21. Fern
21
Fern
T heo woke up crying, and Fern rushed to scoop him up out of his crib.
“Is it your teeth again?” She cradled him in her arms and rocked him back and forth until he calmed — though he continued to whine and grumble, looking up at her with wide eyes and a tear-streaked face. “Teething is so hard sometimes, huh?”
She carried him through to the kitchen and settled him into his high chair with a baby-sized popsicle. She’d made them herself with fresh coconut water, so she didn’t mind giving him as many as it took to soothe his gums.
From what she could tell, the poor kid had four teeth coming in all at once. No wonder he woke up screaming half the time. If she had four teeth cutting through her gums, she would probably wake up crying too.
Theo’s grumbling shifted to happy baby babbling as he gnawed on his second popsicle, and Fern set about making them some lunch. She warmed up a small pot of beef stew on the stove and put a small portion of it into the blender for Theo. Pureed beef was his favorite thing to eat, and she felt a lot better giving him grass-fed island beef than jars shipped over from the mainland or who knew where.
“Hungry for some real food?’ she asked once the puree was cool enough for him to eat.
“Mamamamama!” He drummed his high chair tray in anticipation.
Before she could sit down, there was a knock on the door. Theo shouted at her when she turned away, and she handed him the silicone baby spoon with a bite of puree on it… which immediately ended up on his nose. Fern swallowed a laugh as she opened the front door.
“Jun!” she said in surprise. “Hi!”
Juniper blinked, as surprised to find Fern in her dad’s kitchen as Fern was by the unexpected visit. Ethan had been doing his best to patch things up with his daughter, but she hadn’t been to the house in a while.
“Come in,” Fern said a moment later. She stepped aside and waved the girl through.
“Is my dad home?” She hovered near the door uncertainly as Fern closed it behind her.
“No, but he should be back soon. Theo just woke up from his nap, though. Come sit with us. Are you hungry?”
“I could eat,” Jun said cautiously.
“I just warmed up some beef stew. Can I get you a bowl?”
“Sure. Thanks.” She shrugged off her backpack and hung it on one of the kitchen chairs.
“Go ahead and sit down,” Fern said. She went to the stove and put the lion’s share of the food into a bowl for Jun.
“Where’s my dad?” Jun sounded so young in that moment.
“He needed some things from the hardware store,” Fern said lightly. It was the truth, but only a piece of it. Ethan was planning to stop at the hardware store on his way home from therapy. This was his second appointment with a grief counselor he’d found, and she hoped that he would keep going.
She thought that it would be healthy for him to tell Jun that he was in therapy, but she also knew that she didn’t have the right to share that with the girl she hardly knew. Ethan would tell her when he was ready — sooner rather than later, she hoped. But the mending of the relationship between father and daughter was really none of her business, regardless of how much she wanted the best for both of them.
“Hey Teddy Bear,” Jun said softly, patting her little brother on the head. She smiled at his baby babble.
“Here, go ahead and eat.” Fern ladeled out a bowl of stew and handed it to Jun.
“What about you?”
“I’ll eat in a minute. I was just about to feed your brother.”
“Okay.” Jun poked at the stew uncertainly, looking a bit green.
“Do you want a ginger ale?”
“That would be great,” she said with relief, setting her bowl aside.
Fern popped the cap off of a bottle of ginger ale and joined Jun at the table.
“Thank you.” Juniper took a long drink and let out a breath, her shoulders relaxing. She took a cautious bite of the stew.
“I was so sick my first trimester,” Fern remembered. “Both times.”
Most of her attention was focused on getting food into Theo’s mouth, and she wasn’t fully aware that she had spoken aloud until Juniper replied.
“I didn’t know you had kids.”
“I don’t,” Fern said softly. “They didn’t make it.”
The blood drained from Juniper’s face, and her hazel eyes went wide.
In that moment, Fern could see that Juniper truly wanted this baby. It wasn’t just childhood trauma or teenage stubbornness. Jun loved this baby as much as Fern had loved her own. She immediately felt guilty for saying anything at all.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have—“
“No, I’m sorry. That’s horrible. But you shouldn’t feel like you can’t talk about it just because…” She paused and put a protective hand on her belly. “They deserve to be remembered, I think. Your babies. Some of the books say not to tell anybody until you get to a certain number of weeks, but that seems so weird to me. Like, how can people support you if they don’t know what you’re going through? Even if the worst should happen, are people just supposed to grieve in secret? I don’t get it.”
Fern nodded. She blinked back tears and focused on feeding Theo, too emotional to respond right away.
“Not that you have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Juniper said softly. “I just mean… I don’t know. It’s easier for people to be kind if they know what you’re going through.”
“Everyone has their own burdens to carry. It’s why I always try to be kind. I don’t always manage it, but I do try. The guy who cuts me off in traffic or the woman who gives me a dirty look at the grocery store… we have no way of knowing what’s happening in their life, what they’re carrying.”
Juniper nodded thoughtfully. They were quiet for a while as Juniper worked her way through the bowl of stew and Fern spooned Theo’s lunch into his mouth bit by bit.
“How’s my dad doing?” Jun asked after a while. Her green-and-gold eyes demanded truth, not comfort or platitudes.
“I think that he’s coping really well, considering everything that he’s been through.”
“Is that a polite way of saying that he’s less of a mess than he could be?”
Fern’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. “I guess so.”
“Why are you with him?” Jun asked.
A jolt of shock went through her chest at the forthright question.
“I just mean… you’re gorgeous. You’re smart and kind. Couldn’t you find someone who’s… less of a mess?”
“We can’t always choose who we fall in love with,” Fern said slowly, “or the timing. Real life is messy, more often than not.”
“You love him?”
Fern winced.
“Have you told him?”
“I don’t think he’s ready to hear it.”
“You should say it,” Jun said with quiet conviction. “If it’s true, you should say it.”
“We’re taking things slow.”
“Co-parenting isn’t exactly taking things slow.”
Fern laughed at Juniper’s dry humor. “Like I said. Life is messy.”
“Does it have to be?” Juniper asked with a frown.
“Maybe not.” Fern rose to get a washcloth and went back to clean Theo’s face. “I could opt out. I could teach my classes and live alone in my tiny home and hike and swim and be happy enough, I guess. But when we opt out of the mess, we opt out of the best parts of life. I would miss this little guy something fierce. And I’d miss your dad, too. I like my life a lot better with them in it, mess and all.”
Juniper reflected on that for a while, and then she looked up at Fern with a steady gaze. “Everyone thinks that keeping this baby is a bad idea because it will be hard. But difficult isn’t the same thing as bad. All of the best things in life are hard, I think.”
“Maybe it’s not that the best things in life are hard,” Fern said slowly, trying to find her way through her own tangled thoughts as she washed the puree from Theo’s chubby little hands. “I think there’s a lot to be said for creating a life full of ease and peace and joy. But it’s true that some of the best things in life are on the other side of hard decisions. And meaningful, lasting relationships will always include seeing the people we care about through hard times.”
The door opened then, and Ethan came in carrying a bag from the hardware store. He was visibly surprised to see Juniper there, but his face broke into a huge grin at finding the three of them together.
“Hello there!” he greeted them as he closed the door. “What’s all this?”
“We were just discussing the meaning of life,” Jun said flippantly. She stood and scooped Theo out of his high chair. “You two eat. Teddy and I are going to read some board books.”
She disappeared into the nursery, and Ethan looked at Fern in surprise.
“The kids are alright,” she assured him with a smile. “Do you want some stew?”
He crossed the kitchen and kissed her soundly. “You’re a miracle. Do you know that?”
Fern grinned at him. “I know.”