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Her television’s old reruns of Friends is speeding faster.
It’s how she notices, at first, and then the tea she’s absentmindedly sipping is gone, too. Something bad is happening. It isn’t that the cup seemingly glitches out of her hand (it did) or that she has turned the tv off without even noticing (she had), it is something far worse than that. She stands up and moves to go look outside her window, expecting to see a peaceful Japanese morning, and is instead met with the sun setting into night. She turns to her clock on the counter, frantic. 7:00pm.
What?
When she made the tea, it was 9:00am. She is sure of it.
Something bad is happening.
Someone is in danger. Someone she loves.
Joseph had told her about the old family phenomena, where Joestars can detect the status and whereabouts of the others who share their blood. She experienced it when she had suddenly healed from her dangerous sickness, when she felt Jotaro and Joseph’s existence all the way in Egypt, hypersensitive when she awoke. Then she cried, because she felt the overwhelming amount of grief weighing on her son and father’s shoulders. Holly had wanted nothing more in that moment than to take her precious Jotaro in her arms and hold him closely. To absolve him of this devastating pain, even though she had no idea what caused it. When Jotaro had finally returned home, he was quieter than ever, and though Holly could sense he was overjoyed at her good health, something was fundamentally wrong. Her beloved son was different. His aura had changed.
Jotaro Kujo was no longer her sweet little boy, and she could not keep pretending as such.
So she had let him go. The moment he turned 18, he hastily applied to study abroad, and he left her in Japan.
Alone.
The phone ringing snaps her out of her anxious thoughts. Jotaro ! She thinks as she picks up the phone, because of course it is, it’s her son, who’s calling to tell her everything’s alright, that he’s alright-
“I need your help, please.” It’s a woman’s voice. Her tone is delicate, terrified, like if she speaks above a mumble the whole world will collapse. Holly’s heart thuds in her chest.
“Who… who is this…?”
“It's Jotaro's ex-wife, Marina.”
Holly freezes upon hearing those words, fingers shaking to the point of almost dropping the corded phone. Jotaro… has a wife? Or an ex- one, rather. It didn’t matter, the shock still rocks her all the same as she is trying to think of something, anything to say.
The voice becomes more confident (or maybe desperate is a better word): “Please, have you heard from Jotaro? I need to speak with him, I don’t know what's going on but Jolyne is with him! Please, I need to know if my daughter’s alright, please try to reach him!”
Holly surprises herself with the indignant urge to hang up the phone. Marina’s daughter… Jotaro’s daughter… She feels utterly betrayed in the fact that Jotaro neglected to tell her about the family he started in America, that he had loved and gotten married and had a kid. That he had finally, finally let himself depend on someone enough to wed them and create a life together.
“I… I didn’t know Jotaro had a wife. Or a daughter.” Despite the situation, it’s the first thing that falls off her lips, giving into her emotional impulses rather than carrying out Marina’s request. She could be lying, for all she knows. Marina could be a stand user.
“Well he does. And maybe if he wasn’t so absent and shitty at being a husband or a father, I wouldn’t have to be talking to you for the first time over the phone. I found your number in his phonebook and I called as soon as whatever the hell has been happening started. Please, Miss Holly, I know we don’t know each other, but I need to know if Jolyne is ok. He won’t answer my calls, but maybe he’ll talk to you.”
Oh. That sounds like her Jotaro. And her distraught tone… She’s telling the truth. Holly suddenly feels sick.
Jotaro had always been a loner. That had been his nature, ever since his father left for his Jazz Tour to make some extra cash for them and never came back. (Sadao was nowhere to be found, even when Jotaro was in jail, and Holly wondered if it had been the same experience for Marina, that her Jotaro had abandoned his family on the pretense of saving them, too. Like father, like son.) Being weak and relying on people are synonymous for Jotaro. It is something he simply can’t risk, not when he mistakenly thinks he has to carry all the world’s burdens alone. (Which made sense, why his marriage ended in divorce.) These things he never told to Holly, of course, it had all been her keen perception and their connection through the Joestar birthmark on their nape; but it never gave her insight into what Jotaro actually wanted.
(Jotaro never considered what he wanted. He inherited that destructive selflessness from Holly.)
His trip to Egypt didn’t help that. Jotaro Kujo was a flawed boy who was forcefully thrust into becoming a flawed man.
Which leads to now, when she’s just finding out she has an (ex) daughter in law and a granddaughter . How hell bent had Jotaro been on keeping the secret of stands and their users from his family? So much so that he would neglect to tell his own mother (and likewise anyone else, even Joseph), about them for fear of them finding out and possibly being in danger?
What had she missed out on because of Jotaro’s noble selflessness?
She composes herself quickly, recognizing that Marina needs her, that there isn’t a second more to waste.
“I’ll see what I can do. Give me your number and I’ll call back.”
Marina’s voice trembles as she tells Holly the number to call her back on, and then hangs up with a quick, “Thank you.”
