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She’s 4 years old when she first meets him. He stands on the quiet shores of Morioh, staring out into the horizon with eyes as blue and as clear as the water lapping at his feet. She’s crying and she’s lost and the only person close to her is this tall silent stranger.
He introduces himself as Jotaro, but her 4-year-old mouth has difficulty saying his name, so she opts instead to call him Taro. He seems fine with it and offers to help her find her mama. She asks about the funny looking purple man floating behind him. At first, he stares at her like she just sprouted two heads but then, with a small smile, he introduces him as Star.
Stranger danger set aside, Jolyne lets him take her very tiny hand into his large hand and they walk off to find her mom.
Taro somehow turns into Papa. It’s confusing to Jolyne but mama seems happy with him and he did come in a submarine just like mama had said, so she supposes that he is her papa.
She doesn’t mind. She very much likes Taro.
Taro becoming Papa was the best thing to happen, she thinks to herself as he slowly becomes more and more engrained into their daily lives. Papa lets her play with Star and her and Star have lots of fun together. Papa also lets her stay up past her bedtime to watch movies with him after dinner.
They always watch Free Willy but it’s okay—he likes the movie just as much as she does.
She’s very smart for her age—mama always tells her that—and she soon realizes her papa doesn’t talk too much.
But she also realizes that he has a soft spot for her and always humors her.
Her favorite moments are when he scoots into her very cramped bed and pulls her into a bear hug. His hugs are comfortable and he’s always warm and Jolyne feels like she’s being wrapped into a blanket burrito when his arms are around her. He always tells her a story when they're like that.
She loves the stories about Mr. Shark and his adventures and sometimes, if she’s lucky and he isn’t too tired, he’ll tell her two stories.
He quickly becomes her favorite person and she loves him just as much as she loves mama.
--
She’s 6 years old when they move to Florida.
She hates Florida.
It’s hot and sticky and she doesn’t get to see Josuke and Okuyasu as much as she used to. The kids in school tease her because she stutters when she speaks.
It’s not her fault she barely speaks English. The kids in school find it even more funny since her name’s Jolyne.
It’s not her fault either that her mama likes Dolly Parton, but at the time Jolyne doesn’t know that and she just cries and refuses to go back to school.
She cries and cries in front of Papa and he just looks at her tiredly from behind the big old books he’s been reading lately before pulling her into his lap.
He tells her that she’s brave and smart and that her mama gave her a special name. He kisses her forehead and hugs her tightly and the tenderness in his actions make her forget why she was even crying in the first place.
With a small hiccup, she tells him she’ll be brave and decides to go back to school.
At school, her teachers place her in a course made especially for non-English speakers to help her acclimate, but it only succeeds in making her feel even more different from the other kids.
But papa’s words ring in her ear and she sets out to be his brave little girl. When she comes back home, he tells her she did great and that he has a surprise for her.
He leads her to her room and closes the blinds before shutting off the lights. It’s dark in the room and she blinks before she finally notices it.
She grins.
Little stars and moons and planets dot the ceiling of her bedroom and glow a faint green.
--
She’s 8 years old and it’s career day. She waits by the carpool lane and rocks back and forth on her heels as she thinks about what to be for the following day. Most of the kids around her want to be superheroes or firefighters or policemen. Most just want to be like their parents.
Jolyne thinks about it.
She’s very proud of her parents. They’re both Dr. Kujo and she thinks that’s super cool. Sometimes, to joke around, she calls herself ‘doctor doctor Kujo’ and earns a tiny laugh from her papa who ruffles her hair and tells her, “That’s not how that works, Jojo.”
She knows that, but she still thinks it’s funny.
Still thinking about career day, she figures she wants to carry the ‘Dr. Kujo’ title. She just needs to figure out what type of Dr. Kujo she wants to be.
As she thinks deeply about it, she almost fails to notice the familiar black truck pulling up to the curb. Her teacher brings the car to her attention and says to her, “Jolyne, your dad’s here.”
And sure enough, she sees the familiar white cap partially obscuring her father’s sun-kissed face from the rolled down window. Her face splits into a wide toothed grin that grows even wider as she notices the diving gear and her own pink and black snorkeling gear piled in the truck bed.
She clambers into the front seat and grins up at her papa who looks back and they share a knowing look.
“Don’t tell, mom,” he says as they drive off towards the docks where they keep his boat.
She pinky promises she won’t.
She never tells mama whenever papa takes her out on the boat. Mama doesn’t like it when papa takes her out onto open waters.
Papa tells her it probably has to do with her job and the kids that come to the hospital because they almost drowned.
But Jolyne also knows her papa is a strong swimmer and taught her how to swim so that makes her a good swimmer. Plus, papa would never let anything happen to her and always keeps a close eye on her.
She also knows that he’s strict in his own way and that these impromptu trips would cease to exist the second she defied his only rule—that she listen to everything he says. So she makes sure to stay by his side at all times and only swim in the area he tells her she can swim in.
As they sit on the side of the boat, feet dangling into the cool blue ocean while they munch on the sandwiches he picked up from the grocery, Jolyne makes a decision.
