2. Juniper
Juniper
There was nothing that Juniper loved more than driving north at dawn. Well, not ‘driving’ so much as being a passenger princess, relaxing in her seat with a hot chai as they coasted through the incredible scenery of the Big Island’s eastern coastline.
If they timed it right, the sun crested the horizon just as they were driving past Hilo Bay. Fresh dawn hues of pale blue and gold greeted them as they drove across the bridge and up the coast. After that, it was a solid hour of monkeypod trees and rolling green hills on their way up to Honoka‘a.
The endless beauty of Hawai‘i made Juniper’s heart ache. She hadn’t thought that anything could surpass the golden hills and towering redwoods of central California… but the islands were something else entirely. The wild beauty cracked her heart open and filled it with gratitude.
They chatted easily as they drove north, Cody at the wheel and Juniper staring out across the vast blue Pacific.
Between college classes and a patchwork collection of part-time jobs, Cody worked so much that they hardly saw each other anymore.
The long drive to the market in Honoka‘a was their weekly catch-up session.
“My dad asked me to move in with him,” Jun said.
“With him and Fern?” Cody glanced at her and then looked back at the road. He was the most careful driver she knew.
“Yeah. Fern’s completely moved upstairs now, and they’ve been renting the downstairs unit out… but they want me to move in. At least, my dad does.”
“Fern doesn’t?”
“She said that she does… but I’m sure she’d rather have a traveling nurse downstairs covering their rent. Not some teenage mom mooching off of her.”
Cody gave her a stern sideways glance. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
“Maybe.” Jun shrugged.
“What do you want to do?”
I want to live with you .
She sighed, looking out the window. For all of his work ethic and ambition, Cody was still just a teenage kid living with his mom.
He was actually in one of the cabins on Summers Ranch. But a rough, unpermitted studio down the hill from Tara didn’t sound like a step up to Juniper… and Cody hadn’t asked.
Her room was barely big enough for her, never mind her towering boyfriend. The guest room downstairs wasn’t much better, and she worried that living down there would feel more like squatting in the middle of someone else’s life than living on the third floor did.
At least in her tower room, with its wide green view of the orchard and the forest beyond, she was able to get some distance from all the problems and worries that gnawed at her when she was down at ground level. But it wasn’t exactly suited for a family home.
“I want a place of my own,” she said quietly, “but rental prices are insane. It’s even worse than Redwood Grove. They charge two grand for studios up there too, but at least they’re not full of black mold and roaches.”
“We’ll find something,” Cody said. But, bless him, the man couldn’t lie to save his life. There was no conviction in his voice. He knew exactly how hard it was to survive on the Big Island, never mind raising a family.
There were moments when Juniper lost her faith in him, lost all faith in herself . Raising another human being felt like an impossibly daunting task. At the same time, it had never really felt like a choice. It just… was. And so she would figure it out. Somehow.
When they pulled up to the wide green field that held the Hāmākua Harvest farmers market, Cody refused to let her do any of the work.
Just a couple months before, she refused to be treated like an invalid.
Now… well, hauling her boat-sized belly around was enough without trying to carry tables and the massive glass containers of tea too.
Cody was an old hat at this, anyway. He popped the tent up without help, arranged the tables and tablecloths, and hung up the Local Organic Tea sign that Juniper had painted with the twins when they still lived next door.
Then he arranged the drinks in perfect rainbow order: ruby-red hibiscus, orange lilikoi, yellow lemon-balm lemonade, golden mamaki, a jade-green herbal blend, sapphire-blue butterfly pea, and a royal purple blend that Juniper was especially proud of.
While he hauled those out of the truck, she busied herself with setting up a display of dried herbs that she had packaged for tea.
Tisanes, technically, but she got enough looks of blank incomprehension using that word that she had stopped trying.
The wind was whipping past off of the ocean, but the sun was already high and bright. It would be a good day for sales, Juniper predicted.
She was right. Before long, there was a steady flow of market-goers handing over their refillable bottles and buying packets of mamaki chai for cold winter mornings up the mountain.
“You should sit down,” Cody said, gesturing to the oversized camping chair he had set up behind their stand. “I can man the tent for a while.”
“No way,” she said with a grin. “I sell twice as much as you do.”
“I can’t argue with facts.” He put a hand between her shoulder blades, working on the stubborn knots that had settled there. It made her want to lean into him and purr like a cat, but she had work to do.
“Good morning!” She stepped up to greet the family who had paused in front of her display. “Care for a sample?”
Cody squeezed her arm in passing and went to load up on boxes of veg for Island Grown Meals.
Tara had upgraded from her old kitchen to a commercial space in Hilo that she shared with other market businesses.
She had two women working for her now, and she only had to cook two days a week.
