The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones

by Daven McQueen

  “Please,” he whispered, pressing his head against her chest, where her heartbeat should have been. Nothing. He laid his ear against her mouth and felt no breath. All he could think was that she was supposed to be invincible.

  Twenty-Two

  Everything after was a blur. There were a few things Ethan knew for sure: he remembered that Gus got him out of the boat and handed him a blanket. He sat on the dock, shivering, and after some time, he heard sirens in the distance. Maybe he watched as the paramedics lifted Juniper onto a stretcher and rolled her into the ambulance—all he remembered were the lights, red and blue. He remembered hearing Gus’s gruff voice talking to a policeman, and then the officer came to talk to him too. Ethan knew he spoke, but couldn’t remember what he said.

  When the police and paramedics left, it was just Ethan and Gus, alone on the dock. Gus barely seemed to be holding himself up. He asked Ethan if he wanted to go inside and Ethan shook his head. He remembered, very clearly, staring out at the lake then, and seeing that the water was still. Apart from the overturned boat still floating in the center, there was no sign of what had happened at all.

  Ethan remembered that at some point Uncle Robert came. Later, Ethan would learn that it was only minutes later, but it felt like days that he sat there on the dock, staring out at the lake and feeling as if he was being stabbed in the chest again and again. Uncle Robert said nothing about Ethan sneaking out. He just stepped onto the dock and pulled Ethan close, wet clothes and all, and said, “Let’s go home.”

  The next thing he remembered after that was what he wished, and would wish for the rest of his life, that he could forget. He was sitting in Aunt Cara’s kitchen, shell shocked but dry, staring into a cup of hot chocolate, when the phone rang. It was Gus calling from the hospital, where he had followed in his car after Ethan and Uncle Robert had gone. Aunt Cara answered, her face twisted in pain. When Ethan saw her stagger into the arm of the couch, he knew for sure.

  “This can’t be real,” he said out loud, even as a voice in his head said It is, it is, it is. This wasn’t supposed to happen, especially not to the most alive person he knew. But the way his heart constricted, he knew that it was true.

  “I’m so sorry, Ethan,” Aunt Cara said, coming into the kitchen with Uncle Robert a moment later. Tears streamed freely down both their faces. Ethan found that he wasn’t crying, but everything felt like it was in slow motion. When his aunt and uncle moved in to hold him close, he could barely feel their touch.

  For years after, when Ethan dreamt of this night, this was the way things played out. The blanket, the paramedics, the lake, Uncle Robert, Aunt Cara, the news. And it always ended the same way too: with a baby. Because the next day, in some cruel miracle, Ethan’s cousin was born.

  It was nearly noon, but Ethan hadn’t been able to get out of bed. His dad was supposed to be arriving tomorrow—he couldn’t even think about it. He could hardly think of anything. He lay beneath the covers in silence, staring at the ceiling, thinking every now and then that he heard Juniper tapping at his window. It wasn’t, of course. He’d never hear that sound, that way, again.

  As the sun emerged from behind the clouds to shine bright through his window, he heard the tapping again. “Stop!” he cried to his window, pulling his pillow over his face. “Please.”

  “Ethan?” came Uncle Robert’s voice from the hall. Ethan peered out from under the pillow as his uncle opened the door. He looked haggard and exhausted, wearing wrinkled clothes and with dark circles under his eyes. But there was an urgency in his voice that surprised Ethan. “We have to go,” he said. “Your aunt’s in labor.”

  “Oh,” Ethan said. He couldn’t feel excited—only numb. He didn’t move. “Can’t I just stay here?”

  “I’m sorry, son. I know. But after last night—”

  The pain washed over both of them and Uncle Robert winced. Ethan squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “I’m coming.”

  When he stood, his legs barely knew how to hold him. He stumbled across the room and into the hall, where Uncle Robert was helping Aunt Cara to the front door. Ethan followed them, his limbs feeling heavier by the second.

  “Hi, sweetie,” Aunt Cara said, her breath coming in spurts. “Your cousin’s on his way.”

