“Juniper”
by Sarah Holloway
I used to think her mama named her after that big tree in front of their house. In the early spring, Juniper’s mama, name of Myra, would call up my mama to say “it’s a bird party!” I was still pretty little, but I remember how Mama tossed me in the back seat and turned up the radio while she drove the five miles from where we lived in town to Juniper’s grandparents’ little spread. That’s where we watched the bird party in the Juniper tree.
Cedar waxwing was the kind of bird having the party, Miss Myra said. Anybody could see those waxwings had a grand time pecking away at the juniper berries. We’d all sit on the big front porch and watch the birds celebrate. Juniper usually sat on her mama’s lap on the porch swing. A little angel, my mama called Juniper, with her blonde ringlets and quiet ways. The birds swooped in, feasting on the fermented fruit. Bunches of birds, way more than you’d usually see in one place, whipping in and out of the tree, making a heckuva racket, too.
“See, drinking’s only natural,” Miss Myra would say.
“You bet it is!” my Mama answered, and they’d hoot with laughter, then toast each other with their plastic tumblers full of gin and tonic. “To getting hammered!”
“See that one there?” Miss Myra pointed with her cigarette. “He’s gonna fight for his right to party.” I wasn’t sure what she meant, then I saw one of ‘em start running other birds off the branch he was perched on. He pecked a berry, then another and another.
“Lookit him throw them back,” Miss Myra said, like she was impressed. The bird stopped pecking and keeled over, making a little thud when it hit the ground. There was still some snow under the bushes along the porch, between where we sat and where the bird fell. Lots of the berries had fallen, too.
“Oh no! Bessie, go see if he’s OK,” Mama said. I walked down the front steps and found his little body, his rib cage rising and falling, rising and falling. “Don’t touch him though.”
“He’s OK, Mama. He’s just sleeping,” I called to her. I wanted to touch his sweet little head, to stroke it and tell him everything would be alright, but just then a big glob of bird shit landed on my forehead and I screeched. A hundred birds flew out of that tree when I did, scaring me so that I fell on my butt. Mama and Miss Myra laughed.
“Ooh, they got her but good. Bullseye!!” Miss Myra shouted. “Those birds must not like you, Bess!”
“Yes, they do so like me,” I yelled back at her, but I started crying anyway.
“That’s enough, Bess! Stop that sniveling,” Mama said. I ran to her and tried to get up on her lap, but she said I was too messy what with the bird shit and my snotty face.
“Messy Bessie,” Miss Myra said, shaking her head like my very existence made her sad. Her eyes felt cold and hard on me. I decided I hated her at that moment and she never gave me a reason to change my mind. I looked at Juniper who sat on her mother’s lap, sucking her thumb. She closed her eyes and pushed her head into Miss Myra’s bosom.
Finally, Mama got a wash rag and cleaned me up. Mama was mostly only mean to me like that when she was around Miss Myra.
Miss Myra and my mama ran together. When I was little, people thought mamas shouldn’t run with nobody, that the good ones stayed home cooking, cleaning, sewing, or working at the school, the paper plant or, if they were really smart, as nurses over in Lumberton. But Myra and my mama went out nights—worked nights was what they said they were doing—while Juniper and I got put to bed by our grandmothers. They probably did earn some money over at the truck stop on I-95. And drank and smoked it up, too. Lots of kids had daddies who ran around at night. Daddies doing it was no big thing, but once I got to first grade everybody at school had something to say about my mama.
At the next bird party, I started looking closely at those cedar waxwings. Mostly because I didn’t want to listen to Miss Myra who was always talking. Their heads were crested, like cardinals, and some of them had yellow bellies. And, they wore little black masks around their eyes that looked like they were held on with tiny straps. The tips of some of their wing feathers had red, waxy decorations.
“I want to learn more about those birds. Can I get some books about them, Mama?” I asked on the way home. We didn’t have any books at home, but I’d seen some books about animals at Mamaw’s friend’s house.
“Why don’t you ask Mamaw to take you to the library? I ain’t got money for books,” Mama said. I asked and Mamaw took me. I’ve been studying about animals ever since. Especially birds.
