Chapter Text
Her father had been right: it was snowing in New York.
“It’s not ikara, it’s ikura , Jolyne,” Emporio chides sleepily from the backseat.
“Oh, fucking whatever! When am I gonna be asking how much is this anyway? That’s rude as hell.”
The cassette spins on, and the calm, leveled voice of a woman repeating phrases in Japanese and English crackles out of the speakers. Her father sits silent in the driver’s seat, his grip on the steering wheel shimmering with golden rivulets over the backs of his hands; Star Platinum is a better driver on the poorly plowed Adirondacks backroads.
The car had been waiting for them at JFK under three months of snow. It felt good to numb her fingers with Stone Free as she and her father dug the car out, after her body had wound itself tight on the flight up. Her fingers were raw red, and cold sweat wetted her armpits, and it was easy . Easier than pretending she was excited for the reunion, and the blizzard seemed to frost over her thoughts.
She presses her fingers against the plastic grates where the heat pours out from the dashboard, and her thoughts bunch together. She imagines they are written in string, the way she has used Stone Free before, but running together and growing tighter and tighter with each word.
“ Where is the toilet? Benjo wa doku desu ka? Where is the toilet? ”
Jolyne snorts and turns the volume down, resting her head against the cold window to look at the pine forest and snow. Her left leg bounces up and down, making a papery rattle of her shoe against the old McDonald’s bags lining the floor. Out of the frosted view of her rearview mirror, Emporio’s eyes drift shut.
It’s been twelve years since she’s seen snow. She only saw it on the Christmases before Dad drifted away, when he would drive her and Mom up to Manhattan to visit his grandparents’ penthouse. Baba Holly would be there, and maybe Sofu, and a spattering of old friends with nowhere else to go. She was the only child in the family and ran wild in her green velvet dresses, stealing the bowls of candy decorating the house, and hiding away in a corner to watch the snow fall out of the high windows.
She hasn’t seen anyone in twelve years. Just a few phone calls on birthdays and holidays from Baba. They were awkward, always starting in Japanese, and now the voice whispering in the speakers tells her how to say dare ka, eigo ga hanasemasu ka?
It is easier to glare at the falling snow, and ignore the spiking of her pulse, than relearn the language. The road has been cutting through the massive pine forest for an hour now. The tree branches bow with the weight of the thick, wet snow. The tension is silent and heavy, the world at a standstill save for the snowflakes that drop and screen the air with white. The car, her father, moves tentatively among it.
She chews on her fingernails and thumps her foot harder. She wants to ask Dad if this is what moving through frozen time feels like, but he would never answer that, and she doesn’t know how to ask.
She feels like running. She’s been in the car too long. The cabin is small and the black interior smells like crayons. Her right foot presses into the floor.
“Do you want me to drive?” she asks. He’s done the whole trip up.
“It’s fine.”
He turns the volume up just a touch, and Jolyne settles back into her seat.
“ If you want to say, I love you ,” the woman says. “ Suki dayo .”
***
“Jolyne, we’re here.”
Sleep shakes away and she stretches in the seat, groaning and kicking her legs into the dashboard. She can hear Emporio in the back doing the same.
Dad rolls down his sleeves and she locks her eyes on the cabin in front of them. It’s rich , tacky rich, made to look like a quaint log cabin but having all of the luxury the Joestars are accustomed to. It is a mini-mansion in the middle of the woods, with the trees clearing up in the back, where she can almost see a frozen lake. The cul-de-sac driveway has three cars parked out front that her eyes naturally drift to, her gaze lingering on the Cadillac. She stole one just like it when she was seventeen.
“Jolyne? Jolyne .”
“What?”
She whips her head around to find her father has already stepped out of the car, and is talking to her through the open door. He points to the backseat and she follows his hand to Emporio, still asleep.
“What? Dad, just wake him up,” she says, and starts to shrug on the fleece pullover her father tossed at her earlier. It smells faintly of cigarettes, and the fabric is covered in pilled bumps. The embroidered insignia on the chest, a small golden hand, tips her off that Baba bought this for him years ago.
She steps out of the car and pulls the zipper up under her chin, tucking it into the high collar. The snow is still coming down, this time fat and crystalline. It lands on the untouched layer of snow in the yard with soft, tinny chimes, and the music of it should break the silence, but somehow highlights it. Behind them, the long, straight driveway disappears into the trees. They’re so small here. She feels like shouting, to test how her voice will be swallowed up by the white sky and not even the pine needles will be stirred by it.