  Ethan stared at his aunt’s stomach as his uncle helped her into the pickup truck. He tried to imagine a baby in there, coming out into the world crying, kicking its tiny feet, but couldn’t. For all the movement happening around him, he couldn’t see anything but stillness.

  Uncle Robert sped to the hospital with Aunt Cara in the middle seat, taking deep breaths. Ethan stared out the window, watching the town blur past, and remembered when Juniper had sat in this very spot not so long ago. And there was his chest again, caving in.

  They arrived in record time, Uncle Robert and Ethan both helping Aunt Cara from the car in the parking lot. At the hospital doors, Uncle Robert half carried Aunt Cara through without hesitation, but Ethan, noticing a sign above them, stopped. White Entrance, it said simply.

  “Ethan!” Uncle Robert called from just inside, and Ethan gestured helplessly at the sign.

  “It says I can’t—”

  “I don’t give a damn what it says, just get in here.” And he said it so fiercely that Ethan didn’t hesitate another second, just pushed through the door that was like any other door and took up his spot supporting Aunt Cara’s left arm. Once inside, no one seemed to notice him. His aunt was whisked away in a flurry of doctors and nurses, his uncle following, and Ethan was left standing in the empty waiting room, staring at the tile. He shuffled over to the hard metal seats, where only a couple of other people sat. They looked at him hard as he approached; he couldn’t bring himself to care.

  Uncle Robert came down after a while, his cheeks flushed. “She’s in her room,” he said. “Now just got to wait.” Ethan nodded. “How are you doing?” Ethan shrugged. “Yeah. Well, I’m going to grab some chips from the vending machine. You want anything?” Ethan shook his head.

  When Uncle Robert disappeared back around the corner, it occurred to Ethan that this was likely the hospital where Juniper had been taken the night before. Maybe down that hallway, in one of those rooms, was where doctors had looked at her and realized they couldn’t save her. And for the first time since it happened, the pain rushed up from his chest and into his face, and Ethan began to cry. His shoulders shook and he folded himself in half, face pressed against his knees. He wailed—he felt that no matter how loud he might scream, nothing could capture his anguish. He wanted to climb out of his own skin, squeeze the memories out of his brain, shrink to a pinprick, and then disappear.

  Instead, he sat there, sobbing, and feeling no better for it. He didn’t stop when he felt the other people in the waiting room staring at him, or when a nurse came over and asked, tentatively, if he was okay—and then came back a few minutes later to ask if he could please quiet down. He didn’t do that either. He cried until no more sounds or tears came out. Until no more could. Then he sat on that cold metal seat, shaking, until Uncle Robert came bursting back into the room several minutes later.

  Ethan knew what a mess he looked, his face red and smeared with snot, the front of his shirt entirely damp. He saw Uncle Robert notice this and slow down, his face softening. He reached out a rough hand to cup the side of Ethan’s head. “Whatever you need to do, son,” he said. Ethan leaned into his touch, squeezing his eyes shut. A few stray tears slipped out.

  They sat in silence for a long time—hours, according to the clock on the wall. Uncle Robert dozed, snoring occasionally, but Ethan stayed wide awake. He counted the tiles on the floor to distract himself. Eventually, a nurse approached, waking Uncle Robert with a tap on the shoulder. She whispered something to him and he stood quickly, casting Ethan a brief glance before following her into the hall.

  Ethan hardly registered his uncle’s departure. He just
kept counting, starting over at even the slightest mistake. When at last Uncle Robert returned, wide eyed and red faced, Ethan had just reached seventy-four.

  “Hey,” Uncle Robert breathed, sitting down beside him.

  “Hi,” Ethan replied hollowly.

  Uncle Robert sat there for a moment, elbows on his knees, staring at the nurses’ station across the room. There was something wild in his eyes, like mixed panic and wonder. Finally, he took a breath.

  “Ethan,” Uncle Robert said. “You don’t have to right away, but—do you want to meet your cousin?”

  Eyes closed, Ethan nodded. Uncle Robert helped him out of his seat and they made their way across the waiting room to the big double doors. Behind them was a long, white hallway, lined with doors on either side. They followed the signs marked Delivery. Uncle Robert was walking fast and Ethan stumbled to catch up.

