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 a calm, robotic woman’s voice repeating phrases over and over in Japanese and English drifts out of the speakers of the car her father is driving. When he said he had left a car at JFK before she went to jail, she had thought it was a joke. The car had been hidden under a pile of snow, built up over the course of god knows how many months it had sat there waiting for him.
When she found out it was a hunk of scrap with a cassette player in it, with an interior that smelled faintly of crayons, she wondered just who the hell suckered her father of all people into buying it.
“Where is the toilet? Benjo wa doku desu ka? Where is the toilet?”
Jolyne snorts and turns the volume down. In the hazy view of the side mirror, she can see Emporio’s eyes drift shut, as they had been doing for the past hour. It had been two months since the end of the world, and he traveled unsurprisingly well. His face was plastered to the window on the flight from Orlando to New York City, and the second he got into the car for the four hour drive into the Adirondacks he was out like a light.
Now, her father leads them through long, winding backroads that have barely been plowed. She hasn’t seen snow in about as many years as she’s gone without seeing her father’s side of the family. Her heart spikes a little when she realizes it’s been twelve years, give or take a few awkward phone calls on birthdays and holidays.
The weather is giving her and Emporio one hell of a welcome: the snow is thick and wet. The branches of the dense forest of pines bow with the weight of it, everything frozen to a standstill because there’s just so much of it. She wants to ask her dad if this is what it’s like to stop time, but he’d never answer that. The whole stillness happening outside the car makes her toes curl and fingers tap against the door. She feels like running. Or driving - never exactly the best idea, but it was always her go-to solution for escape.
“Do you want me to drive?” she asks. He’s done the whole trip up.
“It’s fine.”
Jotaro turns the volume up just a touch, and Jolyne settles back into her seat.
“Suki dayo,” a man’s voice says. “Suki dayo.”
***
“Jolyne, we’re here.”
Sleep shakes away and she stretches in the seat, groaning and kicking her legs into the dashboard.
Her dad is too busy rolling down the sleeves of his sweater to watch Jolyne jolt awake the second she looks at the house before them. It’s decidedly not a cabin, even though the logs and rustic exterior want to give that impression. Five log cabins slammed together into a mini-mansion, yes, with a cul-de-sac driveway that seems like it should have a valet service. The massive pines that surround it almost dwarf it into something quaint, and the roof is frosted over like a two year old decorated it as their first gingerbread house.
Gramps can’t be that old if he’s still buying property like this.
“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 just points to the backseat and she follows his hand to Emporio, who is still asleep.
“What? Dad, just wake him up,” she says, and starts to shrug on the coat her father tossed at her earlier. It is more of a fleece pullover, one smelling faintly of cigarettes, and the fabric is covered in pilled bumps. The embroidered insignia on the chest of a small golden hand tips her off that Baba had to have 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 is snow still coming down, this time fat and crystalline, landing on the unmarred layer of the ground with an almost unheard chime. Behind them, the long, straight driveway disappears into the trees.
Twelve years was a damn long time. The last time she was in Japan, she must’ve been around Emporio’s age. It was for a wedding, she remembers that, but she doesn’t know who was getting married. Her father knew them, and Baba wasn’t even there. So when did she last see Baba? She hadn’t seen her great-grandparents since her parents got the divorce, because she only saw them on Christmas, when her father would drive them up to their penthouse in Manhattan for the holiday.
It’s too quiet. When it gets too quiet, Jolyne gets antsy, and she thinks too much, and -
“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.”
Christ, she feels like an idiot. 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 up one, two, and tosses them over the roof of the car, one, two, to her father.
“How’d’ya like the new laces?” she asks, and stuffs her hands into the fleece’s pockets. There’s a pack of cigarettes there.
“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.
The silence settles in again as they wait for Emporio. Since old habits never really die, Jolyne looks back at the house and notices the Cadillac parked out front, next to a rental Saab. It would definitely do bad in the snow, but, she could easily get out of the state in that thing.
“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 as it reaches up to grab him.
“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 tightly 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 doesn’t want to, but she glances up at her father. He just looks ahead as if he’s not paying attention, but how could he not be? His pretend indifference is about as bad as Emporio’s big eyes gazing up at her, swimming in worry.
“What’s there to be nervous about? I’m fine,” she laughs, and even she can tell it’s unconvincing.
Emporio opens his mouth but, surprisingly, her father interrupts.
“Nonna Suzie doesn’t know anything. Baba does, though.”
God fucking dammit, leave it to her father to drop something like that right in the driveway. He’s lucky Emporio is there, and squeezing her hand sympathetically, as if to remind her that while Jotaro still isn’t the best father, he’s trying.
“So, what, is she gonna ask me about college or something? 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.
He doesn’t answer immediately. Jolyne wants to rip her hand away from Emporio’s and stomp off back to the car, because this reunion is a shitty idea for a shitty family that barely even exists in the first place.
“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 the steps, and Dad lifts his arm, helping him up onto the stair.
“Everybody here except for Nonna has a stand.”
About half a million questions start popping into Jolyne’s mind, to join all the other thoughts she’s got racing around in there, and not a single one of them is clear or makes any sense. The only thing she really has to ground her right now is Emporio’s sweaty hand trapped against her own, and the hollow thunks of the three of them walking up to the front door.
“It’s ok,” Emporio says to her.
He didn’t have to say that to her when the world was ending. This is ridiculous. She thought she grew up in prison and now she’s thinking about stealing that Cadillac and making a break for it.
Her father knocks on the front door before opening it anyway.
