Page 34 of Big Island Sunset
“It’s one thing to have kids at eighteen when you’re living in the family compound, surrounded by aunties and grandparents in their thirties. It’s another thing to try and support a family in the modern world before you’ve had the chance to establish yourself.”
“But Juniper does have a family compound,” Emma reminded her gently. “She can stay with me as long as she needs to.”
Tara nodded, but she still looked troubled. Emma sensed that as much as Tara wanted to show up for Juniper, her deeper fears were for Cody. Supporting a family on her own was crushing her, and she was terrified that it would destroy all of her son’s dreams and ambitions… whatever those were. Emma realized that she didn’t know Cody well at all.
“What if we started by spending more time together?” she suggested.
Tara gave her a brittle smile. “In all my spare time?”
“We’re right next door. Just meals here and there. We could start with that, right? Us and the kids eating dinner together a few times a week?”
“Are you sure that’s what Juniper wants?”
Emma frowned. “What do you mean?”
“She’s hardly spoken to Cody since she broke the news.” Tara’s voice was soft, but Emma sensed a quiet fury brewing beneath her calm expression. “He texts her about ten times a day, but she almost never replies. Whatever was going on with them this summer, I don’t know if it was serious to her. Cody is head over heels, talking about spending the rest of his life with her, and meanwhile she’s not even picking up his calls.”
Emma listened quietly as outdated understandings and preconceptions shifted around within her mind. Juniper had been working with their neighbor all summer, and they had seemed close. But now she wondered.
TaralikedJun, but Cody was her whole world. She was feeling protective of him. In the same way that Emma sometimes saw a gap-toothed six year old in her mind’s eye when she looked at her niece, Tara probably looked at her son towering over her and still saw the little boy he had been. She was worried for him – terrified, even.
“I’m worried that it was just a summer fling,” Tara said.
“With lifelong consequences.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know how Juniper feels about Cody,” Emma admitted. “She doesn’t open up to me very often. Whatever their relationship is – or was – she was fiercely private about it.”
“I just don’t want to see him get his heart broken, or structure his whole future around a relationship that doesn’t even exist.”
“Juniper’s not doing well.”
“Mentally?” Tara gave her a sharp look. “Or physically?”
“Either one. First trimester nausea has her in a chokehold, and she’s an emotional wreck. I don’t know if she ever truly dealt with the shock of her mother’s death. Her relationship with her dad is rocky, and she doesn’t fully trust me either.”
“Maybe she needs to talk to a professional.”
“I’ve tried to get her into therapy. She refuses.”
“Could you make it a condition of living with you?”
Emma frowned thoughtfully and shook her head. “I’m trying to get her to trust me. Giving her ultimatums will only push her away. She has two other aunts she could run to if I push too hard–”
“In California?” Tara asked.
“Yeah.” Emma glanced at her, uneasy. Did TarawantJuniper to go back to California, baby and all? She couldn’t tell; Tara’s face was unreadable. Sighing, Emma turned to face the horizon. The bottom of the sky glowed blue-gold.
“Her grandparents are there too, right? And her dad has a house there?”
“Yeah,” she said again, stomach sinking. “But I really think that Pualena is the best place for her, at least for now. Ethan can barely handle one baby; as much as he tries to pretend that he’s okay, losing Laurel absolutely wrecked him. My sisters have their hands full already. And my mother is, well, not exactly maternal.”
Tara nodded, taking all of that in.
“Here, she has me and Lani and Nell. And you?” she asked, uncertain.
“And me,” Tara agreed, but the resignation and exhaustion in her voice was not encouraging.