  “Excuse me!” a voice called as they rounded the corner to the delivery wing. Ethan and his uncle turned to see a doctor, all in white. “Sorry,” he said, “but the delivery room is whites only. Hospital policy.”

  Ethan was surprised to see Uncle Robert’s lip curl into a sneer. He stepped up to the doctor, getting right into the man’s face. “This boy right here,” he said, stabbing a finger in Ethan’s direction, “is family. And our family has been through hell and back these past twenty-four hours. So I’m going to take him to meet his baby cousin—hospital policy be damned.”

  The doctor looked at him in shock and Uncle Robert didn’t wait for a response. He grabbed Ethan by the hand and pulled him into the delivery wing and up to Aunt Cara’s room. Inside, the nurses looked at Ethan in shock, but one glare from Uncle Robert and they looked pointedly away.

  “Ethan,” Aunt Cara said breathlessly. Her face was flushed, but she wore a clean hospital gown and her hair had been pulled back from her face. While her eyes were filled with tears, she wore an electrifying smile. “Do you want to meet him?”

  Ethan crept carefully forward, looking down at the baby swaddled in his aunt’s arms. The baby’s eyes were closed, his little face red and fists clutched tight. “Hi,” Ethan whispered, leaning down to see him closer. He couldn’t believe anyone could be so small. The baby cooed softly.

  “What’s his name?” Ethan asked.

  His aunt and uncle looked at each other with sad smiles. “Henry,” Uncle Robert said. “Henry Juniper Shay.”

  Ethan looked down at the baby boy and felt his heart break in two.

  “We were thinking about doing it anyway,” Aunt Cara said. “But after last night—”

  Ethan nodded. “She would have loved it.” And he knew she would have. She would have shrieked at the sight of this tiny creature, almost small enough to hold in one hand. By gosh, she would have said, he’s the cutest baby I’ve ever seen. I mean, I haven’t seen many babies. But I just know—Henry is the cutest.

  Ethan laughed at the thought, but it petered off into a strangled sob. At the sound, baby Henry suddenly opened his eyes, staring straight up at his older cousin. Ethan started. Henry looked at him, quiet and strangely calm, as if they were old friends. His eyes, big and heavy lashed, were blue.

  Twenty-Three

  His heart throbbing in his chest, Ethan trekked through the forest. He was making the trip that he and Juniper had never finished—the trip to her secret cove. He had left his bike at his aunt and uncle’s house, because this time, he felt he needed to take it all in. He was leaving this afternoon, after all. It was his last day in this forest for the summer, and, he had decided, his last day for a long, long while. Once he left Ellison, he didn’t know if he could ever come back.

  His parents were at his aunt and uncle’s house—his mom had made the drive down that morning, the soonest she could come after Uncle Robert had called to tell her what had happened. His dad had been in town for four days now, this time sticking around for more than a Coke and a quick hello.

  When Ethan’s mom had arrived, she and his father shared tense greetings, not meeting each other’s eyes. Thankfully, Henry, brought home from the hospital just a couple of days before, was a welcome distraction. They both doted over the baby, which kept an easy peace. Still, as soon as the breakfast conversations were done, Ethan had slipped outside. He knew they were probably sitting around the kitchen table now in uncomfortable silence, but he tried to put that image out of his mind.

  It wasn’t hard. He pushed through the trees and into the secret cove—and there, all he could think of was Juniper. He fell to his knees beside the brook, his legs no longer able to hold him. His stomach twisted with longing and regret, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He reached out an arm and trailed it through the running water, thinking about how he had lain there all those weeks ago, watching Juniper paint.

  She had been a whirlwind of movement, a paintbrush in each hand and a rainbow across her face—he remembered how she’d laughed for no reason other than that she was alive. Had been alive. His heart ached as he stared up at the canopy of trees, the patches of blue through the green. At her funeral the previous morning, he had been ill at the thought of her lying in the coffin, motionless—she was, by nature, never still. That feeling hadn’t gone away.

