“Not tonight,” Mandy said, gentler this time. “She’s looking forward to seeing you, Juniper, really she is. She just needs a little time to adjust.”
It was such a pathetic excuse. Generic and uninspired. Juniper had dared to let herself hope that maybe there was a chance for her and Willa. But thirteen years couldn’t be erased with one overdue homecoming, no matter how noble her intentions. She hadn’t really thought it would be easy, had she? That she could waltz in here and woo her daughter away from the only family she had ever known? Law and Reb might be her grandparents, but they were Grandpa and Grandma in name only. In reality? They were Mom and Dad. Juniper didn’t know where she fit.
“You okay?” Mandy asked when the silence became uncomfortable. She reached out a tentative hand and gave Juniper’s arm a fortifying rub.
Juniper looked around the table and realized that even the boys were struck dumb. They were staring at her, and Cameron was sucking on the tips of his middle two fingers—a nervous habit she thought he had left behind a long time ago. “Fine.” She forced a smile and sat down, scooting her chair closer to the table. “I’m fine. I’ll see Willa tomorrow.”
“Of course.” Mandy grinned and snapped her napkin, letting it settle over her lap as if Juniper’s proclamation fixed everything. “Tomorrow.”
Law cleared his throat then, and, recognizing the familiar prompt, everyone ducked their heads to pray. But instead of closing her eyes while her father pontificated, Juniper watched her family. Jonathan rubbed his forehead; the boys squeezed their eyes shut so tight they quivered. Mandy’s lips held the memory of a smile, as if her face knew no other shape.
When Juniper looked at Reb, her mother was staring back at her. For a few seconds they studied each other, gazes thin and appraising. Then Reb softened a little, smiled. There was love in her look, but something else, too. Pity? Warning?
Juniper closed her eyes and knotted her hands in her lap. She hadn’t come this far to roll over and play dead. She’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but she was ready to fight for Willa. And it was obvious that Reb knew it.
* * *
Juniper returned to the bungalow early, allowed herself a single glass of the chardonnay that Cora had left chilling in the refrigerator, and pored through an old phone book she’d found while rummaging for a corkscrew. She made a long list of people to call, dividing them into three columns: Podcast （for former friends and acquaintances she considered brave enough to attempt such an endeavor）， Interview （for some long-awaited face-to-face conversations）， and Suspects （because they were all, as far as she knew, still residents of Jericho）。 Whether their phone numbers were current—or even if they still had landlines—remained to be seen. But copying down the names and numbers felt like a step in the right direction. Juniper fell asleep on the couch again, with the dusty phone book splayed open on her chest.
When she woke, there was a stitch between her spine and shoulder blade. She rolled her shoulders to loosen up, and then stared at her phone, wondering if she should text Willa or leave her alone. Yesterday she had gotten three short letters: cul. See you later. Brief and painfully dismissive.
Being a mother was an art form. A complicated, intricate dance that Juniper had never learned the steps to. She swept in once a year and tried to match the rhythm of the life her parents had created for her daughter, but she always seemed to stumble. When Willa was five, she was enrolled in gymnastics, but by six she had left the gym behind for the dance studio. Somehow Juniper had missed the memo. The adjustable balance beam she had crammed into her trunk was almost immediately abandoned in the excitement surrounding Willa’s first pair of ballet slippers. A gift from Law and Reb, of course.
There were other, less glaring missteps that left Juniper hovering at the edge of her daughter’s world instead of leaping in. But this time would be different. The hole in her heart was exactly Willa-sized. And a couple of months ago Juniper’s therapist had begun a line of questioning that ended with: “What role do you want to have in your daughter’s life?” Didn’t the question presuppose the answer? If Willa was her daughter, Juniper was her mom.
A poor excuse for a mother, to be sure, but Willa had grown in the space beneath her heart, had been ushered into this world by the soundtrack of her mother’s body. That had to count for something.
Juniper dragged herself to the library just before eight, burdened by thoughts of her broken family and aching in the place where her back was beginning to knot. It was a dull but persistent reminder that nothing was okay.