Juniper became my closest friend, and it stayed that way for years. I had to repeat second grade, so we ended up in the same class although she was a year younger. Even so, I struggled to keep up with her. When the kids said anything nasty about Miss Myra or my mother, Juniper popped ‘em in the mouth when the teacher wasn’t looking.
Miss Myra died the winter of fourth grade. First she was missing, though, and later they found her body. Juniper stayed with her grandmother until she died, too. Then her Uncle Larry quit the army to take care of her. Larry inherited that little spread with its Christmas tree farm and a paid-for house, the only one Juniper had ever lived in.
“I should take that angel child in,” Mama fretted. “Myra would’ve liked that.” She said she’d heard bad things about Larry from Miss Myra. “But Chet and I haven’t been married that long, and it’s a lot to ask of him.” Mama was a new and improved person once she got clean and sober. Then she married Chet who was sober, too. Mama said the way Miss Myra died led her to God who had led her to AA. I loved all the good changes at my house, especially spending time with my mother now that she was happy. When she read me a book and tucked me in at night, that was the best of all.
“You might be a little old to get put to bed this way, but I’m making up for all the times I didn’t do it when you were little,” Mama said. She called it “making amends.”
I loved having a stepdad, too. Chet took me to the batting cage up in Fayetteville lots of weekends. I was real serious about softball—I played catcher and was a strong hitter—and I meant to make the county junior high all-star team.
At first, Juniper said she liked her uncle OK, then she didn’t. She got in a fight with that big priss Laura McMillan in gym class and kicked her ass six ways to Sunday. That was the first time she got suspended from school. The kids whispered about Juniper, saying she was a little whore just like her mother. If I heard it, I made ‘em take it back, but so many kids were saying it I finally gave up.
When I told Mama about it, she again said “I should take Juniper in and raise her right. What do you think, Bess?”
“Oh, Mama, that would be great!” I’d always wanted a sister. And I loved Juniper. She was funny and made up the best games. We’d poked our fingers with needles to be blood sisters already—we did that the summer before Miss Myra died and my mother changed her own life because of it.
Mama drove out to talk to Larry about Juniper, and came home looking like she’d been crying. “I’m sorry Bess, it’s not going to work out,” and that was the last time I heard it mentioned.
“What did Larry do? Did he hit you?” I asked when Juniper showed up at school a few days later with bruises on her arms.
“He’s an asshole,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it, Bess.
I did make the all-star team, and I got a couple hits and an RBI when we played at Fayetteville. I got my first “A” at school ever, in biology, the next year. Mama got pregnant and my little sister Emily joined our family. Juniper never wanted to come over any more when I asked her. She got in lots more fights at school and had a smart mouth with the teachers. She started hanging out with Twyla and Jeanine, older girls, the fastest ones in the whole school.
Cedar waxwings are big fruit eaters. They even have a ritual where a couple passes berries back and forth to each other with their beaks. It makes me think about when Juniper was still OK, and how we’d play catch together for hours.
In 8th grade, Juniper ended up in juvie but I never knew exactly what for. I guess when she got out she ran with those wild girls again. She never returned to school, at least not in our town. I’m in college now, on a softball scholarship, studying biology. It’s hard since I read slow, but I’m not giving up. Maybe some day, I can be an ornithologist.
Why did things get so much better for me and only worse for Juniper? Mama says it’s got to do with grace that surpasses all understanding, but I still feel bad about it.
One time when Juniper was eight or nine she told me that she got her name because juniper berries were what they make gin from. That’s why her mother named her “Juniper” she said—because of what the berries could do, not because of the tree. The difference seemed real important to her.
