Juniper rallied at the sweet sound of being called Auntie and smiled. She sat up and moved over to the floor to build withhim.
“Nothing, I’m just frustrated by something at work.”
She looked over at him and smiled. In their special way, he didn’t press any further. Instead, they spent the next half hour building all different kinds of structures and crafting all different kinds of plots for their scenes and characters. Juniper could understand the draw. You could build what you liked. And if you didn’t like it, you could smash it apart. That part felt downright therapeutic.
She switched gears and fully relaxed into her newfound contentment.
“Hey, do you know how much I love you?” She asked him.
“No,” he responded in a slow, cheeky way, eyes peering over his glasses.
Juniper gasped in disbelief, a shocked hand slapped her own chest. “Are you lying to me you little trickster?” She exclaimed, narrowing her eyes.
She started tickling one of his sides, and Wanchese, squealing with laughter, jumped to his feet in an effort to run.
Before he could get very far from their Lego graveyard, Wren called out, “Make sure you pick all those up first! I’m not stepping on any more of those in the middle of the night! I refuse!” She turned to Juniper. “There is nothing worse than sneaking out here to get a midnight snack and stepping on one of those things. Worse than childbirth. I am serious.”
Juniper giggled, even though she could remember that day like it was yesterday. She had been the only person at Wren’s side when she gave birth. How quickly she forgot just how painful that actually was, in more ways than one.
Juniper grabbed Wanchese’s hand and pulled him back down into her lap before they started to clean up.
“How do you say I love you?” Juniper asked.
“Kuwumaras,” he answered.
“Kuwumaras, nuqisus.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed the side of his face, squeezing him a little longer than he liked,judging by his squirming. She and Wren had made it their priority to pour into the cups of the children in their lives, especially Wanchese. This was the different life they imagined for their children, and they made good on that promise everyday.
When Juniper finally stepped out of the house hours later, she felt relieved. She hadn’t intended to leave in such a better mood, but there she was nonetheless. Even if the original reason she found herself there was more about rage than redemption. On her drive back to her house, she reflected on Wren’s words.You can’t be so clouded by your hatred of her that it affects your job.She certainly wasn’t going to let that happen, but she also knew she needed to approach this from another angle.
If their work together was meant to be short-term, then why did she need to let all of this emotion get in the way? It’s not like they needed to make amends or rehash old pain to develop some expansion plans. They just needed to find a way to work together professionally, so they could move past this momentary blip and diverge back onto their own paths again. She could do that. She could absolutely do that.
After two rivers converge into one, bifurcation, or a split back apart into two rivers, can still occur. Stone hard enough to cause impasse can redirect some of the current to its other side, carving two different paths into the landscape. These splits are often temporary in nature.
Chapter 6
On her way to work on Friday of that next week, Juniper vowed to have a positive attitude. Or at least a less negative attitude. As Theo requested, Juniper had gritted her teeth and set up a time with Rowan to meet with her at the Tribal gardens. That seemed like good, neutral ground to start over on. And if not, at least their coastal weather was an early-spring balmy high-60s. It was also a Friday. That guaranteed at least two days of separation if it all went to shit.
She arrived at the gardens early and sat in her car while she mentally prepared her checklist. She found that if she launched into this work without a plan first, she easily got distracted and overwhelmed by the sheer level of work it took to keep a garden going. Gardening was an everyday, interactive job. Leaving a garden untended for too long made it vulnerable to being overrun by weeds or pests. She had unfortunately neglected it somewhat over the last two weeks as she transitioned to working more indoors.
She would definitely need to hire someone to help keep up with the manual labor, and thankfully she now had the budget to do just that. Unfortunately that only added one more task to her ever-growing to do list, that would also unfortunately spiral into multiple other subtasks. She knew she needed to write a job description and send it to someone to get it approved first.
Fuck, is that person Rowan?
She banged her head against the steering wheel, horn screaming as a symbol of how loud she wished she herself could scream. She kept it there until she couldn’t stand the sound anymore.
“Fuck!” She screamed into the void, tensing her fists, and finally letting her forehead off the horn to replace the noise with her shouting instead.
That scream felt good, at least a little cathartic. She rested her head on the headrest, let out a deep breath, and closed her eyes for a few minutes, guiding herself through some positive self talk likeyes, youcanactually fucking do thisandyes, weareembracing chaos as the plotline.It was impressive how everything could fall apart with such precision.
She turned her head to the side when she noticed a truck pulling into the lot several feet down from her. Squinting her eyes, she asked herself out loud, “Is that Rowan’s dad’s old truck?” She let out another deep breath, albeit this time in a more exasperated tone, threatening to upset the somewhat inner calm she had just managed to achieve. “Damnit, why is she here early too?”
No two Native people had any right to show up to the same place early. Downright unheard of. What were they trying to do, out-professional each other? She had just wanted a few minutes in peace to ground herself before she had to play nice. Or nicer.
Juniper got out of her car and approached Rowan’s. She wasn’t going to let her come to her. She was going to assert dominance over this situation and call the shots. Because yes, this seemed like the right way to get off on the right foot.
“Didn’t expect you to be bumming a ride off your pops, fancy lawyer,” Juniper yelled out as she approached the truck, a devious smile curling the corner of her lips.
