Juniper Blue (NaNoWriMo2023; manxman)

Chapter 1

A/N Just an FYI: This story is not edited and there will be many mistakes.

I was born Juniper Blue Doiron twenty-five years ago on December 31st at 11:59 pm in a cabin in the woods of Maine, delivered by a local midwife. My mother claimed I came out laughing. Since I don't remember being born, I took her word for it. I later learned that my mother was nothing but a liar, among other things. In one of her manic states, she took off ten years ago, eventually divorcing my dad and marrying a real estate investor from Florida. From time to time, she returned to Maine, usually when another grandchild was born. I always felt like she had no use for me, making it clear she never wanted a son. That's a story for a different day. 

My motto was, 'It's better to laugh than cry.' Laughter and humor kept me going. Nobody ever knew what was really going on inside me. I figured nobody cared, anyway. After all these years, I still lived in the same cabin while Dad lived in the nearby farmhouse. My older sisters, Violet and Halina, left home years ago. Violet, seven years older than I, married Brian Young when she was twenty-one and they now have four kids with another on the way. Halina, four years older, currently lived in Portland and was working on her fourth career, now a paralegal and living with her on-again/off-again boyfriend.

My grandparents were hippies before hippies became a thing in the sixties. My dad was born in 1964, which was slightly before the height of the counterculture/hippie movement. By then, my grandparents had been living off the land for ten years, cultivating a farm with no knowledge of how successful it would be in years to come. By the end of the sixties/early seventies, it turned into a hippie commune of sorts. By the late seventies/early eighties, most of the hippies had left and moved on. None of their offspring stayed. Dad ran the place with people he hired; many who had been working for him for years. He expected me to take over the business after he died, even though I had my own life and career. But I had a habit of doing what everybody else wanted and not what I wanted. I didn't want to let anyone down.

My eighty-six-year-old grandmother, Rose, was still alive and well and lived in the farmhouse she helped build. My grandfather passed away when I was a kid. Dad met our mother during a harvest fair. He fell hopelessly and stupidly in love. After all these years, he never got over the divorce. Mom left him heartbroken.

Unlike my sisters, I stayed, unable to bring myself to leave. Maybe it was my fault I gave everyone the impression I was willing to take over some day. Everyone also expected me to take care of Dad as his health deteriorated. Neither of my sisters offered to take Dad to any of his appointments, always assuming and expecting me to do it. Dad was unreliable and would never see his cardiologist on his own. He worked so damn hard, he gave himself a heart attack last year.

I grew up surrounded by chickens, goats, and horses. We also grew some of the best blueberries in Maine and my blueberry pies and muffins were far better than Memere Doiron. We never had any cows, although I remember asking my parents for a cow one Christmas. I was seven or eight. Dad gave me a toy cow instead, a stuffed animal I still had to this day.

A part of me dreamt of leaving and exploring the world, but an even bigger part of me couldn't fathom leaving my home. Sure, internet and phone service were sporadic, and I couldn't stream movies or shows like other people, but I suppose the pros of living deep in the country outweighed the cons.

Autumn came early in Maine, much earlier than other states in New England or so I'd been told. I used to dream of leaving Maine, to explore other parts of the country, but I never expected that to happen. I was mostly happy in my little world. Autumn brought mixed emotions. While I enjoyed teaching, I thrived on white water rafting, a thrill seeker at heart. I'd been a guide since I was eighteen, getting my river guide license as soon as I could.