Sarah Holloway lives in Savannah, GA, with her husband, dogs and lots of books. After a career in public accounting, she’s loving the writing life. She reads for Story Magazine and has published reviews in Necessary Fiction. Other recent publications include SmokeLong Quarterly's blog, Roi Fainéant, Third Street Review and The Argyle. She’s @sarahholloway.bsky.social.
by Sarah Holloway
I used to think her mama named her after that big tree in front of their house. In the early spring, Juniper’s mama, name of Myra, would call up my mama to say “it’s a bird party!” I was still pretty little, but I remember how Mama tossed me in the back seat and turned up the radio while she drove the five miles from where we lived in town to Juniper’s grandparents’ little spread. That’s where we watched the bird party in the Juniper tree.
Cedar waxwing was the kind of bird having the party, Miss Myra said. Anybody could see those waxwings had a grand time pecking away at the juniper berries. We’d all sit on the big front porch and watch the birds celebrate. Juniper usually sat on her mama’s lap on the porch swing. A little angel, my mama called Juniper, with her blonde ringlets and quiet ways. The birds swooped in, feasting on the fermented fruit. Bunches of birds, way more than you’d usually see in one place, whipping in and out of the tree, making a heckuva racket, too.
“See, drinking’s only natural,” Miss Myra would say.
“You bet it is!” my Mama answered, and they’d hoot with laughter, then toast each other with their plastic tumblers full of gin and tonic. “To getting hammered!”
“See that one there?” Miss Myra pointed with her cigarette. “He’s gonna fight for his right to party.” I wasn’t sure what she meant, then I saw one of ‘em start running other birds off the branch he was perched on. He pecked a berry, then another and another.
“Lookit him throw them back,” Miss Myra said, like she was impressed. The bird stopped pecking and keeled over, making a little thud when it hit the ground. There was still some snow under the bushes along the porch, between where we sat and where the bird fell. Lots of the berries had fallen, too.
“Oh no! Bessie, go see if he’s OK,” Mama said. I walked down the front steps and found his little body, his rib cage rising and falling, rising and falling. “Don’t touch him though.”
“He’s OK, Mama. He’s just sleeping,” I called to her. I wanted to touch his sweet little head, to stroke it and tell him everything would be alright, but just then a big glob of bird shit landed on my forehead and I screeched. A hundred birds flew out of that tree when I did, scaring me so that I fell on my butt. Mama and Miss Myra laughed.
“Ooh, they got her but good. Bullseye!!” Miss Myra shouted. “Those birds must not like you, Bess!”
“Yes, they do so like me,” I yelled back at her, but I started crying anyway.
“That’s enough, Bess! Stop that sniveling,” Mama said. I ran to her and tried to get up on her lap, but she said I was too messy what with the bird shit and my snotty face.
“Messy Bessie,” Miss Myra said, shaking her head like my very existence made her sad. Her eyes felt cold and hard on me. I decided I hated her at that moment and she never gave me a reason to change my mind. I looked at Juniper who sat on her mother’s lap, sucking her thumb. She closed her eyes and pushed her head into Miss Myra’s bosom.
Finally, Mama got a wash rag and cleaned me up. Mama was mostly only mean to me like that when she was around Miss Myra.
Miss Myra and my mama ran together. When I was little, people thought mamas shouldn’t run with nobody, that the good ones stayed home cooking, cleaning, sewing, or working at the school, the paper plant or, if they were really smart, as nurses over in Lumberton. But Myra and my mama went out nights—worked nights was what they said they were doing—while Juniper and I got put to bed by our grandmothers. They probably did earn some money over at the truck stop on I-95. And drank and smoked it up, too. Lots of kids had daddies who ran around at night. Daddies doing it was no big thing, but once I got to first grade everybody at school had something to say about my mama.
At the next bird party, I started looking closely at those cedar waxwings. Mostly because I didn’t want to listen to Miss Myra who was always talking. Their heads were crested, like cardinals, and some of them had yellow bellies. And, they wore little black masks around their eyes that looked like they were held on with tiny straps. The tips of some of their wing feathers had red, waxy decorations.
“I want to learn more about those birds. Can I get some books about them, Mama?” I asked on the way home. We didn’t have any books at home, but I’d seen some books about animals at Mamaw’s friend’s house.
“Why don’t you ask Mamaw to take you to the library? I ain’t got money for books,” Mama said. I asked and Mamaw took me. I’ve been studying about animals ever since. Especially birds.
