Page 36 of Big Island Summer
“Oh. Is he moving in today?”
“That’s the plan, yeah.”
“Oh. Okay.” Juniper looked down, picking at the flaking paint on the porch railing.
Emma added yet another item to her mental to-do list. Other than some fundamentals like doing a deep clean and getting the leaky roof fixed, she hadn’t done much to Adam’s childhood home. Maybe it was time to give the place some TLC.
She opened her mouth to say something to Juniper about chipping away the paint, then stopped when she took in the forlorn look on her niece’s face.
“Are you okay, Junebug?”
“Sure.” Jun smiled at the old nickname, but her eyes were still sad.
Emma just waited, tilting her head to one side and holding Juniper’s eyes with her own.
“It’s just that hejustgot here, and now he’s leaving again. I know he’s just moving across town, but I really liked having Teddy here all the time.”
“You could go with them, if you wanted to.”
Juniper’s eyes went wide, and she shook her head. “I really don’t. I love it here. And being in your house with my dad is a lot different than being ‘under his roof’, you know? You’re a goodbuffer. Living alone with him, especially right now, would just be way too grim. I’d rather sleep on the beach than deal with his moods.”
“You know that you never have to sleep on the beach. The tower room is yours as long as you want it.”
“Thanks, Auntie Em.” Juniper came down the stairs and wrapped her arms around Emma in a rare unprompted hug.
Emma returned the hug, holding her niece close until her arms dropped away – only then did she let her go.
“Hey, are you busy?” she asked as Juniper stepped away.
“Not really. Why?”
“I have a huge box of mangos that I need to process and freeze before they go bad. Want to give me a hand?”
“That depends.” Jun smiled playfully. “Do I get to eat my weight in mangos while we work?”
“Oh, obviously. That goes without saying.”
“Then I’m in.”
They set up shop in the shade of the carport, peeling and dicing mangos while they chatted about Juniper’s business ventures and Emma’s adventures in Hawaii in her teens and twenties. The sweet, sharp, tropical scent of mango filled the air as morning sunlight slanted beneath the table to warm their bare feet.
“He was underwater for three minutes?” Juniper exclaimed.
“Yeah.” Emma laughed. “I already knew he could do it, but everyone else was freaking out thinking he was trapped in the lava tunnel.”
“That’s some Navy Seal craziness right there.”
“Adam’s mom used to tell me that he was swimming before he could walk.” The memory was bittersweet now – they all were – but some days, telling stories about Adam made her grief a bit easier to bear. She thought that hearing old stories about Laurel might do the same for Jun.
“What did my mom do?”
“She was begging Ethan to go down and get him. Meanwhile he was trying to tell her that Adam was twice the swimmer he was, and that he was fine if I said he was fine.”
“Then what happened?”
“We look over and he’s just sitting there grinning at us. The man came up out of the water when no one was looking.”
“And what did my mom say?”
