My daughter is a toddler, wobbling as Joe goes. Joe’s a ragged plush boy, worn out by her tears and laughter and sweat pooling at the tips of her silly fingertips, smeared with traces—sticky apricot marmalade or sultry peanut butter dried up like breadcrumbs—an instant intel into her daily activities, almost Hansel and Gretel-style.
They are like two peas in a pod, unable to stay in a single file; her squishy monochrome friend never going anywhere without her, except that one time we forgot him in the Airbnb; her tears—glittering diamonds on the red, distorted face—reminding of a newly hatched owlet that dropped from the nest on the side of a road when I was a kid, not much older than my daughter; so we drove two hours back, wishing to spare her the night terrors—after all, owlets were meant to have silky, white downy fuzz, capturing the subtle quality of their tender hue.
She’s a pre-schooler with a gap-toothed smile plastered across her face, but all I’ll ever remember is the crossbeam of my hand over her shoulders as she shrugs me off, springing towards her best friend, equally gap-toothed; Joe’s floppy body trailing after her.
She’s almost a teenager, door-slapping, clash-prone, peril-drawn, fingers-indented smartphone pinkies, marmalade-and-peanut-butter-wavering preteen; yet trapped underneath all that, still thrums a Joe-devotee.
***
Way back when he was bestowed the kinsfolk status, when we first laid eyes on him, he seemed somewhat crooked to me, somehow uneven. I remember putting him back on the pile and choosing a more symmetrical-looking panda; my eyes seeing only this marketing-driven, cauliflower-panda pile. Pandas – Pandas – Pandas – reaching outward, inward, upward – in all directions really, demanding to be taken.
Only two years old, she retrieved him from the hundreds of look-alikes, her tiny body looming over him, clumsy feet heading towards the register, never looking back.
***
As she reaches new heights, he shrivels even more, hiding in his own shadows.
