14. Emma

14

Emma

B y the time the late-morning sun burned off the last of the clouds, Emma had already been working in the garden for hours. Dirt caked her hands and streaked her face where she had wiped away the sweat that ran into her eyes, and her heart was lighter than it had been in weeks.

Working in the garden soothed her soul like nothing else could. Long hours of pulling weeds and harvesting food had pulled her up out of the dark pit that she’d fallen into following Adam’s death. Poring through seed catalogues, tucking starts into the soil, watching them grow into flowers and herbs and plants drooping with fruit… all of the life that she nurtured in her backyard poured itself back into her heart tenfold.

“Mom!” Kai’s voice rang out so loud and sudden that it scattered doves and even scared the chickens. She looked up to find him standing on the railing of the lanai, clinging to the corner post. “I’m hungry!”

“There’s yogurt in the fridge!” she called.

“I don’t want yogurt!”

Even Dio ran from the noise, his head low and his ears held flat against his head.

“There are bananas on the table.”

“I don’t want bananas!” he screeched.

Emma let out a breath and stood, brushing the dirt from his hands.

Bratty behavior was a sure sign that she hadn’t been paying her son enough attention lately. He could go for long stretches of time foraging for food and entertaining himself in the yard, but if she ignored him for too long… well, he got like this.

“What do you want to eat?” she asked as she walked up to the house.

“Pizza!”

“We don’t have pizza.”

“I want to go get pizza.”

“Not an option.” She went to the corner of the lanai and put her hands under his arms – his t-shirt was filthy anyway – to help him hop down from the corner that he’d climbed up to. “How about some scrambled eggs?”

“Fine,” he huffed.

“Fine.” She kept her voice pleasant, because nothing fed into his moods worse than getting moody herself. “Do you want to help me crack the eggs?”

His eyes brightened, and she could almost see the dark clouds over his head start to clear.

“Come on, let’s wash our hands.”

Juniper was in the kitchen, where the air was fragrant with the scents of various herbal teas. She had all four burners going on the stove with a different blend simmering over each one.

“Hey Jun.” Emma went to the sink and started scrubbing the dirt from her hands. “I’m going to need one of those burners, just long enough to make some scrambled eggs.”

“Okay, no problem.” Juniper switched off one of the front burners and moved the huge pot onto a metal trivet.

“Are you hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Willing to eat some eggs anyway?”

Jun gave her a wan smile. “Sure.”

“Your turn,” Emma said to Kai as she stepped away from the sink. “Wash up.”

She pulled a mixing bowl down from the cupboard and grabbed a carton of eggs. The shells were jade and blue and gold, all gathered from their backyard hens. She put another little bowl next to the first, this one for the shells. When they had collected enough in the freezer, she would bake them and pulverize them into powder, then feed them back to the hens as a calcium supplement or sprinkle them around seedlings in her garden.

Kai started cracking eggs, working carefully with both hands to make sure that no shells went into the big bowl, and Emma turned her attention to Juniper.

“How are you holding up?” she asked quietly.

Juniper gave her a brittle smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m fine.”

“If you want to talk–”

“I’m fine,” she repeated, sharper this time.

“Okay.” Emma stared at the back of her niece’s head, wishing she knew how to get through to her.

“How many eggs should I do?” Kai asked, calling out like they were standing across the house from each other instead of a few feet apart.

“All of them.”

“ All of them? ” he repeated, wide eyed.

“Yep.” Emma looked back at Jun, still hovering. “Hey, so I’ve been thinking about fixing this place up. Do you want to give me a hand? Maybe look at some paint samples with me?”

“No thanks.”

“Not even for the tower room?”

“I like everything how it is.” Juniper turned off the rest of the burners. “These just need to cool a while. I’ll be upstairs.”

“Mom! The eggs are done!”

“Great.” Emma forced her eyes off of her niece’s retreating back and smiled at Kai. “Do you want to mix them?”

“Can I use the fast mixer? The one that gets plugged in?”

“Sure.” She rummaged through cabinets in search of the hand mixer.

“Hey Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I help fix this place up?”

A low chuckle of surprise escaped her as she moved from one cabinet to the next.

“What’s so funny?” Kai demanded.

“I’m not laughing at you,” she said, turning to face him. “I’m just happy you want to help.”

He regarded her with narrow-eyed suspicion. “For real?”

“For real.” She turned back to the cabinets and scratched her head. “Hey kiddo, I can’t find that mixer anywhere. I’m not sure it ever came back from the ‘ohana unit after Nell borrowed it to make that cake. Do you want to run over and ask her for it?”

“No,” he sighed, slumping away from the table. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you want to try mixing the eggs with a fork?”

“You can do it.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Whipping up a dozen eggs was a lot easier than arguing with a hangry seven year old, so she went ahead and did it herself.

While she cooked the eggs over a low flame, she thought about the two kids under her roof. She had been doing her best to lean in and support Juniper since Laurel’s death, but her teenaged niece was sick of her. Meanwhile, Kai was feeling neglected.

She needed to shift her focus: give her niece some room to breathe and spend more quality time with her son.

“Eggs are ready!” she called when the scramble had firmed up.

No response.

She sighed and covered the eggs, then went in search of the kids. Halfway up the stairs, she could hear music blasting from the tower room.

“Oh well,” Emma muttered under her breath. “She’ll come down when she’s hungry.”

But where was Kai?

“Hi Mom!” He came to stand at the top of the stairs, his voice high and loud.

“Hey Kai.” She tilted her head to one side, wondering why his smile looked so guilty.

“Food ready?”

“Yeah, the eggs are ready.”

“Let’s go!” He tried to shoo her down the stairs, which only made her more suspicious.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing!”

She sighed and walked the rest of the way up the stairs, looking over his head into the bedroom. Toys and legos were scattered across the floor in disarray and his bed was unmade, all the usual level of chaos that she let slide in his space… and then she saw the wall.

Wide swaths of marker covered the textured beige surface – not even drawings, just frantic scribbles of one color after another.

“I don’t know how that got there!” Kai exclaimed. “Maybe it was Cassie. Or Rory, when she–”

He cut himself off mid-sentence when she gave him a disappointed look.

“Okay,” he murmured, turning his face down towards the floor. “I’m sorry I lied.”

“Why did you color all over the wall?”

He shrugged, still looking down at his toes. “I dunno.”

She waited.

“I guess… I wanted to look at the colors and be happy. I was fixing up.” He looked up at her, dark eyes shining with guilt. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s your wall, kiddo.” She tip-toed through the lego obstacle course, sat down on Kai’s bed, and opened her arms. He rushed into them, and she pulled him onto her lap, holding him in a hug.

“I don’t even like them,” he admitted. “I was just mad.”

“Why were you mad?”

“Because you asked Jun if she wanted to help pick colors, even though I was right there.”

“Oh, Kai,” Emma sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m not mad anymore.” He paused. “Are you mad?”

“No, I’m not mad.” She squeezed him tighter.

“That’s good.”

“I have a plan.”

“What’s the plan?” He wriggled away until he could see her face.

“We go downstairs and eat. Then we come up here and work together to wash the wall.”

“We can wash it?”

“They’re washable markers.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“Then we can go to the store together and get a bunch of paint samples. We’ll bring them back here, and you can decide which color you want on your walls.”

“Really?” he exclaimed.

“Good plan?”

“I love that plan.”

She grinned and kissed his cheek. “Good. Let’s go eat some breakfast.”