5. Emma
5
Emma
“ I think I’m gonna be sick.” Juniper clutched the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Her freckles were stark against her pale, slightly green-tinged face.
“Do you want more ginger tea?” Emma asked.
“It’s not helping.”
“Ginger candies?”
Juniper shook her head.
“I have some leftover rice. I could–” Emma stopped talking as Juniper ran to the kitchen sink and heaved up bile. She walked over to her niece and held back her shoulder-length auburn hair.
After a couple minutes of dry heaving, Juniper turned on the tap. She rinsed the sink, splashed her face with cool water, and washed her mouth out.
“We have to get something into your stomach,” Emma told her.
Juniper dug into the bag of ginger candies and unwrapped one.
“Actual food.”
“Please don’t mention food,” she groaned, sinking into the nearest chair.
“You’ll feel better.”
“I doubt that.”
“Plain toast?”
“No.”
“Crackers?”
“No, thank you.”
“Is there anything that sounds edible?”
Juniper thought for a moment. “Lychee.”
“Okay.” Emma sat down across from her. “We’ll get you some lychee.”
“But my dad’s going to be here any minute,” she said, turning green again.
“I’ll send out an SOS. Is Nate and ‘ōlena’s orchard still producing?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. We’ll get you some.”
“Thanks, Auntie Em.” Juniper unwrapped another ginger candy and popped it into her mouth. After a moment of silence, she looked at her with fear in her hazel-green eyes. “Will you talk to my dad for me?”
Emma’s jaw dropped. “You want me to tell him?”
“Could you?” Juniper’s face was pale. She looked so young and vulnerable that Emma couldn’t bring herself to say no.
She dragged in a long breath. “I guess so.”
“I need to lie down.”
“You want me to tell him while you take a nap?” Emma said, incredulous.
Juniper looked at her with puppy-dog eyes, made all the more effective by her strange pallor and hollow cheeks. She had lost weight during the first few weeks of her pregnancy, which worried Emma to no end. They had made an appointment at the local clinic, but she wasn’t sure what they would be able to do. In her experience, the nausea just had to be endured.
“Okay,” she relented. “I’ll tell him.”
“I appreciate you,” Jun said earnestly.
“I love you,” Emma told her niece. “I’m here for you.”
“Thanks.” She blinked back tears. “I love you too.”
“Let me see about that lychee.” Emma pulled out her phone and sent a message out into the group chat that she had going with Lani, ‘ōlena, Tara, and Nell. “I’m sure someone can bring us a bag. If not, I’ll pick one up after your dad leaves.”
Juniper put her forehead on the table with a thunk .
“Everything is going to be okay, kiddo.”
“Nothing’s ever going to be the same between my dad and me,” she mumbled against the tabletop.
“I think you already passed the point of no return on that one.”
“But we’ve been kinda sorta okay lately.” She sat up and unwrapped another ginger candy. “And now it’s all gonna go up in flames again.”
“He might take it better than you think. If you just sit him down and tell him–”
Jun looked up with a start. “Don’t make me tell him.”
Emma sighed. “I can’t make you do anything.”
“Won’t you tell him for me?”
“I already said that I would.”
“Okay. I’m gonna go lie down.”
Emma couldn’t argue with her, not when the sight of the dark circles under Juniper’s eyes was gnawing holes in her stomach.
Just as the sound of Juniper’s footsteps faded up the stairs, Dio’s barking announced Ethan’s arrival. She opened the door and saw that Kai was already opening the gate for him.
He had his friend Prince over for the day, and they could play beautifully outside all day long, so she wasn’t worried about him barging in at the wrong time. The boys had just eaten lunch, and they would happily chase lizards and climb trees until she called them in for dinner.
It was her favorite thing about Hawai‘i, and the main reason she’d stayed. The little piece of land that she stewarded made it possible for her to give Kai an idyllic childhood. She didn’t have to work to pay rent, and the weather made it possible for him to play outside all day, every day.
She couldn’t bring Kai’s father back, but she would give him every other beautiful thing that she possibly could.
“Hey Em,” Ethan called as he climbed down from his truck.
Emma smiled and waved, refocusing her attention on her twin brother. At the top of the driveway, Kai closed the gate again and latched it shut.
