1. Emma

1

Emma

R ain sang overhead, falling against the tin roof as Emma curved her spine first one way, then the other. Wind rushed through the trees that surrounded the lanai, a huge back porch open on three sides and protected from the rain.

At the front of the class, Fern slid one foot forward and leaned into a pyramid pose. Her jaw grazed her shin as she locked her hands together and raised her arms up towards the sky.

Emma mimicked the movements as best as she could, but her head stopped a foot or two away from her leg. She took a breath, exhaled, and managed to relax another centimeter or two into the pose… close enough.

Her flexibility had increased with each class, but it would take a miracle for her to be able to fully replicate their teacher’s graceful movements.

Fern looked as though she could have been a ballerina as easily as she became a yogi. Emma never had that sort of poise. Even in her slim pre-baby days, she had preferred to keep both feet planted solidly on the earth.

Still, the classes had been good for her. They helped her to escape the tumult of her thoughts and settle into her body. Between garden chores and yoga classes, she was as strong as she had ever been.

She let her eyes drift to the albizia trees that danced and swayed in the distance. The fast-growing weed trees were a menace, widow makers that frequently dropped limbs big enough to bring down the roof or crush a car, but they were beautiful all the same.

Belatedly, Emma straightened up and followed the class into the next pose. She turned towards Juniper, who had taken to yoga as easily as she seemed to take to most things, with an easy confidence and good-natured willingness to stumble her way to success.

Juniper’s wavy brown hair fell to one side as she went into a triangle pose, touching one hand to the mat and reaching the other arm up in a graceful line. Emma did the same, or something like it. She tried not to compare herself to her teenage niece or the professional yogi up front.

The garden kept her active and strong, but Fern’s classes had shown her how tight her muscles still were. She’d had a few inactive – borderline comatose – months before moving to Hawaii, but she knew that the tension stored in her muscles went even deeper than that. They had locked into place with the energetic cocoon that she had drawn around herself after Adam’s death.

Slowly, slowly, she was learning how to open up again, how to navigate the world without him in it. She was even learning how to do that with some semblance of grace, all thanks to the community that she had found here in Pualena.

Emma glanced up and realized that the class had left her behind again. She stood straight and laughed at herself, a quick and quiet exhale. So much for yoga making her more present and mindful. She still got lost in her own head more often than not.

With effort, she managed to stay with the flow for the rest of the class. Thoughts and worries ebbed away like an outgoing tide. She focused on the present moment, on the smooth flow of moments and the susurrus of wind through the green leaves all around them.

A quiet gratitude settled deep into her heart.

She was so thankful for all of it: the women around her, the cool island breeze, the deep green world that held them.

After the tidal wave of grief had receded and left her life an unrecognizable wreck, she had built something new. The peace that she’d cultivated in Hawai‘i had been hard won, which made her value it all the more.

“Okay, that’s it for today!” Fern clasped her hands together and beamed at them. “Thank you so much for coming. Just one quick announcement before you roll up your mats! I have a two-bedroom apartment upstairs available to rent, and I would so much rather have one of you living upstairs rather than a stranger. So if you or anyone you love is looking for a rental, please let me know! Okay, that’s it.”

Raising her voice over the wail of the wind as it picked up, Fern added, “Or, wait, no it’s not. Just a quick reminder to head north on your way out of here, because Church Drive is lined with albizia and they start dropping branches when the wind picks up this much. It’s better to drive up Paradise or Pakalana. Okay, that’s it, for real. I release you!”

There was a smattering of laughter as women knelt to roll up their yoga mats. Emma started to do the same, then looked up when Juniper picked hers up off of the floor.

“Look, Auntie Em! It’s like an umbrella!”

The old pet name and Jun’s bright smile made Emma think of her niece when she was Kai’s age; she saw a flash of seven-year-old Juniper beaming up at her with new front teeth that were too big for her face. Then she blinked and took in the Jun of the day, already so grown up at seventeen.