  Juniper’s funeral had been a small affair, and Ethan resented it. She deserved a marching band, a ticker-tape parade, and a guest appearance by Elvis Presley. But Ellison, Alabama, didn’t care about the strange girl who lived in a house in the woods, so there were seven people in attendance: Ethan, Gus, Cara, Robert, Henry, Abrams, and Juniper’s aunt, Annabelle.

  The latter was a wreck through the whole thing, standing between Abrams and Gus and sobbing loudly into her thick black veil. She couldn’t even look at the casket.

  “Poor woman,” Aunt Cara remarked as they followed the short procession into the cemetery. “We’ll have to find someone to take care of her.”

  Ethan, dressed in a suit borrowed from Uncle Robert that was two sizes too big, had sworn that he wouldn’t lose his composure. He told himself that Juniper wouldn’t want him to cry. Even after everything, and even through his pain, she would have wanted him to celebrate her.

  But when they lowered the casket into the ground, he fell to his knees beside the grave and wailed.

  Two men from the church filled the hole with dirt and Ethan wanted to tell them to stop, because she couldn’t be dead, could she? She was in there, wondering what in the world was going on, and they were burying her alive. He waited to hear her cries, her fists banging against the lid, but there was nothing. Just Ethan’s sobs, competing in volume with Aunt Annabelle’s, and the sound of soil hitting wood.

  When it was over, Uncle Robert put an arm around Annabelle and led her away from the grave. Aunt Cara stepped beside Ethan, who was still kneeling at the edge of the plot, and squeezed his shoulder.

  “We’re going to take Anna back home,” she said, rocking Harry Juniper Shay in one arm. The baby blinked at Ethan. “Do you want to come?”

  “Can I meet you guys at the house?” he whispered. “I just need some time.”

  “Of course, sweetie. Take as long as you need.”

  When she walked away to join Uncle Robert at the car, Ethan looked at the top of the grave, where the headstone would eventually sit. He had chosen the inscription himself. It would read In memory of Juniper Starfish Jones. Adventurer, niece, and best friend.

  The finality of it all made his stomach churn.

  With a shuddering breath, Ethan pushed himself to his feet and turned away from the grave. Gus was standing a few feet behind him, sporting a few days of stubble and a dusty old suit.

  “Real sad,” he said, even now a man of very few words. He stood with shoulders raised and fists clenched, but Ethan could see the tears pooling in his eyes.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Real sad.”

  Gus—tough, kind old Gus—clapped a gentle hand on Ethan’s shoulder and stared at the freshly plant
ed grave. “Awful, is what I mean. Terrible.” He shrugged as if to ask, what more can I say? “Gonna miss her.”

  Ethan nodded, feeling new dampness on his cheeks. “Me too.”

  “You know.” Gus sighed. “I know you didn’t look at the casket, but they put her in her favorite dress. That yellow one, you know, with the polka dots. And they put a sunflower in her hair.”

  “Good,” Ethan managed to murmur. “She would’ve wanted that, I think.”

  Gus dipped his head in agreement, then, unexpectedly, pulled Ethan into a tight embrace. “Anyway,” he mumbled gruffly, turning away. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  Juniper’s grave was atop a small hill in the center of the cemetery, and Ethan watched Gus descend it with some difficulty. Meanwhile, Abrams was climbing back up, and the two men nodded as they passed each other.

  Ethan had been surprised to see Abrams here—the man hardly seemed to leave his store. “Hi, Abrams,” he said as the man approached.

  “Hello, Ethan,” Abrams replied, stroking his beard. “This is tragic, it really is. Juniper was one of my best vendors.”

  Ethan muttered, “Yeah, well, she was my best friend.”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong”—Abrams waved a hand in the air—“she was a wonderful girl. Had the heart and wisdom of a child.” He smiled, and for once it reached his eyes. “A wonderful girl, yes. And also wonderful at supplying fresh-cut flowers, as it were.”

  Ethan rolled his eyes.

  After a moment of silence, Abrams continued, saying, “I hear the police went knocking on Noah O’Neil’s door yesterday morning. Threw his mother into a fit, which I appreciate. Never met such an irritating woman in my life.” Ethan, who had not heard this, raised an eyebrow. “Anyway, they questioned him, and that Alex kid as well. Everyone knows what they did. Not that it matters, of course.”