“Just you today?” she asked when he didn’t go into the back of the truck for his son.
“Just me,” he confirmed. “It’s Theo’s naptime. Where’s Jun?”
“She went upstairs to lie down. She hasn’t been feeling well.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Will you come inside?” Without waiting for a reply, she turned and walked into the cool shade of the house. Juniper had brewed one of her calming tea blends the night before, and Emma poured two glasses over ice.
“Emmaline?” Ethan stood in the kitchen now, watching her with a haunted look. “Is Juniper okay?”
“She will be,” Emma hedged. She carried both glasses to the table and sat down.
“Is she sick? Does she need a doctor?”
“I made her an appointment. They were booked out a ways, but we’re going in next week.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“Is she sick?” he asked again.
“Not exactly.” Emma hated to frighten him like this. She was making an awful mess of it.
If only she’d had more time to think of what to say. She had been prepared to be there with Juniper for moral support; she hadn’t considered what she would say to break the news herself.
What could she do but rip the bandage off?
“She’s pregnant.”
The color drained from Ethan’s face, and he collapsed into the nearest chair.
“She wanted to tell you, but she wasn’t feeling strong enough. The nausea’s been really bad.”
“You’re sure?” he croaked.
“I’m sure.” Emma pressed her lips together before she could stay anything stupid like, She didn’t want to tell you, but we weren’t sure if we could trust the redheads next door to keep a secret, so she figured that she should get on with it… until she chickened out at the last second and begged me to do it instead.
Ethan just sat there, staring at the pitted surface of the old kitchen table. After a while he said, “I thought that you were going to tell me she had gotten into drugs or something.”
“No,” Emma said, surprised. “She’s a good kid, Ethan. She’s smart–”
“Not that smart, apparently.”
“Ethan.” She said her brother’s name in a tone of mild reproach.
“No smarter than me. I thought that she would do better. Make something of herself. She still could.” A sudden desperation flashed through his eyes. “Would she consider–”
“She wants to keep the baby,” Emma said gently.
He cursed under his breath, slumping back in his chair. “That’s it, then.”
“What’s it?”
“That’s it for her. That’s it for her childhood. The life that she could have had…”
“It’s a baby, not a death sentence. She can still make something of herself. You did.”
“And Laurel?” he hissed, his voice barely audible. “It ruined her.”
Emma felt herself pale. “She isn’t Laurel.”
Ethan laughed bitterly. “You sure about that?”
“She’s nothing like Laurel.”
He scoffed at that, but then he went quiet.
Their tea sweated on the table, untouched. Emma wrapped a hand around the cool glass in front of her and took a sip of the mellow blend.
“Where did I go wrong?” he asked, staring off into middle distance. “When did I fail her?”
“You didn’t fail anyone. Juniper is a brilliant, driven, kind, amazing person.”
“Who got knocked up at seventeen.”
“She made one mistake.”
“One mistake that’s going to ruin the rest of her life!”
A faint gasp made Emma twist around in her seat. Juniper was watching them from the living room, leaning against the wall by the stairs. Emma’s stomach sank.
Juniper turned to run.
“Get back here,” Ethan snapped.
Emma tried to calm him with a hand on his arm. “Ethan, hush.”
“Do not hush me, Emmaline!” he growled, shaking her off.
His chair clattered against the wall as he stood and strode towards Juniper.
“You cannot run from this, Juniper. Sit down.”
She looked to Emma, her eyes wide.
“No, don’t look at your aunt. Look at me.” Ethan reached for her, and she flinched. “Are you serious, Jun? Have I ever hit you? Ever, in your entire life?”
Tears streaked Juniper’s face as she shook her head.
“So why are you acting like you’re scared of me?”
Jun put a hand over her mouth, stifling a sob, and Ethan’s shoulders slumped.
“We all make mistakes, Jun.”
Juniper’s eyes narrowed, and more tears fell as she dropped her hand.
Ethan reached out again, patting her shoulder. “You don’t have to keep it.”
“I hate you,” she hissed.
He stepped backwards with a look of shock; Juniper turned and ran up the stairs.
Emma stared, slack-jawed, astonished by just how badly that had gone.