She comes to school the next day wearing a white cap and coat and calls herself Dr. Kujo, the shark doctor.
--
She’s 10 years old and she brings home medals and straight A report cards. In return, her papa pats her on the head before heading off into his office and locking the door. Mama hugs her and congratulates her before asking her what she wants for dinner to celebrate. Papa always said you couldn’t lie to mama and that she was extremely perceptive. Jolyne knows this and it rings true when mama comes to her as she stares at the closed office door and hugs her before pulling back and reassuring her that papa was just as proud of Jojo as she was. Feeling slightly better, Jolyne tells her mama that she wants spaghetti for dinner and her mama hums happily before starting dinner.
Jolyne sets the table and skips over to the office, knocking on it and calling for her father to come and join them.
But the office door remains closed.
Her mama just tells her to come eat and that papa is probably busy with trying to apply for a new grant or something with his research but Jolyne is old enough to notice the disappointment in her voice.
She goes to the dining table and they eat and by the time they finish, his food has long gone cold.
Jolyne walks towards the office again and stares at the hard-wooden door, her mother’s words ringing in her ear.
She wants to believe her mama, but the longer she stares at the door, the harder she finds that to believe.
Her mama finds her back at the door and shoos her off towards the direction of her bedroom.
The house they live in is large and spacious and has too much room for just 3 people and their little kitten, Star.
But that night, the walls are paper thin and the rooms seem squished together as Jolyne lies awake in bed hearing raised voices in the other room. Star pads up the comforter and lays next to her and she wraps an arm around the cat as the voices rise in pitch. A door slams in the distance and soon Jolyne hears the familiar rumble of an engine starting in the driveway. She creeps out of bed and peeks through her blinds just in time to see the black truck pull out of the driveway.
She blinks a few times, her throat feeling very tight, before she crawls back under the covers and cries.
--
She's 14 and going through the ups and downs of preadolescence. Her father was away on another one of his stupid trips to who knows where and so on a whim, she puts her newfound knowledge of lockpicking, gleaned from her new friends, to good use and breaks into his office—wondering what was inside the imposing room that always drew him away from his family.
Once inside, she’s disappointed to find a sparsely decorated room with absolutely nothing scandalous within. The desk is only furnished with a few picture frames. One of the frames holds a seashell that looks incredibly familiar to Jolyne but she’s not sure where she’s seen it before. Next to the frame is a photo of him and mama when they were young—the ugly frame it was housed in clumsily taped together—and another frame stands with a photo of the three of them when they had just moved to Florida. They were standing in front of the Gulf and he wore a rare smile, his arm was around mama’s waist, while a young Jolyne waved enthusiastically at the camera. The photo makes Jolyne think for a moment about how she hasn’t seen him smile like that in a while, but she shakes her head and shrugs it off, chalking it up to him just being a crappy person. The last photo on the desk is a faded photograph of a group of men. She squints at it and the only person she recognizes, besides her very young dad, is a slightly younger Gramps.
She blinks at the photo then shrugs again before fixing her attention towards his desk drawers. Before she can even open one of them, a large hand lays itself on her shoulder causing her to jump up and she turns to see the imposing figure of her very upset father. Even though he was a man of relatively few words, Jolyne’s seen and heard enough of his encounters with mama that always ended with mama crying—mama never cried—and him upset.
And he’s pissed, to say the least.
He scolds her and lectures her and reminds her that he specifically told her to keep out of his office then boots her out the door and locks the door behind her.
Though she failed to find anything of interest in his cold office, Jolyne walks away with something else.
Despite having misbehaved, she realizes something of crucial importance—that was the most her father had spoken to her in years.
She’s 14 when the crowd she gets mixed up in commits a robbery and she somehow takes the blame for them. She’s 14 when she spends the night in a holding cell and she cries and asks for her parents. Her mama comes to her straight from work and she’s tired and exhausted and she cries with Jojo through the cell doors. Her mama has always been a respectable member of their small community.
Jolyne has not.
Her mama’s pleas fall on deaf ears and Jolyne is falsely charged with a crime. Desperate, her mama decides to call her father to help bail her out.
Jolyne argues with her mama and spitefully tells her that her father doesn’t give a shit and he cares more about his stupid fish than his family.
Her mother shakes her head and tells her, voice wavering, “Your father has his reasons for the things he does.”
Jolyne scoffs at that. Her mama calls him anyway but he’s away on an expedition in a tiny fishing boat somewhere in the Arctics and all her calls go straight to his voicemail.
She’s 14 when she’s sent to juvie.
Jolyne is 14 when she decides her father doesn’t love her.
--
She's 17 and she gets into all sorts of messes. Instead of going to school, she joins a motorcycle gang who also engages in carjacking on the side. She runs wild and stays out late with them. Sometimes, she doesn’t even bother to come home.
Her mother stays up all night waiting for her, often falling asleep in the dimly lit living room in the process.
One night, Jolyne stumbles into the home half-drunk and she spots the familiar figure of her father leaning over her mama’s sleeping form on the couch. He picks her up with ease and cradles her against his chest, the gesture tender and it causes Jolyne to bristle as bile rises up the back of her throat.
