Page 16 of Big Island Weddings
Hopefully she would meet other homeschooled teens through Cody; Emma made a mental note to ask Tara if Liam could bring his daughter by sometime. Maddie was the same age as Cody and Juniper… but then again, she didn’t suppose that her fiercely independent niece would appreciate Emma setting up playdates like she was six years old.
“My mom still hasn’t signed the parental consent form that I need for a learner’s permit,” Juniper said miserably. That yanked Emma’s attention back to the present.
“Still?” she repeated incredulously.
Juniper nodded and huffed out a sigh. “I have to have both parents’ signatures. And because they won’t be here in person, the forms have to be notarized and mailed to me.”
“I’ll talk to your dad.”
“He has to send my birth certificate too.”
“He’ll come through for you, Jun. Maybe they just haven’t been able to get an appointment with a notary yet.”
“I don’t even know if it’s worth it.” Juniper leaned back and scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “I still don’t know if they’ll let me have a permit, because my parents live out of state and the proof of address forms are supposed to be in their names.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Emma worried that she was failing her niece already. She wasn’t used to parenting a teenager, with all of the complications that involved. She wanted to be better than Ethan and Laurel, because Juniper deserved better, but she was already falling short.
“I might just have to wait until I’m eighteen. Then I can skip the provisional license and just get the real thing. I can open a bank account; that counts for proof of residence. And maybe youcould write up a rental agreement for the second piece of proof that I need.”
“Of course.”
“Thanks,” Juniper said, but she still looked upset. “I hate not being able to drive to markets myself.”
“Let me help you. We’ll see if we can find a way around the DMV paperwork. If not, I’ll be your market driver until you can get your own license.”
“Okay.” Juniper’s shoulders slumped, somewhere between acceptance and defeat. But when she looked at Emma, her gold-flecked green eyes were grateful. “Thanks, Auntie Em.”
“Anything for you, kiddo.” She stood and planted a kiss on Juniper’s temple. “If you need me, I’ll be next door.”
“Okay.”
Emma stretched as she walked out through the front yard. The lush garden gleamed with water from its nightly shower and sparkled in the sunlight. Broad leaves shone pink and red and every shade of green.
She stopped at the jaboticaba tree that she had planted over Adam’s ashes and stared at the white flowers that had sprouted from its narrow trunk.
By all accounts, the sapling was too young to flower. And yet here it was, branches covered in bristling white stamens that looked more like sea creatures than blossoms. They made her think of sea anemones, or living coral.
She stood with her hand on the tree for a long moment, and then she moved on.
Chaos surged around her as she walked through Tara’s yard. Dogs, goats, and four different kinds of birds mobbed her like a low-lying hurricane of farm life. The goats bleated anxiously and the dogs nosed her hands, looking for attention.
Emma paused for a moment on Tara’s doorstep to pet the old German Shepherd, and then she slipped inside.
“Perfect timing!” Tara called from her kitchen, which was a straight shot through the living room from the front door. “I just finished the ‘ulu salad.”
“You’re a rockstar.”
“It’s not coming out of my pocket,” Tara said modestly. “It’s touching, really, how many people opted in when Cody added the meal donation feature to the website.”
“He’s also a rockstar,” Emma acknowledged. “If Kai grows up to be as kind as your son is, I’ll be proud.”
“I am proud. He even added something to the digital payments for the produce stand, however that works. When people scan to pay, they get prompted to donate to the community food stability program, the way you get prompted to tip at restaurants.”
“That’s brilliant.”
“People have been so generous. Between the soup kitchen and the postpartum program, nearly half of this food is going to people who didn’t pay for it themselves.”
“I love that.”