Emma’s heart filled with pride and love and the quiet sort of heartache that came with missing the child she’d known even as she cherished the person her niece had grown into.

Juniper ran through the rain with her purple yoga mat held above her head, its length trailing behind her. Emma just walked to the car, letting the warm summer rain caress her face and soak into her messy mom bun. Stray auburn strands stuck to her face, and she tucked them behind her ears.

“Look at this,” Juniper said when Emma slid into the driver’s seat. Jun had beat her to the car by about five seconds and was already on her phone. “My mom sent a new picture of Teddy.”

In the dim interior of the car, she pointed the screen at Emma to show her a brightly shining picture of her baby brother. The baby’s cheeks had filled out to full chunk, and the picture captured a gummy smile. His eyes were changing from newborn gray to a lighter hazel; it looked like they would settle into the same green and gold that most of their family had, Emma and Juniper included.

“Can you believe how fast he’s growing?” Juniper demanded, pulling the phone back to gaze down at the picture again.

“They do that.” Emma put the car into drive and navigated carefully through the small gravel parking lot.

Beside her, Juniper was tapping a silent message into her phone.

“How are things with you and your mom?”

“Yeah, we’re okay.” Juniper set her phone down and looked out at the rain as Emma turned onto the road. “We just talked on the phone a couple days ago.”

“I’m glad you two are talking again.”

Juniper shrugged. “We don’t go deep. But we talk about Teddy, knitting, that sort of thing. She asks how my business is going. Sometimes she talks about moving over here, but she doesn’t seem serious about it. I mean, they just bought a house in Redwood Grove.”

“How’s she doing?”

Another shrug, this one more of a defensive movement that brought Juniper’s shoulders nearly up to her ears.

“Fine, I guess.” Juniper picked at a tiny hole in her yoga pants. “She’s trying. It feels like she tries too hard sometimes, but at least she cares. She’s really tired, but that’s normal, right? Moms are always tired when they have new babies, aren’t they?”

“I know I was.”

Juniper nodded, releasing a breath of relief at the confirmation that what her mom was going through was normal. “Yeah, she says babies are really hard.”

Emma bit her lip, feeling a spike of worry. It had been too long since she checked in with her twin brother. She needed to know how Ethan and Laurel were really doing.

“I’ll get the gate,” Jun said as they coasted towards the Kealoha place. “I’ll close it behind you, and then I’m going to run next door. I told Tara I’d help with meal prep today.”

“Sounds good.” That would give Emma time to call her brother without Juniper overhearing.

As soon as the car rolled to a stop, Juniper jumped out into the drizzling rain – no yoga mat this time – and pulled the long gate open for Emma to drive through. She closed and latched it behind her, then disappeared into the next yard.

Nell was already in the carport, a sort of open-air garage common in Hawai‘i. The rain picked up, pounding against the metal roof.

“How was yoga?” Nell asked as Emma got out of her car.

“It was good. How was Kai?”

“A perfect angel.” Nell patted her sleeping baby’s back as she swayed back and forth. “He spent thirty minutes building towers for Everett to knock over.”

A shriek of laughter pulled Emma’s attention to the trampoline, where Kai and Cassie and Tara’s twins were all jumping in the downpour. Warm rain was one of her favorite things about life in the tropics. She grinned and turned back to Nell.

“You should come sometime. I’m sure the teacher wouldn’t mind if you brought the kids along. One of the ladies brought her baby last week, and Fern spent most of the class rocking the baby while she talked us through the poses.”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it. I’ll have more time once the playschool starts its summer break.”

“Not much longer to go now.” A gust of wind whipped through, making Emma shiver in her damp shirt. “I’m going to change my clothes and make some tea. You want some?”

“I’d love a cup of that lemon-mamaki blend that Juniper made.”

“Coming right up.” Emma trotted up the kitchen steps and went upstairs to change her clothes.

When she pulled her phone from her pocket and switched it out of airplane mode, it buzzed with a dozen missed calls and text messages, all from her sisters.

A shiver of fear ran up her spine.