Twelve years was a damn long time. The last time she was in Japan, she must’ve been Emporio’s age. It was off to Morioh for a wedding, and she remembers Uncle Josuke, dancing on the tops of his shoes, and her mother taking her home early. Baba wasn’t there. She saw her on her last trip to Japan before the divorce, hurried and terrible. Her great-grandparents hadn’t been seen or heard from since.
The silence weighs on her, heavy and wet. Her eyes drift back to the Cadillac.
“Jolyne?”
She jumps out of her skin and turns around, foot slamming into the snow where she finally notices how fucking soaked her shoes are.
“God - for fuck’s sake , what is it, Dad?”
“Emporio can’t find his nice shoes.”
Where did she put those?
“Right, I had them up front,” Jolyne says and dips back into the passenger’s side of the car, feeling around the floor among empty McDonald’s bags for shiny patent leather.
She pulls them up and tosses them over the roof of the car to her father.
“How’d’ya like the new laces?” she asks, and stuffs her hands into the fleece’s pockets. Her fingers bump against the soft cardstock carton of an old pack of cigarettes. Instinct keeps her from pulling them out.
“They’re cool!” Emporio’s little voice calls from the other side of the car. Her dad looks down and watches Emporio put them on.
“Do they look good, Mr. Jotaro?”
“Yeah, how do they look, Mr. Jotaro?” she chides.
Her father’s mouth pinches weirdly, and both of his hands adjust his hat into place.
“They’re nice,” is all Dad says. She can feel Emporio’s grin even if she can’t see it.
Silence settles again as they wait for Emporio. She looks at her father, and the snow collecting on his shoulders and hat, frosting the dark blue fabric. The scar running down the length of his right eye is soft and pink. The slightest upturn of his mouth is his smile and Jolyne looks away from it.
She hasn’t asked yet who will be inside. They don’t have a family big enough to fill this house.
“Y’ready?”
She looks down and finds Emporio there, holding his hand out to her. Her dad is with him too, silently accepting Emporio’s other hand in his own.
“Yup!” she says and squeezes her hand around Emporio’s.
They start to walk together, Emporio going slow because the snowy ground is nothing he’s experienced before. She was expecting him to cautiously jump around a bit and stare up at the sky like he did in the airport parking lot, but instead, he squeezes her hand and looks up at her.
“Are you ok?” he asks.
“Whaaaat? I’m fine. Nice and warm in this gross thing,” she says, plucking at the hem of the fleece.
“No, I mean...um, are you nervous?”
She glances at her father, who looks ahead as if he’s not paying attention to what is beside him. His pretend indifference is as bad as Emporio’s worry; the child she loves shouldn’t have to take care of her, and her father doesn’t know how to be concerned.
So, she laughs, “What’s there to be nervous about? I’m fine.”
Emporio opens his mouth but, surprisingly, Dad interrupts.
“Nonna Suzie doesn’t know anything about what you did. Baba does, though.”
She erupts.
“God, that is so like you , Dad, just dropping a fucking bomb right before we get inside - !”
“- Jolyne?” Emporio says, quiet but unafraid of her outburst. He grips her sweaty hand and she swallows her voice, squeezing back.
“So, what, is Nonna gonna ask me about jail? Or did you lie and say I’ve been in college? And like, is anybody gonna ask about all the freaky shit in Florida and if we saw any of it? What the fuck’re we supposed to say!” Jolyne says.
“Everybody knows what happened except for Nonna Suzie,” Dad explains.
They’re at the stairs of the house now. Emporio hesitates at the thick shelf of snow on them, and Dad lifts his arm, helping him up onto the step.
“Everybody here except for Nonna has a stand.”
“Who is everybody?”
He looks at her and frowns. “The family.”
“ Dad - Dad, I don’t - I don’t know who that is.”
They stop walking halfway up the stairs, Dad and Emporio ahead of her, looking down. She wants to say fuck this, fuck you , and run to the car with Emporio and drive back to Florida to Hermes. She looks over her shoulder to the woods, and her hand is squeezed again, bringing her gaze back to the pair she is tethered to.
“It’s ok,” Emporio says. Dad closes his open mouth, and nods once.
She sighs. Their linked hands stretch over the gap between them, and her arms feel impossibly heavy in the strength they use to hold her up.
They walk up the rest of the stairs. Her father knocks on the front door before letting himself in anyway.
