecting the flotsam and jetsam of her life and piling it all on the kitchen table, just steps from the back door.
When the first two floors were clear, she went up to the tower room to collect the rest of her things.
She didn’t own much. Her clothes fit into two big paper shopping bags. Her books took three trips down the stairs. After that, one last trip to gather some odds and ends and take her pictures down from the wall… and that was it. Like she had never been there at all.
The view from the third floor was glorious. The trees in the orchard moved fitfully in the breeze, and the ocean glinted just a few miles away. She gazed wistfully out the window for a while, feeling melancholy, and then she made her final trip down the stairs.
Emma returned midmorning, closely followed by Nell and Hugh. They gathered up the last of Nell’s things – she really didn’t have much left at the cottage, maybe even less than the pile Jun had gathered on the kitchen table – and Nell said a tearful goodbye to Emma.
“Oh, this is so silly,” Nell laughed through her tears.
“We’ll still see each other all the time,” Emma told her. “Nearly every day when the playschool starts up again.”
“I know.” She wiped her tears away with both hands. “This place was just such a sanctuary for us. Even more so than A Place of Refuge. You gave us a home, Em. That was… everything. And now I’m leaving you to take care of the goats and garden all on your own! That wasn’t the deal.”
Emma laughed. “I can handle it.”
“Thank you,” Nell said, hugging her.
“You are so welcome.” She squeezed her tight and then stepped back.
“There you are!” Hugh rounded the corner and beamed at Nell. Everett’s laughter filled the air; his soon-to-be stepdad had slung him over one shoulder like a sack of sweet potatoes. “Are you ready to go? The girls are begging for lunch.”
“I’m ready.” Nell stood on tiptoe to kiss Emma’s cheek, and then she ran to take Hugh’s hand.
Emma turned to Jun and spread her arms wide. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Let’s get you moved in.”
It was the work of minutes, carrying everything that Juniper owned across the lawn and into the little cottage that stood beside the garden.
“I should go make Kai some lunch,” Emma said as she set down the final stack of books. “Are you okay to settle in on your own?”
“I think I can handle it,” Jun said dryly.
“Get your clothes and books put away,” Emma advised. “That will go a long way towards making the place feel like home.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want to have lunch with us? It should be ready by noon.”
“That sounds great.” Her stomach was already rumbling. There wasn’t enough room left in there to eat much food at once, and it seemed like everything she did eat went straight to her baby. “Thank you.”
Emma left, and Juniper obediently put her things in order.
She filled the bookcase with her favorite novels and books on herbalism.
Her towers of library books she divided between the living room and the bedside table.
She hung all of her clothes in the open-air closet and stacked her growing collection of baby clothes – a mixture of hand-me-downs and transfer station finds – on the bedroom shelves.
Her basket of yarn and box of knitting needles went in the corner by the couch. And that was it. All moved in.
She looked around at the home that had belonged first to Lani and then to Nell. Despite her aunt’s assurances, the place still didn’t feel like home. She felt more like a hermit crab with an oversized shell.
It was beautiful, yes. And she should be grateful. But she just felt… overwhelmed.
She needed to get outside.
The weather was glorious, blue skies and a strong breeze. She went through the orchard and into the big patch of mamaki that she had planted to keep up with demand. Weeding around the sturdy, subtly beautiful plants always calmed her nerves.
There were hibiscus bushes too, the variety that was harvested for tea. She had planted lemon balm and mint and stunning blue butterfly pea, bright orange calendula and bushy tulsi buzzing with bees.
If there was one place she always felt at home, it was there in her growing garden.
But even the fragrant herbs and flowers weren’t enough to calm her nerves that day.
She worked until she was light-headed with exertion and hunger – which didn’t take long at all, unfortunately. Then she sat in the shade and leaned against a tree, trying to catch her breath. Her lungs hardly had room to move anymore, and she felt right on the verge of a panic attack.
“There you are!” Emma appeared just as Jun’s feelings started to spiral out of control. Instantly, her panic settled. Not completely, but enough that she could breathe again. “Lunch is ready. I’ve been calling you. Are you okay?”
Juniper tried to speak, but the words stuck in her throat.
“What’s wrong?” Her aunt knelt on the grass beside her.
“What if I can’t do this?” she choked out.
“What do you mean?”
“What if I’m a terrible mother?”
Emma took her hand. “You won’t be.”
“You can’t know that!”
“Where’s this coming from, Jun?”
“What if I go crazy like my mom did?”
“Oh, Junebug.” Emma sighed and brushed an unruly curl away from Juniper’s face.
“She killed herself, Auntie Em.” The words were barely audible, little more than a whimper, but she could see that Emma had heard her.
Unspoken thoughts whirled behind her eyes, like she might argue the point.
“One way or another. Accidental overdose or deliberate… having a baby broke her. Both times. What if it breaks me too?”
“You are not your mother.” Emma’s voice was fierce as she took Jun’s face in both hands and looked her straight in the eyes. In the midst of all that green, her aunt’s eyes looked emerald-bright.
Hers must too, Juniper realized with a start. Her hazel-green eyes were just the same as her aunt’s. She had always favored the Flores side of the family, rather than her mother’s.
“You are strong, and you are capable, and you have support.” Emma released her face and stood. She took Juniper’s hands and hauled her to her feet. “All you need right now is a good meal. Come on inside.”
“Thank you,” Jun said weakly. She felt all wrung out.
“I’ve got you,” Emma promised. “Everything is going to be okay.”