Juniper became my closest friend, and it stayed that way for years. I had to repeat second grade, so we ended up in the same class although she was a year younger. Even so, I struggled to keep up with her. When the kids said anything nasty about Miss Myra or my mother, Juniper popped ‘em in the mouth when the teacher wasn’t looking.
Miss Myra died the winter of fourth grade. First she was missing, though, and later they found her body. Juniper stayed with her grandmother until she died, too. Then her Uncle Larry quit the army to take care of her. Larry inherited that little spread with its Christmas tree farm and a paid-for house, the only one Juniper had ever lived in.
“I should take that angel child in,” Mama fretted. “Myra would’ve liked that.” She said she’d heard bad things about Larry from Miss Myra. “But Chet and I haven’t been married that long, and it’s a lot to ask of him.” Mama was a new and improved person once she got clean and sober. Then she married Chet who was sober, too. Mama said the way Miss Myra died led her to God who had led her to AA. I loved all the good changes at my house, especially spending time with my mother now that she was happy. When she read me a book and tucked me in at night, that was the best of all.
“You might be a little old to get put to bed this way, but I’m making up for all the times I didn’t do it when you were little,” Mama said. She called it “making amends.”
I loved having a stepdad, too. Chet took me to the batting cage up in Fayetteville lots of weekends. I was real serious about softball—I played catcher and was a strong hitter—and I meant to make the county junior high all-star team.
At first, Juniper said she liked her uncle OK, then she didn’t. She got in a fight with that big priss Laura McMillan in gym class and kicked her ass six ways to Sunday. That was the first time she got suspended from school. The kids whispered about Juniper, saying she was a little whore just like her mother. If I heard it, I made ‘em take it back, but so many kids were saying it I finally gave up.
When I told Mama about it, she again said “I should take Juniper in and raise her right. What do you think, Bess?”
“Oh, Mama, that would be great!” I’d always wanted a sister. And I loved Juniper. She was funny and made up the best games. We’d poked our fingers with needles to be blood sisters already—we did that the summer before Miss Myra died and my mother changed her own life because of it.
Mama drove out to talk to Larry about Juniper, and came home looking like she’d been crying. “I’m sorry Bess, it’s not going to work out,” and that was the last time I heard it mentioned.
“What did Larry do? Did he hit you?” I asked when Juniper showed up at school a few days later with bruises on her arms.
“He’s an asshole,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it, Bess.
I did make the all-star team, and I got a couple hits and an RBI when we played at Fayetteville. I got my first “A” at school ever, in biology, the next year. Mama got pregnant and my little sister Emily joined our family. Juniper never wanted to come over any more when I asked her. She got in lots more fights at school and had a smart mouth with the teachers. She started hanging out with Twyla and Jeanine, older girls, the fastest ones in the whole school.
Cedar waxwings are big fruit eaters. They even have a ritual where a couple passes berries back and forth to each other with their beaks. It makes me think about when Juniper was still OK, and how we’d play catch together for hours.
In 8th grade, Juniper ended up in juvie but I never knew exactly what for. I guess when she got out she ran with those wild girls again. She never returned to school, at least not in our town. I’m in college now, on a softball scholarship, studying biology. It’s hard since I read slow, but I’m not giving up. Maybe some day, I can be an ornithologist.
Why did things get so much better for me and only worse for Juniper? Mama says it’s got to do with grace that surpasses all understanding, but I still feel bad about it.
One time when Juniper was eight or nine she told me that she got her name because juniper berries were what they make gin from. That’s why her mother named her “Juniper” she said—because of what the berries could do, not because of the tree. The difference seemed real important to her.
Sarah Holloway lives in Savannah, GA, with her husband, dogs and lots of books. After a career in public accounting, she’s loving the writing life. She reads for Story Magazine and has published reviews in Necessary Fiction. Other recent publications include SmokeLong Quarterly's blog, Roi Fainéant, Third Street Review and The Argyle. She’s @sarahholloway.bsky.social.