The foyer is open and reveals, instantly, the massive scale of the house. Dad starts brushing the snow from his shoulders and stomps his shoes, and Jolyne mimics it, her body remembering the motions of winter as her senses bring her back to her childhood. The wind of warmth coaxing the opening of coats, the smell of garlic and pork wafting out from the kitchen, and the strings of white gold lights snaking across the house take her mind to Manhattan.
She is distracted from the house by the light and frantic sound of feet dashing across the wood floor. It grows louder, as if coming closer, and stops briefly. Then it picks back up and disappears out of earshot, and a muffled, far-away voice says, “Uncle Jotaro is here.”
There’s a shriek, and this time when the footsteps come, they’re made by Baba. Jolyne smiles and opens her mouth to say hello, but she can’t, because her grandmother swallows her into a hug and squeals Japanese into her ears.
The reunion with her mother had been like this. The weight of arms strengthened with love and want and sadness, all burdens caused by her, all too much for her to bear. Unable to hold it all, she had cried into her mother’s shoulder until her mother’s words soothed her into stopping.
Jolyne doesn’t know how to cry in Japanese. She lost it, years ago, when her father’s distance and her stubborn ache for him clinched her mouth shut on the language for good. She wants so badly to understand more than taller, pretty, like your father, like your mother, so big! I love you! , but clips of phrases muddy themselves in her head. Her face is hot, and her eyes sting with their dryness, tucked in the curve of Baba’s neck.
They pull away and Jolyne spits out, “arigato gozaimasu, Baba ,” while her grandmother brushes her eyes, fingertips glistening, burbling laughter escaping through the tears. The language sounds ugly and round in her mouth, like marbles are rolling over her tongue.
“Hi, Mom,” her father says, in English, and Baba chirps as she gives Jolyne two wet kisses on her cheeks before fluttering to her son.
Jolyne watches as the two hug, her father bending down to gently embrace his mother, kissing her on the forehead while they talk with less enthusiasm in Japanese. She hears her name and Baba glances at her, her smile faltering when she hears the words nihongo and English .
“Honey, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know,” Baba says when she pulls away and wraps her hand around Jolyne’s arm. The pity shines in her teary eyes. “I can help you with your Japanese if you want?”
“Oh, Baba, no, it’s ok. I understand enough! Uh, sore wa anata o mite yoidesu .”
Baba says something back, bright, cheerful, that Jolyne doesn’t understand, so she just smiles and laughs lightly. Thankfully, her grandmother doesn’t press it. She notices the boy by Jolyne’s side and gasps.
“This must be Emporio! I’ve heard so much about you,” Baba says as she kneels down to his height. He sticks close to Jolyne’s legs.
She doesn’t know why she does it, but her hand comes up to rest on Emporio’s hat, her fingers tucking his soft, curly hair behind his ear. Her smile is shaky and pale, but she wants it there to comfort him as he tips his chin up to look at her. She loves Emporio; she wants everyone else to love him, too.
“Um… hajimemashite ,” he says.
Baba’s face splits into a wide, toothy grin. Next to her, Jolyne can hear her father chuckle a short, quiet ha .
“It’s very nice to meet you, too! You can call me Baba,” she says, then tugs her face into a thoughtful expression before glancing at her son. “Unless you call my Jotaro, Jiji ?”
Dad’s face curls, squinting one eye and looking away, and Jolyne laughs . The feeling bubbles up and pops out of her mouth in a loud, harsh laugh that echoes into the house, sparking the same feelings in Emporio and Baba.
“I guess not! Baba it is!” Baba says, and tugs Emporio into a hug and kisses his cheek.
He rubs away the kiss when Baba stands up and starts trying to get Jolyne to take the fleece off. She can hear Emporio laugh as Baba unzips it for her and starts to tug Jolyne out of it, and the smiles and laughter keep building in a giddy swell. It feels good; it feels normal.
***
The air is thick with the smell of food, and the heat pumping from the oven fills all the chilly gaps in their bones. Baba immediately goes to the pots filling the stove and stirs them, and Jolyne freezes when she watches a soft vine stretch off of her grandmother’s back. Studded with red berries and leaves, it wraps around a couple of spoons and stirs the other pots while Baba’s hands are full.
She looks at Dad, who just nods, and the fear melts away.
Nonna Suzie is in the kitchen while Baba cooks, wanting to do more with her old recipes than watch her daughter and chop tomatoes. She sits on a little wooden stool by the stove and repeats phrases in Italian, ones Jolyne remembers hearing for years, let me taste, needs more salt , turn up the oven.
Amid all the pinches on her cheeks and teary hellos, Nonna grabs her arm and taps at her tattoo.
