Page 9 of Big Island Summer
While Juniper was still next door, Emma washed her face and pulled herself together.
She filled Nell in on the phone call, and Kai was playing with Cassie at the ‘ohana house so that Emma and Juniper could talk without interruption.
She considered going next door and breaking the news to Juniper there but dismissed it almost immediately.
If Juniper wanted to lean on her friend – boyfriend? – that was her prerogative, but Emma would tell her alone. There in the house, where it was safe to break down, where she could cry or rage or retreat to her room or whatever it was that she needed to do.
Grief was such an individual thing; people froze in shock as often as they broke down. Emma didn’t know how to break the news, didn’t know how to hold her niece through such a sudden and devastating loss, but she would try her best.
Juniper had devised dozens of different tea blends since moving to Hawaii, and Emma had learned a lot simply through osmosis. She walked out to the garden and gathered a pot full of calming herbs: chamomile, catnip, lavender, and passionflower.
Back in the kitchen, just the aroma of the steam rising up from the tea as it simmered was enough to smooth the frazzled edges of her nerves.
She turned the water off and let it cool for a few minutes before adding lemon balm, saving the delicately flavored leaves for last like she’d seen Juniper do.
Hours passed, and Emma channeled her nervous energy into cleaning.
She didn’t know if Juniper was still cooking with Tara or just hanging out with Cody… either way, she was in no rush to break the news. Beneath her own sorrow and anxiety, she felt grateful that her niece had one last carefree day in which her mother was still, in her reality, alive and well.
A phone call pulled her out of her own head, and she stopped scrubbing the floor long enough to check the screen. Toni again.
“Hi,” she answered.
“Hey. How is she?”
“Not home yet.”
“Where is she?”
“Next door.” Emma put her earbuds in, set her phone on the counter, and continued scrubbing. It was crazy how quickly spaghetti sauce splatters and muddy paw prints accumulated.
“Is she with that neighbor kid?”
“Cody.”
“Yeah, him.”
“She went over to help Tara cook, but it’s been a while. They might still be working, but I don’t know. She might have stayed to hang out with her friend.”
“Is that what he is?”
“Yeah. I think so.” Emma stood to wash the dirty rag out in the sink. “Maybe more.”
“She talks about him all the time. Cody this, Cody that.”
“Does she?” Emma bit her lip. “She hardly talks to me at all. At least, not about stuff like that. Stuff that matters. I’m the wrong aunt to be doing this, Toni.”
“You’re the one who’s there. And she loves you.”
“Meaning that I’ll have to do.”
“Better than a phone call, I think. But if you want me to–”
“No. No, it’s okay. I’m just anxious.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been trying to work up the courage to ask her what’s up with her and Cody. I saw the two of them holding hands, and Tara was talking like they’re a bonafide couple. Cody probably talks to her way more than Jun talks to me. I’ve still been trying to figure out how to even relate to her, like what it means to be her aunt when her parents are thousands of miles away… and now this.”