Jolyne hasn’t seen him in months and he looks even more tired than usual and just a tad bit beaten up. His eyes immediately flicker over towards her and they narrow as they take in her drunken state. He doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t need to.
The disappointment beneath his turbulent gaze is more than obvious from where Jolyne stands. She promptly turns around before he can open his mouth and decides to go and crash at her friend’s house instead.
--
She's 19 when her mama gets sick. The doctor tells Jolyne it’s the stress of everything and that her mama is overworked. Her mama is forced to take a break from the job she loves so much and spends the days tending to their tiny herb garden and playing with their aging cat.
When she thinks Jolyne isn’t looking, she sometimes sits on the front porch and quietly watches the young couple who moved down the street play with their infant daughter. The obvious loneliness in her mother’s eyes breaks her and Jolyne resolves to clean up her act.
If her father wasn’t going to be around, then she needed to step up for the woman who sacrificed so much for her. She quits the gang and starts looking into taking some courses at the local community college. Hesitantly, Jolyne also calls her father but is redirected to his voicemail.
She leaves a spiteful message into the answering machine and informs him that mama’s sick and that if he gave a shit about her, he should head home immediately.
He doesn’t call back.
A week passes. It’s evening and Jolyne has just gotten off work and is pulling up to their street when she notices the familiar truck sitting in the driveway. She hastily pulls the car to park next to it and has to restrain herself from jumping out and running into the house to sock the bastard in the face.
She quickly unlocks the house door and has to shoo Star away from her. The house is pitch black except for the light coming upstairs. She creeps slowly up the steps, her ears picking up a very faint and familiar voice that grows louder the closer she gets to their bedroom.
The door to the room is slightly ajar and she peeks in. Her mother is sitting on the bed, a small smile on her worn face as some of that old shit she liked to listen to played on her radio. Jolyne’s bastard of a father settles in front of her and takes her hand in his as they speak in low hushed tones.
Jolyne can barely make out what they’re saying but the affection and tenderness in their gestures and tone confuses her and she goes into her room. She feels as though she intruded on something private and sacred and she resents her father even more for making her feel like a stranger in her own home.
She finally manages to sleep after a long time staring up at the faded glow in the dark stars on her ceiling.
The next day, the truck is gone.
Jolyne's 19 when she’s framed for murder and is due to be sent to Green Dolphin Street Jail. The news, she suspects, almost kills her mother. Unable to do much for her daughter, her mother sends her a pack of things through the family attorney before Jolyne is moved.
One of them is some rusted old amulet and whatever’s inside pricks Jolyne and she cusses. The cussing worsens when she realizes the piece of junk was from him and she tosses it out.
Soon, Jolyne learns how to unravel herself into strings and it both terrifies her and exhilarates her. And she soon uses this power to establish herself amongst the prisoners as someone not to be taken lightly while also trying to help anyone else who may be victimized.
At some point, her father visits her and it angers her that he has the audacity to show up now of all times. She yells at him before trying to leave the meeting, but he stops her and goes on about the entire thing being some sort of trap.
She calls him out on his bullshit and he still continues, telling her about his plan to break her out. They barely finish the conversation before they’re attacked by the enemy he talked about. The fight becomes heated as they struggle to escape.
They’re so so close to getting out and then, as the two Stands launch their attack at once, her father pushes her to safety and places himself in harm’s way. The attack incapacitates the man and he’s unable to dodge the bullets fired at him. She stares at him in shock as he insists that she make her way to the beach and get out of harm’s way.
He reassures her that he’ll follow closely behind even as he sinks down the wall, blood trickling from the wound on his chest.
And then he says it and she laughs so hard in disbelief she almost cries.
“I’ve always cared about you, Jojo.”
And he’s still being insistent that she go right on ahead and Jolyne is confused and angry, but she can’t just leave this idiot behind. She remembers her mama sitting at home and the smile she saves for this man and she knows she can’t leave him behind.
And Jolyne uses Stone Free to incapacitate Johngalli A and she drags her unconscious, barely breathing father to the beach as she searches for that damn submarine that’ll take him to the damn Weedwagon or whatever it is he called them.
His heart has stopped despite the shallowness of the wound and she digs into the recesses of her mind and tries to recall the brief CPR lesson her mother had taught her.
And as she starts compressions on his chest, the dogs are barking and the guards are aiming their guns at her and she’s still pressing on his chest, searching for a heartbeat.
And as she sits in the water and pushes on his chest, she remembers the seashells and Taro.
She remembers the warmth of his chest as he pulled her into a hug each night to tell her a story.
She remembers sitting on the boat with her little legs and his long legs in the water as they munched on sandwiches.
She remembers the pride in his voice as he called her brave.
She remembers the good and the bad and the man who is Jotaro Kujo.
She remembers her papa.
She's 19 years old when she faces the guards with her head held high—her papa is already safe inside the submarine—and resolve burns deep in her heart as she stands ready to face their enemy and bring her papa back to life.
Jolyne's 19 years old when she remembers how much her papa loves her—and how much she loves him in turn.