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 since 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.

Last weekend, nobody in my raft spoke fluent English. It both amused me and shocked me that people signed up for rafting on the Penobscot River not realizing it was class 4 and 5 rapids. Some people didn't even know what that meant. The Penobscot River wasn't meant for inexperienced or first-time rafters, but it happened all the time. After all these years, I'd gotten used to it. As a guide, it was more challenging when I got a group of foreign tourists. I had to give the group mini-English lessons to ensure they understood right, left, forward, back, and stop. My raft had flipped over dozens of times down the twelve-foot drop of Nesowadnehunk Falls. I prayed it wouldn't flip with the group of Japanese tourists, but I had all kinds of bad luck that afternoon. Two rafters fell out in the span of five minutes, and I was one of the rafters who fell out. My coworkers never let me hear the end of it. As usual, all I could do was laugh. If I didn't laugh, I'd be angry and upset all the time.

After last Sunday, I'd hoped the last day of the season on this river would be nice and calm with no injuries or mishaps. Injuries were the worst. In July, a rafter broke her ankle. Luckily, she wasn't on my raft. Whenever a guest was injured, guides tended to blame ourselves even though it was never our fault. No one could control mother nature. There was a reason all guests signed waivers prior; otherwise, we'd be getting sued all the time.

The leaves had just started to turn with a slight chill in the air. All the rafters were organized into their respective groups waiting for further instructions. My group consisted of three women and four men. There was always a solo traveler in the bunch, and I lucked out with one of them today because he was young, fit, and someone who'd gone rafting before. He was handsome, too, and quieter and more reserved than the others. Many solo rafters were quiet at first because they didn't know anyone else.        People always told me their names, and I always forgot them minutes after they told me. As a teacher, it took me weeks to remember my students' names. I wrote everything down or I else I'd forget.

The solo traveler volunteered to be in the front, which was a good thing. It was always helpful when experienced and/or physically fit guests were up front. It meant less work for me. For the life of me, I couldn't remember his name. It was mortifying when he fell out and I forgot his name. Everyone else remembered, calling to him as if that would help him. They also all stopped paddling and held their paddles the wrong way, urging him to hold on. It was impossible for anyone to hold onto the paddle end. People panicked and forgot what to do in these situations, ignoring the pre-trip instructions.

"Don't stop!" I shouted to everyone, extending my T-grip for the handsome soloist to grab. "Keep paddling! Go, go, go!" If they didn't paddle, we were at risk of flipping over or worse. The man swam like his life depended on it. He understood the term 'aggressive self-rescue.' Before we got to the next rapid, I heaved him back into the raft. He landed on top of me. There was no elegant way of pulling people back into the raft.

"Well, that was fun," he said. He had the greenest eyes I'd ever seen. They were as green as emeralds. I wasn't sure if he was serious or joking.

"Are you okay?" I asked, swallowing hard.

"Yeah, I'll be fine." He got off me and tripped once on his way back to the front where he resumed his position. No one offered to take the front, all afraid of falling out.

During our lunch, the halfway point before tackling the falls, I served the salmon while guides Emily and John cooked the steaks and chicken. The soloist smiled, accepting the salmon from me. With his helmet off, his dark hair stuck up everywhere. Some people kept their helmets and life jackets on while they ate; others left them in the raft.

After everyone was served, I sat on the ground with a sandwich I brought from home. Lunch was the same during every rafting trip. There was just so much salmon, steak, chicken, and bean salad I could eat. It'd been the same lunch for years. The solo traveler lounged in the raft with his eyes closed. His chest heaved in and out subtly as if he was asleep. Another guest disturbed him, waking him up as he and his wife got back in the raft.

As usual, the falls was the best part of the day. We went up and down it three times, even after we flipped over the first time. After this summer, I considered taking a refresher course for white water river guides because my raft flipped over at least a dozen times--maybe more--this summer. Everyone still had a great time, and I received some great tips, especially from the soloist who fell out three times during the day.

In addition to the last day of rafting, it was also my last night working at the nearby Moose Inn and Tavern. School started in three days, my second year as a third-grade teacher, a true sign that summer was over. I wouldn't miss working at the Tavern, especially on the weekends, which were often filled with drunken bachelor parties. These party-goers rafted during the day and slept either in the inn or the nearby campground. Tonight I was exhausted and not in the mood to wait tables, serve drinks, or work in the kitchen. I'd been up since five this morning.

I wished I hadn't volunteered to close up with Tricia. She was eight months pregnant and looked like she was about to give birth any second. I'd totally freak out if she suddenly went into labor. At this time of night, it could take an ambulance an hour to get here. At thirty-five years old, this was her third and last child, and she convinced me that she was nowhere near ready to give birth. "I should know. I've done this twice before," she said.

Tricia was always afraid that someone from the inn or campground would jump out and attack her, even though there was no history of attacks in the history of the inn and tavern's existence. A moose attack was more likely than a guest attack. Come midnight, everyone was gone, the kitchen was cleaned, and I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Because of where I lived, it would take me close to an hour to get home, driving well under the speed limit for fear of hitting a moose. If I hit a moose, I was dead. Moose were more dangerous than deer and they were so dumb! They'd stand in the middle of the road and stare dumbly at headlights.

"We have a problem," Tricia said as I turned off the kitchen light. "There's a dead man in the bathroom."

"What?" I said, digging my car keys out of my jeans pocket. "Are you serious?"

"Why would I make something like that up? Go see for yourself."

Upon entering the bathroom, I discovered a man slouched against the back wall. "I know this guy," I said, approaching him. I recognized him as the good looking solo traveler from earlier, the one in the front of my raft. He was still in his swim trunks, rash guard, and water shoes.

Was he really dead?