Cody still did all of the deliveries, and he managed a fair bit of the sourcing as well.
Something like pride swelled in Juniper’s chest as she watched him talk story with local vendors and carry boxes of food back to the van.
He was seventeen, but he didn’t look it. Between his height and the well-earned muscles in his arms, he could easily pass for mid-twenties. It seemed like everyone on the island knew him, and they treated him with respect.
As she watched him out in the world, Juniper’s faith and confidence began to regenerate. Yes, it was hard to find decent housing in Hawai‘i, but Cody had lived there all his life. Sooner or later, a door would open for them.
She winced as their son woke up and stretched, already pushing the boundaries of his enclosure. The kid must get his height from his dad; she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to get through another six weeks of this.
“Jun!” A powerful voice pulled her attention back to the space in front of her stand. ‘ōlena stood grinning at her, and Juniper grinned back.
“Auntie ‘ōlena! Hi!”
The tall woman came around the tables to give Jun a sideways hug. Her pregnant belly was even bigger than Jun’s, but she carried the additional weight with ease. It hardly seemed to slow her down at all.
“How are you?” ‘ōlena asked, peering down at her.
“I’m good. Business is steady today.”
“I’ll let you get back to it, then.” ‘ōlena filled her oversized water bottle with mamaki, and the easy familiarity of that made Jun’s heart happy.
Every little reminder of the ‘ohana she had there eased her worries. Surviving there alone, raising a baby alone, was a task so daunting that she couldn’t wrap her mind around it. But she wasn’t alone. She had community. She had people who cared. And she was going to be okay.
“Where are the kids?” she asked, not quite ready to say goodbye.
“Over by the music.” ‘ōlena dropped a ten-dollar bill into Jun’s tip jar and gestured across the broad green lawn to the band that was playing country songs peppered with Hawaiian words.
“Some friends of ours are playing today, so we made the drive up. Every time I come up here, I wonder why we don’t make the drive more often. ”
“It’s beautiful,” Jun said with a nod.
Cody came around the back of the tent carrying two massive trays of roast chicken and vegetables, and ‘ōlena shooed her away.
“Go find a picnic table. Put your feet up for a minute.”
“I’ll work the stand while she eats, auntie,” Cody said.
“Both of you go eat.” Her tone left no room for argument, and so they shuffled off to find an open picnic table. As soon as they sat down, Juniper tore into her food. In that moment, the rotisserie chicken and roast yams seemed to be the most delicious thing that she had ever tasted.
“Have you been eating enough?” Cody asked, looking concerned.
Juniper gestured to her belly. She had to sit sideways on the bench to even be able to get to the table. “Do I not look like I’ve been eating enough?”
Cody didn’t answer.
“I ate a good breakfast before you picked me up. It’s just my stomach is so squished, I can’t eat very much at one time. So if I go like six hours, I’m starved .” She punctuated that statement by tearing into a chicken leg like a feral cat. “I meant to bring snacks, but I forgot.”
“I’ll have snacks for you next time,” he promised.
She smiled at him and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Thanks.”
“You should come over for dinner tonight. My mom’s making her breadfruit beef stew.”
Juniper popped a piece of yam into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
“What? You don’t want to come?”
“Did Tara invite me?” she asked, still looking down at her plate.
“No. I’m inviting you.” Cody frowned in confusion.
Juniper was only able to meet his earnest amber eyes for a second before looking away. She sighed and said, “I don’t feel like I can just show up there.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Cody, your mom hasn’t spoken to me since I told her I was pregnant.”
His mouth dropped open, and he quickly shut it again. He frowned at her, processing. “That can’t be right. Are you sure?”
She snorted a mirthless laugh. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
“She’s not… not talking to you. It was just chaos with the move, and then–” He stopped talking when she gave him an exasperated look. “I mean, have you tried talking to her ?”
Juniper shook her head.
“See?”
“No, I don’t see. Cody, she hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate anyone,” he said firmly.
“Well, I’m obviously not her favorite person.”
“You used to be so close. You would come over and cook, and I would hear you two laughing in the kitchen.”
“And then you knocked me up, and I haven’t heard from her since.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “You stopped coming over. Before you even told me. You stopped talking to us.”
Juniper picked at her food. Her hunger had deserted her.
“Just come over for dinner,” he pleaded.
“Maybe,” she said, but she knew she wouldn’t. She would say that she was too tired after working the market all day. And that would be the truth.
She hauled herself to her feet.
“I should get back and relieve ‘ōlena.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said.
Juniper trudged back across the grass, feeling the extra weight she carried more than ever.
She might have cobbled together ‘ohana there on the island, but her baby’s actual family was fractured and broken.
One grandma was already gone, and the other…
well, Juniper didn’t have the energy to try and shift that boulder. She had enough to carry.