Without another word, Ethan turned and walked towards the door.
She didn’t even try to stop him. Let him go home and cool off. Maybe Fern could talk some sense into him.
Instead of going after her brother, she poured a fresh cup of ginger tea and went upstairs to check on her niece.
Juniper was sobbing on her bed.
Emma set the tea on the bedside table and sat next to her. She rubbed her back until she stopped crying.
“I hate him,” Juniper said, her voice muffled by a pillow.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do. I hate him. He’s a stupid hypocrite.”
“He scared for you. That’s all.”
“If that were true, he’d help.” Juniper turned her tear-stained face towards Emma, who handed her a tissue. She blew her nose and continued, “You’re helping, because you actually care. Even Toni wants to come visit.”
“You told Toni?”
“Yeah, I talked to her this morning.”
Emma had questions, but she bit her tongue. She could call her sister later. In that moment, she was desperate to get something into Juniper’s stomach.
“Can I make you some toast?” she offered.
“No thanks.”
“Some chicken broth?”
“Don’t make me barf.”
Emma sighed. “At least sip your tea. You have to stay hydrated.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll go see about the lychee.”
Juniper reached out and squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”
Emma leaned down and kissed her head. Then she stood and walked down the stairs.
She picked up her phone to find a message from Lani: she was making lychee syrup at Haumona Shave Ice, and she would bring over a bag of fruit after her shift. Emma thanked her and pocketed her phone with relief. She hadn’t felt up to getting the boys into the car and driving around town in search of fresh lychee.
“Avast, matey!” Kai ran past the front window waving a fallen branch. “I’ll timber your bones!”
Emma’s heart softened, and a small smile lifted her cheeks as she stepped out onto the lanai.
“Ahoy, captain!” Prince shouted, running after him. “I spy treasure ahead!”
“Onwards to plunder!” Kai cried.
Emma chuckled. She stood leaning against the porch rail, watching them until they ran out of sight.
Her son was happy. At a time when everything else felt fractured and uncertain, that was a huge comfort. As long as Kai was thriving, she could bear up against anything.
If only she knew how to help Juniper and Ethan – really help them, not just stand there helpless like a pedestrian witnessing a car crash.
She pulled her phone out and called her big sister.
“Hey Em,” Toni picked up on the first ring. “How’s our girl doing?”
“Not great,” Emma admitted. “First-trimester nausea hit her like a freight train, and Ethan’s reaction to the news was… about what you’d expect, I guess.”
“She told him?”
“She begged me to tell him.” Emma sighed, wandering down the porch steps and out through the shaded verdancy of her front yard. “I botched it.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. His reaction is on him.”
“I guess.” Emma sat on the overgrown grass next to her jaboticaba sapling. She never got close with the lawnmower or the weed whacker; she was terrified of damaging the baby tree. Against all odds, it had put out a coral-like flush of white flowers followed by green globes of fruit. They were varied shades of plum now, nearly ripe.
“How bad was it?” Toni asked.
“Pretty bad.”
“It’s still busy season for me, but I finally hired someone that I can trust to run the stand for a while. I need to finish training her, and then I’ll come out to visit.”
“Okay,” Emma agreed. She felt out of words – exhausted.
“And she’s definitely keeping the baby?”
“Yeah.”
“And you think that’s a good idea?” Toni pressed. Emma didn’t know how to answer.
“I don’t know if it’s good,” she said, fumbling for the right words. “It just… is.”
“There are other options, Em. Herbs that she could use. I’ve done it myself, more than once.”
“That’s not what she wants.” Emma had watched Juniper devour stacks of books. Their niece knew nearly as much about herbalism as Toni did herself. If she had wanted to take that route, she would have. “All that we can do now is support her – or risk driving her away like Ethan’s done.”
“I don’t like it.”
Emma didn’t reply. She just turned her face up towards the vibrant blue sky and watched a white cloud drift slowly over the house.
She didn’t understand why everyone was so quick to condemn Juniper.
Their niece had always been the darling of the family, the first grandbaby, bright and brilliant and wise beyond her years. So why were they so quick to turn around and condemn her as a foolish child right when she stood on the cusp of full womanhood?