The house looks like people were hired to decorate it, and honestly, they probably were. Great-grandpa Joseph never really cared about that kind of thing. The house is ready for winter: the staircase next to the front door has a bannister wrapped in tinsel, and there is a fake wreath on the wall entwined with a big, red bow. It’s all Jolyne can really take in before she notices the light, but frantic, sound of feet across the wood floor.
It grows louder, then stops. The sound picks back up again with something more like a run until it 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, Baba appears, and instantly starts crying.
Jolyne’s reunion with her mother had gone like this: crushing hugs, tears smearing her cheeks, and rapid exclamations of love shouted into her ear. It was one of those things that made Jolyne break down crying, that kind of crying that was really, embarrassingly hard to stop. Someone being moved to the point of tears just by seeing her, professional fuck-up Jolyne Cujoh, was rare.
But Baba, the white American grandmother, speaks rapid Japanese in her ear. So while Jolyne can feel her face grow burning hot and tears well up, they never spill into the full-body release of emotion she wants. There are clips of words and phrases she understands, like taller, pretty, like your father, like your mother, so big! I love you! This is the reunion she wanted, but the language is all wrong.
She can only spit out, “arigato gozaimasu, Baba,” and she wonders if the language always sounded so ugly in her mouth.
Baba pulls away and cups Jolyne’s face, gazing up at her with the purest adoration and love. She’s seen her grandmother do this to her father countless times. Does he feel guilty like this, too?
Two fat, wet kisses land on Jolyne’s cheeks before Baba greets her father, which is considerably quicker than the welcoming Jolyne got. It’s still full of tears and a lot of words Jolyne doesn’t understand, but Jotaro does. Quiet, serious words, and one surprising moment with her father bending down to kiss his mother on the forehead.
Baba finally notices Emporio. Her face lights up with the type of unbridled joy more typically seen on people Emporio’s age, while he sticks close to Jolyne’s legs.
“And this must be Emporio. I hear you’re Jolyne’s friend?” Baba says, and bends down to his height. She wipes away the tears that are still quietly falling down her face.
Jolyne doesn’t know why she does it, but her hand settles on Emporio’s hat, and she tucks a stray curl of hair behind his ear. Her smile is shaky and pale, but she wants it there. She loves Emporio; she wants everyone else to love him too.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Emporio says. He laces his fingers together and cracks them. “Um...hajimemashite.”
Baba’s face splits into a wide, toothy grin. Next to her, Jolyne can hear her father chuckle one short, quiet ha.
“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?”
The laugh feels so good when it escapes Jolyne’s mouth, hard and loud with all her tension popping like a balloon. Emporio giggles and so does Baba.
“I guess not. Baba it is!” Holly says, and then 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 suddenly, the smiles and laughs just keep falling out of her in a giddy swell, like she can’t control them. It’s way better than crying.
***
Her great-grandparents are so damn old. Nonna Suzie still sits in the kitchen while Baba cooks, repeating voglio assaggiare over and over from her chair near the stove. She’s still dumb as hell, looking at Emporio and asking if he was her great-grandson too, since this family is riddled with so many secret children, whatever the fuck that means.
Great-grandpa Joseph is the real surprise. He still wears funny hats to ward off the cold that seems to always cling to him, but now he sits in a wheelchair. In her memories, he was always this old and hobbled, but that idea shifts with the knowledge that he has a stand. She wants to ask what it is, and if he ever really used it, but he looks really out of it, staring off into space until her dad walks into the room. He comes to life then, grinning as tears well up in his eyes and he hugs his grandson until Jotaro looks embarrassed about it.
“You remember my daughter, Jolyne.”
Jolyne stands there, hands balled into fists. She didn’t want to be introduced to a guy she remembers.
“What - what the hell are you doing, Jotaro, of course I remember little Jolyne!” Joseph barks. He’s actually really, really pissed, his face turning red and his hand clicks into a fist to bang against the arm of his wheelchair.
“Come here, honey,” he says and opens his arms, shooting a glare at her father. “I know I’m old but I’m not an idiot that forgets family!”
Jolyne laughs and bends down to hug her great-grandfather as gently as she can, but he’s stronger than he looks. Really, a lot stronger, with his funny metal hand hitting her back a little painfully. He told her some bullshit story about losing it in a plane crash, but there’s got to be more to that now.
“Good to see you too, old man,” she says.
“Just look at you!” he says, looking up at her, beaming. It’s a different look than the one Baba gave her; this one is swelling with pride. It feels like he’s thanking her for something, and it’s frustrating. She wants to blurt out what do you mean, really, but who knows if his mind is in the right place.
She doesn’t get the chance to let her mouth run ahead of her thoughts, because his gaze drifts downward to look at Emporio and he frowns.
“I don’t remember him.”
“You’ve never met him, Gramps. This is Emporio,” Jolyne says. Her hands hold Emporio’s shoulders to encourage him forward, and he steps up, his chin tucked into his chest and fingers nervously twisting together.
Great-grandpa Joseph scrunches up his face and looks between the two of them, takes a look at her father, then back to Jolyne.
“Doesn’t look a damn thing like us.”
“He’s twelve! I didn’t give birth to him or something, I would’ve been a kid!”
“Oh. Alright. Hey, 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.”
“More people are coming?” Jolyne asks. She had thought this was it - all other family events went this way. Usually on a yearly schedule, and usually not something similar to a long-lost, tearful reunion, but always this small. It’s not like they had many relatives between the Kujos and the Joestars.
She feels a little stupid under the what are you, stupid? look her great-grandfather is giving her - it feels like an idiot is about to call her an idiot.
“It’s a reunion. The family is coming.”