Chapter 5
Juniper was quietly seething in the empty storage room.
Were these really the conditions she would be required to work in?
These constraints to her contributions, her hard work, her vision?
She leaned her forehead against the wall and immediately felt bad for taking individual credit like that.
This was her community’s hard work. Their vision. Together.
This wasn’t like her. She was way off balance and needed to get some air.
Once she heard Rowan’s office door shut, she quickly descended the stairs and bounded out of the front doors of the building and into the sunlight. The doors echoed a heinously loud screeching sound that jarred her out of her fixation on self-pity.
She sighed in intense irritation, wishing instead it could be the deepest, most guttural scream she could ever hope to muster from the depths of her soul.
But she was in the parking lot. At work.
Trying to do the job she wanted to do more than anything.
And that constraint just frustrated her further.
Instead, she breathed in and out a large breath, named the types of trees she saw lining the parking lot as a grounding exercise, and walked back inside the building to do her job.
For the rest of the day, Juniper and Rowan managed to keep their distance until bumping into each other as they exited their respective offices at 5 o’clock on the dot, nearly closing their doors in unison.
Even in heels, Juniper couldn’t go eye-to-eye with Rowan, yet all she wished she could do in that moment was take her down an inch or two.
Rowan stepped aside and let Juniper pass, and then walked several paces behind her until they exited the building.
Something inside Juniper made her want to turn around and say something, anything, to her every few feet before they hit the stairwell.
But she couldn’t find any words or come to any conclusion about what she wanted that message to be.
Once she hit the stairwell, she simply focused her eyes forward and concentrated on every click of her heels against the stairs that would lead her out of there.
Instead of heading home though, Juniper diverted course and took a right at one of the only seven intersections on the Rez, and her cousin Wren’s small bungalow-style house came into view.
As soon as she stepped one foot out of her car, Wanchese, Wren’s nine-year old son, came bounding out of the front door and into her arms. She squeezed him tightly and breathed him in, as she always did.
She enjoyed a special closeness with him, not just from how often she spent time with him, but it felt like they’d spoken the same secret language since he was born.
“Were you waiting for me or something? Or could you sense I was coming?” She asked conspiratorially as she let go and put her hands on her hips.
He grabbed a hand from her hip and led the way back to the front door. “I could sense it.”
She squeezed his hand and hurried along behind him. “Good. The spell is still working.”
Wanchese opened the door for her, and she couldn’t help notice how long the single golden brown braid down his back was getting. He really was growing up so fast. Really way too fast.
She pressed the stray hairs on the top of his head down before planting a kiss on his center part, and said, “Good manners, nuqisus (my son). Women go first.”
Once inside, she instantly felt at ease.
Even though it was on the small side, Wren worked so hard to make their home a cozy, family home, decorated with local artwork, comfortable throw blankets and pillows, plants, pictures of their family and their favorite places, and as much of Wanchese’s own artwork as she could possibly fit on their refrigerator.
So much warmer than the homes they grew up in as kids.
Juniper found Wren sitting on her couch with her feet curled up under her, one of her many throw blankets draped across her lap.
She was looking at a brochure for the Institute of American Indian Arts and sipping coffee out of a large ceramic mug with an intricate woodland floral pattern embossed onto it.
“Cute mug. Is that new?” Juniper asked, as she kicked her shoes off by the front door and headed directly toward the coffee pot for her own large mug.
“Yes! I saw a pottery artist from another Tribe on social media selling these, so I had to buy one. I like how it’s similar to our designs.” She paused. “I was inspired, I guess. I want to get into pottery again, the traditional way this time.”
Wren’s excitement drifted into a daydream tone as Juniper circulated the kitchen to make her coffee. Wren had always been drawn to the arts, and was really great at sketching and painting, but her chance to pursue her creative passions had been dramatically cut short.
No one really knew the full story of how Wren had gotten pregnant at 19, except Juniper.
Just like no one knew what happened between her and Rowan, except for Wren.
Juniper was also the only one who knew who Wanchese’s actual father was.
It was not something Wren ever talked about, even to this day, and had lived the last nine years as a single parent trying to make ends meet, not necessarily by choice.
Losing her sense of freedom that young, especially for someone as carefree and wild-spirited as Wren had been, was a difficult transition, and she was still trying to figure out the balance of keeping parts of herself through motherhood.
Wren was only a few years younger than her, but it seemed like she had already lived a whole other lifetime before she got to her late twenties.
Through it all, they were happy to keep each other’s secrets and be each other’s biggest supporters. Juniper settled herself next to Wren with her mug.
“You should get back into pottery,” Juniper responded assuredly, “you would be so great at that. Do you remember Nunny gathering clay from the river?”
Nunny was what they had called their late grandmother, Helen Deerfoot. It was a shorter term of endearment for the word Nunohum, meaning grandmother in their language.
“Yes, and we were too stupid to ask her more about it,” Wren agonized.
“I know, but we didn’t know any better either. Look into it though. Maybe there are still some Elders around who can teach you. You know I’ll watch Wanchese for you.”
“I know. You just do so much already.”
Juniper reached over to put one arm around Wren’s shoulders, tilted her head against hers, and squeezed.
“So do you. It’s what we do.”
“Oh, so tell me, how has your first week been going boss lady?” Wren asked with bright eyes, as she shifted back to face Juniper.
Juniper had almost forgotten why her fury-induced detour had directed her toward Wren’s house in the first place.
“The first thirty minutes of the first day were great,” Juniper responded with a head tilt of suspense.
“Just thirty minutes?”
“You will never, ever guess who is working for the Tribe.”
They both definitely loved gossip. A guilty pleasure they actually didn’t feel any guilt about. Wren pulled her long curly black hair on top of her head and secured the messy bun with a hair tie from her wrist. Juniper almost wanted to laugh at the preparation she was undergoing to hear it.
