Page 21 of Big Island Summer
“No. It’s okay. I want to be here. It’s easier than being home. It helps having something to do.”
“I get that.” Lani hesitated, not wanting to make things about her, and then offered it up anyway: “My mom died when I was young too.”
Startled, Juniper looked her in the eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“When you were my age?”
“I was fourteen.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but– I just want you to know that I’m here. If you ever need to talk.”
“I appreciate that, but…” Juniper pulled the over-long sleeves of the dress shirt over her hands, looking down at them and toying with the buttons. When she spoke again a few seconds later, her voice was slow and halting. “I wouldn’t evenknow where to start. Talking about my mom has always been really hard.”
“I get that.”
“Do you?” Her voice was sharp. “At least youhada mom.”
Lani took a quick breath in. “Yeah. I did.”
Juniper put a hand over her mouth and looked at Lani in horror. She dropped her hand a moment later and said, “I’m so sorry. That was an awful thing to say.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s really not.” She pressed her hands to her eyes and took a shaky breath. “It’s just that my mom has been an addict for as long as I can remember. I never had a mom, not really. I mean, sometimes she was okay. Sometimes she was great. She was an amazing artist, and we would paint together… but it felt more like having a big sister or a fun aunt, you know?”
Lani nodded, giving Jun her full attention.
“Mostly she was gone, or just checked out. The prescription meds she tried were almost as bad as the street drugs. She just… wasn’t there. But now she’sgonegone and that’s different, but at the same time it feels like just more of the same mess I’ve been dealing with my whole life.”
Lani nodded along, but guilt joined the anguish in Juniper’s hazel eyes.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, like, word vomit all over you.”
“You can talk to me whenever you need to vent.”
“People say that,” Jun muttered, looking down at her shoes, “but they don’t really mean it.”
“I do,” Lani assured her.
“I loved my mom,” she said in a broken voice.
“Oh, honey. I know you did.”
“It isn’t fair.”
“No, it’s not.” Lani sighed. “My mom was sick for a long time before she died too.”
Juniper gave her a sharp, questioning look.
“Not in the same way. But addiction’s just another kind of sickness, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Juniper’s tone was bitter. “They say that.”
“Mental illness is still illness, Jun. It’s not fair, and it’s not easy to understand. It just… is.”