Holly puts her pen down from where she nervously scrawled down the numbers on her hand. It’s almost too much to take in. The world is moving faster than she can think, her head pounding from her sensitivity to this anomaly that was no doubt the work of a stand. Her sense heightened enough to let her track those of her own blood again, just as she had when Jotaro was 17, as she not only feels one Joestar in distress, but two. There’s two, and they're in Florida.
And she’s all the way here, in stupid Japan , waiting for a son and a husband who would never come home.
She shakily dials Jotaro’s number in the phone, suddenly wishing she made the switch to a smartphone like the Speedwagon Foundation told her to. The dial clicks, and then rings. Holly draws in a long breath.
One ring. Two. three…
“Pick up, Jotaro! Please…” Holly begs. She starts to panic. She can’t lose him. Not now. No child is ever supposed to go before their parents, and Holly fully expects Jotaro to outlive her. Her heart aches because she knows he's in imminent danger, just as he was all those years ago in Egypt, filled with the same turmoil that fuels his being now.
Fights were something Jotaro got into frequently. He knew no comfort other than his fists, knew no way to express discomfort other than to pummel the annoyance. Since Sadao left, Jotaro would get into violent brawls, because he had no other way to show his emotion. To him, his impulsive and aggressive spirit was all he had. Even then, Jotaro had never picked a fight he couldn’t win.
Holly senses it. Jotaro has bitten off more than he can chew, this time.
And she is terrified .
The phone line goes dead. She grabs onto the outdated phone, banging on it desperately and dialing the numbers again, crying out in frustration when she realizes the circuits have been cut short. Time is moving too rapidly for electronics to function. Marina… she must be scared out of her mind. Her entire house goes dark. Holly hurriedly makes her way outside, biting back the tears in her eyes.
Holly is an optimistic person by default. Her caring and outgoing personality has naturally lent her a glass-half-full outlook on life, and she considers it her principle to live by. A lot of things had happened in her life, but it simply didn’t matter because she always knew things would be better when she got through it. As long as she has her health, her parents, and her darling Jojo, she is happy, and she really couldn’t ask for more.
Now all three are being threatened, and a dark cloud of melancholy begins to plague her thoughts.
As she looks up at the violet sky that is transitioning rapidly to a shade of fuchsia (the sun was rising? But for how many times in the accelerated minutes since this started, she didn’t know), she thinks about her granddaughter. Holly lets herself wonder what she’s like. Did she have Jotaro’s eyes and determination? Maybe Joseph’s wit and quirkiness. Holly’s kindness and beauty, hopefully. She wonders how much of Marina is in Jolyne, if she’ll ever be able to meet them so that she can compare. How she desires to hold her granddaughter, now that she knows of her existence.
Holly wants to help correct the mistakes that Jotaro had made, to help Marina cope with an absent man (which she knows plenty about). But Jotaro’s different from Sadao, he would be there and he would be better, because if he’s with Jolyne now that means he has always longed to be.
When they get out of this, when Jotaro prevails and saves her granddaughter, she’ll scold him for abandoning his wife and child, berate him for his carelessness, and explain to him that he doesn’t owe the world anything. That he deserves to be happy, and that he should allow himself that happiness. That he doesn’t have to protect them alone, or even at all. That Jolyne deserves to know the proud lineage she comes from.
Because Jotaro will survive this, right?
Holly feels uneasy again, dropping to her knees onto the stone walkway. She can’t take her eyes off the atmosphere, which is now a gorgeous yet nauseating blend of all the colors of the sky.
She screws her eyes shut as her senses start to overwhelm her. Holly claws at the Joestar birthmark on her back, hyperventilating as she tries to regulate the intense pain the birthmark is causing her. She’s still sensing two alive Joestars in Florida, thank god, but they are bloodied and beaten and helpless and all Holly can do is wail when she senses their anguish at the loss of their friends. Again, she has to experience Jotaro losing people, and she wants to make it stop, she screams and grips at her hair and begs whoever’s listening to make it stop, to spare her, to take her instead.
Then there’s a searing agony and now part of her has been lost, the only reason she had been breathing, her purpose , her everything , is crumbling away, nothing to do but screech and wail and suffer through the feeling of her beloved son’s life fading into a defunct husk.
It’s a void. An endless pit. Once, where there was everything, there is nothing now, hollow where there once was hope.
Then it’s her granddaughter too, both of them, and she can’t take it.
Her heart isn’t meant to be broken. Holly is a strong, positive woman. She was disheartened when Sadao left, but never cried. When Jotaro landed himself in jail, she knew it was for the right reasons, never doubting that he was good. When she had gotten sick, she had faith she was going to be ok, even when Death’s embrace was a tickle away from her heart. Even if she didn’t end up ok, she knew Jotaro would be. He was strong, like his mother. Like all the Joestars before him. He would be alright.
Her son would come back to her.
There is no way to describe the feeling of losing a child. It’s utter, irrevocable, devastating heartbreak. Twisted, desecrate, impairing, jarring. Even these words are far too inadequate. There is no other way to describe it.
Holly Joestar died of a broken heart.
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