Justice For Juniper (Tatienne Richard) novel Chapter 27

At The Spa – Part I

The next morning Juniper was laying face down in a massage bed, her mother in the one next to her. They’d both just had full body massages and now were both coated head to toe in a seaweed mud. A nature soundtrack of whales and water played in the background.

“This is incredible,” Maeve said quietly. “How are you feeling?”

“Weirdly emotional,” Juniper admitted. “When she was massaging my low back it made me cry. I’m really tired of crying.”

“It will get better sweetheart. I promise.” Her mother said softly. “I saw Lois called you this morning. You didn’t answer.”

“I’m not ready to talk to her. She sent a text too asking me to call her, but I can’t, Mama. I’m angry and I don’t want to take it out on her.”

“I understand but they’ve loved you like their own since you were fourteen years old, Juniper. Don’t cut them out over his stupidity.”

“I know. I won’t but I need a bit of time. A lot of the pressure for a baby was coming from them, especially her. She talks all the time about how she wanted a huge family, but it never happened, and she was so hopeful we’d give her a bunch of grandchildren for her to spoil. It’s not rational but I’m blaming her for putting it into our heads that babies were necessary. I want to be a mom so bad, but her involvement made the pressure a hundred-fold worse.”

“I know,” her mother was sad. “Did she ever tell you about me giving her shit at Christmas?”

“No.” she lifted her head to look at her mother, but her mother was still facing down. “For what?”

“The baby booties Christmas ornament. You’d only suffered the miscarriage a month before and she did the whole thing about how she wasn’t sure whether to give it to you or not, but she’d bought it as soon as she’d known you were pregnant and then decided you might like to have it as a memorial and a reminder you could try again. I was livid. I cornered her and told her it was inappropriate to make you feel bad at Christmas over the loss of your child and furthermore it was none of her fucking business. I know she meant well because there’s not a mean bone in her body, but the lightbulb wasn’t on that day. She was so sad about feeling her own kind of loss she was missing the broader picture.”

She snorted, “do you know what I did with that ornament,

Mama?”

“What?”

“Garbage disposal the minute she went home. Kyst and I did it together. You weren’t the only one who told her off. He took into her hard the next day. He was awake all night thinking of it and really gave her shit the next morning. The phone call actually made me quite uncomfortable.”

“Good, she deserved it.”

“They are nice boys, aren’t they?”

“They really are.”

“Phineas seems pretty intense though. I don’t think he let your feet hit the floor even once yesterday.”

“He’s feeling the guiltiest,” she agreed. “The morning, I first met him, he was a bastard, Mama and I think the guilt is making him feel bad over it.”

“He should feel bad. He was out of line for sure. However, he’s a good guy.” Her mother cleared her throat, “I should tell you what I overheard last night though.”

“What?”

“When I was getting you settled in bed and I went to bring your teacup back to the kitchen the three of them were um,” her mother gave another uncomfortable squeak, “discussing which one of them was going to win you over as their new girlfriend.”