25. Juniper
Juniper
Juniper rose in the wee hours to get Wilder a new diaper. She changed him on a towel on the floor in a rectangle of moonlight, hoping that if she kept the lights low, he might go back to sleep… but no such luck. He was wide awake and babbling loudly – his new favorite pastime.
She put him on her hip and carried him out to the kitchen, leaving Cody to sleep. He’d adjusted to fatherhood over the past few months and no longer slept quite as deeply as he had before – but he had class all day, followed by deliveries, and she wanted to let him rest.
“You basically slept through the night.” Juniper turned on a lamp and put Wilder down on a blanket, where he immediately rolled over onto his belly. “Kudos. All this sleep is doing wonders for mama’s health and sanity. Keep it up, would ya?”
He pushed himself onto his hands and feet, balancing precariously on all four limbs. Juniper got down on his level to see his precious little face.
“Don’t you know that you’re too young to crawl?” she cooed.
“He’s advanced.”
Juniper looked up to see Cody in the doorway.
“Does it count as sleeping through the night if we’re up before dawn?”
“Did we wake you?” she asked.
“It’s okay,” he yawned. “It’s nearly daylight.”
“He basically slept through the night.”
“Close enough,” Cody agreed. He went to fill the kettle with water for tea. “Did he wake up at all?”
“A couple of times,” she conceded. “Barely. Some dream feeds and a diaper change.”
“Sorry I slept through.”
“Don’t be. You need your rest.”
“So do you.”
“I can nap with Wilder.”
“Do you?”
“Sometimes.”
“That’s good.” He grinned. “Hey, you know what we should do?”
“What?”
“Let’s go down to the cliffs for sunrise.”
“Now?”
“As soon as our tea is done.”
“Okay. Let me just grab some warmer clothes for Wilder.” She jumped to her feet to gather the cozy knitted things that she rarely ever had occasion to use in Hawai‘i.
By the time she had wrestled her active baby into booties and a hooded sweater, Cody had two mugs of tea ready to go.
They crossed the property in the moonlight and climbed into Cody’s old silver Honda. It was a ten-minute drive down to the coast, then a five-minute walk through the greenery to the black lava-rock cliffs.
Juniper picked her way carefully across the uneven ground, conscious of the wriggly baby she held in her arms. When they reached a high outcropping of rock, she sat down and put him to her breast. He nursed contentedly, clutching the fabric of her t-shirt in one hand.
Cody sat to their right, shielding them from the worst of the wind. He put an arm around Jun, and his chest was warm against her bare arm. She sighed in contentment.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“More than okay.”
He kissed her temple, and they watched the clouds over the sea turn from silver to gold.
With a milk-drunk baby in her arms and her husband at her side, Juniper drifted into a state of tranquil joy; she felt almost entranced by the golden light that rippled across the Pacific.
“I’ve been thinking,” Cody said after a while.
“About what?” she asked dreamily.
“My biology classes have been going really well, but I think I want to change my specialty.”
“Still biology?” Juniper blinked and looked at him, trying to bring the logical part of her brain back online. But one look at his handsome face in the golden dawn light, and she was floating again.
“Yeah. Same major, different specialty.”
“Okay.” She scooted a few inches away so that she could see him better. Why did he look so anxious about a slight change in his major?
“There’s a pre-veterinary option.”
Jun grinned. “That’s exciting!”
“Yeah?” The crease of worry between his eyebrows didn’t disappear.
“Cody, you would make a fantastic vet.”
“Maybe. But there are no veterinary colleges in Hawai‘i.”
“Oh.” Jun took his hand, finally understanding the look on his face. “So we’d have to move off island.”
“Would you?” he asked, squeezing her fingers.
“Of course.”
Relief washed over his face.
“You’ve got about two years left?” She asked. Like many homeschooled kids, Cody had taken enough college-level courses in his highschool years to cover most of the intro-level classes required at the university.
“I could graduate at twenty if I really pushed. But I’d rather pace myself, spread the coursework out over three years or so. Then I’d get more time at home, and we’d have more time on island.”
“So we would need to move to the mainland when Wilder’s three?”
“For a while, at least.” He peered at her in the growing light as the sun crested the horizon. “Would you really want to leave? You’re thriving here.”
“Cody, I would follow you anywhere.”
He let out a breath and put his forehead against hers.
“We have plenty of time to plan,” she said after a moment. “I can shift my focus to selling more products online. I’ll set up my own website, like I did for Aunt Toni. That way, the business can move with us when it’s time to go.”
“You’re amazing,” he said softly. The sun rose higher, warming them. Jun was so lost in his eyes that she hardly noticed.
“We can do it all, Cody. There’s no rush. We can take it slow and build our dreams bit by bit. The life we have now is already so good. I don’t want to miss a minute of it.”
“There’s no rush,” he repeated, putting one big hand on the soft fuzz of Wilder’s head. Their son looked up at them with a sleepy grin. “Just you and me and mama against the world, huh?”
“No,” she said gently.
He looked into her eyes. “No?”
“With it, not against it. You and me for the world. For our son. I want to leave this place better than I found it. I want to help make things brighter.”
“Juniper…” He leaned in and kissed her, then drew back to look at her again. “You already have.”
And that’s a wrap!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. You’ve made it possible for me to realize my dream of being a full-time author, supporting my son and myself with the stories I tell, and I’m endlessly grateful for that.