“Look what it did to Laurel,” Toni insisted.
“What did it do to Laurel?” Emma asked, still looking up at the sky.
“Postpartum psychosis. What if it’s hereditary?”
“What are you talking about?”
“She was fine before Juniper. Her addiction started with postpartum depression, and then–”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” She didn’t speak harshly, but she was firm. “You weren’t even there. You were off traveling. You didn’t even know Laurel.”
Toni was silent for a moment. Then, her tone clipped, she said, “Enlighten me.”
“She was never well. I don’t know why she was so troubled, but she was. Always. She used to cut herself.”
There was a startled silence. “When?”
“Early high school. Before Ethan.”
Toni was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I didn’t know.”
“Those early years with Juniper were the only time I ever saw Laurel happy,” Emma told her sister. “Like, really truly happy. Ethan was working crazy hours, but she had her baby. She had her art. She was good. At least… I thought she was.”
Emma had been absent too, for most of it. She didn’t go far away for college, but she still left. Laurel was alone in a yurt in the redwoods with her baby, but she’d seemed happy. She’d seemed stable…
“So what changed?” Toni asked.
“I don’t know. I never knew her that well. She never confided in anyone, except maybe Ethan.” Emma sighed. “Juniper was four the first time her mom went to rehab. She must have been three when Laurel started hanging out with other artists and got into… whatever it was she got into.”
She hadn’t known the specifics of Laurel’s struggles with addiction, even then. It was an old source of shame, that she hadn’t been there for her sister-in-law… but how could she support someone who refused to let her in?
Emma had been away at college, wrapped up in her own life, and her increasingly halfhearted efforts to connect with her brother’s wife had never yielded anything. Laurel had always been a closed, quiet person. Not unkind, just… distant.
“I’m so worried about her,” Toni said after a while.
“I know.”
“She’s so young.”
Emma sighed. “I know.”
“I think she’s making a mistake.”
“If you tell her that, you risk losing her.”
“At least she has you.” There was a bitterness to Toni’s voice that Emma had never heard before. Toni missed the niece she loved like a daughter. She was devastated to see her protege take a path so drastically different from her own.
But Emma didn’t have the energy or the patience to coddle her big sister. She didn’t have any desire to try to talk her brother around. She was just… done.
“I need to go.”
“Wait,” Toni said quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m just… freaking out, honestly. I’ll get my head on straight before I get there. I promise.”
“Okay.” She let out a breath and tried to relax her shoulders, which were hunched up around her ears. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Emma?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
A reluctant compassion for her sister overtook Emma’s exhaustion. “I love you too.”
The grass was cool against her arms as she lay back and watched the massive leaves of the breadfruit tree move fitfully in the breeze. High above, the pointed oblong leaves of the blue marble tree jumped and danced. She turned her head to the side and looked at the jaboticaba tree, thinking of the box of California ashes buried beneath.
For the first time in a long while, she let her thoughts turn fully to her husband: the bright intelligence of his dark eyes and the mellow warmth of his voice. More than anything else, even more than the sound of his voice or his laughter, she missed his steadiness. His arms around her, holding her together.
Each new difficulty that she faced without him felt like a true trial, a test of her strength that she couldn’t meet without growing into an entirely new person. Just when she thought that she had a handle on things, some new worry sprang up to demand that she grow stronger still.
The knowledge of how much easier all of this would be with Adam by her side was a wound that refused to heal.
“Mom!” The urgency in Kai’s voice made her sit up. He ran up to her and skidded to a stop, windmilling his arms.
“What is it?”
“Can we make popsicles? I told Prince that we make our own popsicles and he didn’t believe me so can we show him how?”
“Sure.” She let out a breath of a laugh, relieved that there wasn’t some new stressor to deal with. “I don’t think we have any juice, but we could use one of Juniper’s teas. Or just water with honey and lemon?”
“Yes!” He turned and ran off, shouting, “Hey Prince! We’re making lemonade popsicles! Come on!”
Emma rose to her feet, feeling the stress of the day in the way that her muscles ached. She smiled sadly at the jaboticaba tree and touched the tip of one of its branches.
Then she followed her son inside to make lemonade.