“Who?” Wren begged.
“Rowan. Birdsong.” Juniper enunciated every syllable.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Wren’s eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead in complete surprise.
“Mom—,” Wanchese interrupted, “language.”
“Oh sorry, baby,” Wren directed at him before covering her mouth and whispering to Juniper with wide eyes. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”
“I am so not kidding. I really, really wish I was though.”
“Wow. So wait tell me how that went? You guys haven’t seen each other in what — fifteen years?”
“Fifteen years. Since the summer after high school graduation. It was awkward at first, obviously. But then I just started to get more and more pissed off. Why in the world would she choose to come back and work for the Tribe now? After all these years, and such an illustrious career,” Juniper mocked.
“I have no idea. It always looks like she’s traveling or meeting important people on her social media. That’s a huge ass change to move back here. From New York City? Hell no, I know I would never leave that kind of life if I had it,” Wren remarked with conviction and a sharp shake of her head.
Juniper rolled her eyes. Sure their community wasn’t the big city, but people never gave it enough credit. She took a long sip of coffee before getting herself back to the point.
“Anyway, she’s some kind of higher up advisor to the Chairwoman in the environmental department, which of course, is what my program is under. I have never felt more defeated or outraged at the same time. There has to be an exact word to describe that feeling.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t even know what to say. It’s hard to believe we all grew up together. I’m still kind of in shock that she’s back.”
“Same. I have worked so hard, you know how hard, to make this happen. And it’s like I can’t have one good thing going for me. There’s always got to be some kind of problem, or I have to concede what I really want,” Juniper lamented.
“I get that. I know you’ve worked hard, Junie.” Wren’s face faltered into a sympathetic frown.
“I can’t have someone coming in there telling me what to do, you know? Not someone who has no idea what it took to make this happen. I would love it if something could just be easy for once. I don’t want everything in my life to feel like one fucking struggle after the next.”
“Well, what are you going to do? Is there any alternative to working with her?”
“I doubt it.”
Wren shifted to face Juniper more fully, tucking one leg under herself and balancing her coffee cup on her propped up knee.
She was switching into therapist mode, which she was actually very good at.
It wasn’t just that she could give great advice she’d learnt the different hardships she’d faced, it was more so that she had that special energy, an aura about her that made everyone feel safe.
“The way I see it is you can’t let her stop you from fulfilling your dream. And you can’t be so clouded by your hatred of her that it affects your job. You can’t let either of those things happen. Because like you said — you worked too hard for this.”
“I know. You’re right. I guess I’ll have to power through.
It sounds like all we have to do is work on the plans for Tribal Council approval on expanding the gardens.
We should get that done by April, early-May at the latest. Then after that, we can go our separate ways again for the most part. If I’m lucky.”
Juniper drained the last of her coffee in one long sip and set the empty cup on the side table.
She stretched her legs out, closed her eyes, and dropped her head into the back of the couch cushions.
Her hair floated out through the air as she sank back, providing the perfect outward emphasis for how dramatic she felt inside.
“Ughhh,” she garbled dramatically.
“Auntie, what’s wrong?” Wanchese called out from his pile of Lego on the floor.
Juniper rallied at the sweet sound of being called Auntie and smiled. She sat up and moved over to the floor to build with him.
“Nothing, I’m just frustrated by something at work.”
She looked over at him and smiled. In their special way, he didn’t press any further.
Instead, they spent the next half hour building all different kinds of structures and crafting all different kinds of plots for their scenes and characters.
Juniper could understand the draw. You could build what you liked.
And if you didn’t like it, you could smash it apart. That part felt downright therapeutic.
She switched gears and fully relaxed into her newfound contentment.
“Hey, do you know how much I love you?” She asked him.
“No,” he responded in a slow, cheeky way, eyes peering over his glasses.
Juniper gasped in disbelief, a shocked hand slapped her own chest. “Are you lying to me you little trickster?” She exclaimed, narrowing her eyes.
She started tickling one of his sides, and Wanchese, squealing with laughter, jumped to his feet in an effort to run.
Before he could get very far from their Lego graveyard, Wren called out, “Make sure you pick all those up first! I’m not stepping on any more of those in the middle of the night!
I refuse!” She turned to Juniper. “There is nothing worse than sneaking out here to get a midnight snack and stepping on one of those things. Worse than childbirth. I am serious.”
Juniper giggled, even though she could remember that day like it was yesterday. She had been the only person at Wren’s side when she gave birth. How quickly she forgot just how painful that actually was, in more ways than one.
Juniper grabbed Wanchese’s hand and pulled him back down into her lap before they started to clean up.
“How do you say I love you?” Juniper asked.
“Kuwumaras,” he answered.
“Kuwumaras, nuqisus.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed the side of his face, squeezing him a little longer than he liked, judging by his squirming.
She and Wren had made it their priority to pour into the cups of the children in their lives, especially Wanchese.
This was the different life they imagined for their children, and they made good on that promise everyday.
When Juniper finally stepped out of the house hours later, she felt relieved.
She hadn’t intended to leave in such a better mood, but there she was nonetheless.
Even if the original reason she found herself there was more about rage than redemption.
On her drive back to her house, she reflected on Wren’s words.
You can’t be so clouded by your hatred of her that it affects your job.
She certainly wasn’t going to let that happen, but she also knew she needed to approach this from another angle.
If their work together was meant to be short-term, then why did she need to let all of this emotion get in the way?
It’s not like they needed to make amends or rehash old pain to develop some expansion plans.
They just needed to find a way to work together professionally, so they could move past this momentary blip and diverge back onto their own paths again.
She could do that. She could absolutely do that.