Before her mind could run wild with what-ifs about her parents or her twin brother, she tapped her older sister’s name.

Toni picked up after one ring.

“Emma. Hi.”

“What’s up?”

“Are you alone?”

Emma sat down on the end of her bed. “Yeah. What’s going on?”

Toni took a deep breath. “Laurel overdosed.”

Emma leaned forward, the wind rushing out of her own lungs like she was releasing her sister’s inhale. Overhead, the rain pounded on the tin roof. It was a loud, distinctive racket. Soothing white noise, most of the time. An annoyance when she tried to talk on the phone.

Her poor brother.

Ethan had been so sure this time, so hopeful that Laurel had finally healed from whatever it was that had driven her to addiction time and again. Their son was a fresh start. But it seemed that nothing had changed, not really.

How many times had Laurel relapsed in the past twelve years?

Eight? Ten? Emma wasn’t certain.

The family had given up on her years ago, though they had tried their best to put up a front of positivity for Ethan. The man refused to give up on his wife. Emma admired that as much as she despaired of it, but she had always tried to be supportive. What else could they do?

“Em? You there?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m here.” She scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “Is she still in the hospital? Is she stable?”

Toni was silent for a moment. “Em… she didn’t make it.”

The breath rushed out of her lungs again, and this time, she couldn’t get a breath back in. The room spun, and she found herself on the floor beside her bed.

Toni was talking, spelling out the details of Laurel’s final overdose, but Emma could hardly hear her.

The rain fell harder, beating down on the old tin roof and streaming down her cheeks.

Her heart broke for her brother. This would destroy him. And for Juniper… she and her mother were just starting to mend their tattered relationship.

How could Laurel do this to her daughter? To her infant son?

Teddy would never get the chance to know his mother… but maybe that was just as well.

Emma curled around her legs as guilt stabbed at her through the grief. What a terrible thing to think. But after all of the heartbreak that those repeated relapses and overdoses had caused Juniper…

She shook her head and sucked in a breath, then pushed herself up to sitting.

Toni was quiet now, waiting for her to pull herself together.

“Does Jun know?”

“No.” Toni’s voice was ragged with grief. “I didn’t want to tell her over the phone.”

“Right.” Emma scrubbed a hand over her face, trying to get past the shock. “Of course.”

“I thought about coming to tell her myself. I looked at flights… but Em, Ethan’s a wreck. He can’t even take care of Teddy, so Liz and Mom and I are all tag teaming it. Between that and work–”

“No, it’s okay. I get it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ve got her.”

“Will you tell her to call me when she’s ready to talk? Or you guys could just call me together? God, I wish I could just teleport to your living room.”

“It’s okay,” she said woodenly. “I’ll tell her.”

Somehow Emma said her goodbyes and extricated herself from the call, but even a minute later, she couldn’t remember what she’d just said.

She had fallen into the memory of that awful day that a friend had driven down the mountain to deliver the news in person: the wildfire was contained, but Adam hadn’t made it out. She’d dropped to her knees, right there in the street. Her brother and sister had held her together as she fell apart.

Awful memories of her own grief competed with memories of everything her brother had already endured, images of Ethan sobbing beside a hospital bed when they had nearly lost Laurel years before.

Slowly, as the storm of grief subsided, she was left with flashes of images from their teenage years: Laurel when she was young and bright and full of joy, the same age that Juniper was now. Seventeen-year-old Laurel with Juniper big in her belly, beaming with happiness at the unexpected experience of motherhood.

Emma’s heart ached with the grief of knowing that Juniper would never experience that version of her mother, bright and brilliant.

Juniper had never shared her father’s obstinate certainty that Laurel had made a full recovery, but she had always nursed a delicate hope that things would be okay.

With every bout of sobriety, Jun would slowly start to relax. Maybe this is it , they would think, time after time. Maybe she would finally have a mother again.

And now this.

Still on her knees, Emma pressed her face into the blankets and sobbed.

What was she supposed to tell her niece?