“What is this! And your hair! Jolyne, do girls really do these things now?” Nonna asks.
Stone Free jumps forward and Jolyne pushes it back, fighting the urge to tug her arm away. Nonna’s knuckles are swollen, fitting into the gaps of her fingers like puzzle pieces, thick and heavy and fragile. Most of the memories she has of this woman are of jewelry slipped from her wrist and onto Jolyne’s, giving away gold and silver like pocket change.
Her mouth is dry. It’s not the first time she has wished the tattoo could be scrubbed away, but this is the person she knows how to be. She doesn’t know how to be a great-granddaughter, so she shrugs.
“Yeah, lots of people do stuff like this nowadays.”
“Really? Well, honey, you’re beautiful anyway,” Nonna says and pats her face with her gnarled fingers. “I guess it just runs in the family. Did you know your father has his ears pierced? That’s just how things are now.”
“Yeah, sometimes we swap earrings,” Jolyne says and Nonna laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. Jolyne smiles.
The introduction with Emporio is cut short when Nonna’s smile softens a bit with confusion, and she asks if Emporio is her great-grandson, saying something about there being more secret children in this family , and Baba ushers them out. Dad mutters yare yare under his breath as they leave to find Gramps.
Great-grandpa Joseph sits in the living room. His wheelchair is parked beside a loveseat and armchair, all huddled up in his furred hat and thick coat. He stares off at the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the lake, watching the snow with his lips parted into a dazed smile. He doesn’t notice them until her father steps forward, and for Gramps, the room is suddenly worth looking at.
“Jotaro!” he says, surprised, thrilled, hands going to the armrests of his chair to pull himself up. Dad puts his hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t get up,” he says.
“It’s no trouble,” Gramps says and then looks up at his grandson. Whatever expression her father is giving him, he dislikes it, and he frowns. “Alright. Come here, then.”
He opens his arms and Jolyne is shocked when her father kneels on the ground, fitting his arms around his grandfather. She looks at Emporio, who meets her gaze, and the pair of them laugh. Dad mutters something as Gramps pats his back, and he stands up, adjusting his hat. Gramps rubs at his eyes.
“Jolyne is here,” Dad says.
At that, Gramps looks up and notices the other two people in the room. His gaze is strong and she doesn’t know what to do under it; she knows she can’t be what he was expecting.
“Look at her. She looks just like you,” he rasps, filled with awe, and her father breathes out a laugh. “Good God, you got so tall! Come here, let me get a better look at you.”
When she steps forward, he holds her wrists, and he smiles up at her. The tears well up and Jolyne doesn’t, can’t, see the old man cry. Her own eyes sting as he looks up at her with his green ones, swimming behind the wire glasses and wrinkled eyelids.
“Thank you for coming, even though I’ve been a terrible great-grandfather. It’s been too long,” he says, and lets go of her wrists to open his arms.
She kneels like her father did, and pulls into the hug gently. Gramps is stronger than he looks, and Jolyne feels the air knocked out of her lungs as his metal prosthetic hand pats her back, making her laugh.
“Thanks for having me. It’s good to see you, old man.”
“Old man?” he laughs, and looks at her father. “She’s been around you for too long, she has no manners.”
Dad doesn’t say anything in response, and they laugh. He waves Emporio forward and he comes closer.
“This is Emporio,” Dad says, and under the attention, Emporio tucks his chin into his chest. His fingers twist together, popping them out of a new nervous habit he picked up from Jolyne.
Gramps stares at Emporio and looks at his grandson, saying, “I don’t remember him.”
“You’ve never met him,” Jolyne says.
He scrunches up his face and looks between the two of them, takes a look at her father, then back to Jolyne.
“He doesn’t look a damn thing like us.”
“What? Of course he doesn’t he’s not - wait, I’m not his mom or anything! He’s twelve! I didn’t give birth to him, I would’ve been a kid!”
Emporio giggles and Gramps just looks stupid, sitting there with his mouth open, eyes unfocused. Dad did always say he was an idiot.
“Did you say twelve? He’s around Shizuka’s age.”
“Shizuka?” Jolyne repeats.
“I haven’t seen her yet,” Dad says, turning his head to scan the room.
“She’s probably hiding somewhere. She’s excited, you know, for everyone to arrive.”
“Right - who’s coming?” Jolyne asks. She looks around the sparse, open living room, and remembers the penthouse looking the same. When she hears an indignant scoff beside her, she looks down at Gramps.
“It’s a reunion. The family is coming,” he says.