Jonathan the Duck

The door squeaks open, revealing the dark, stuffy attic we visit once in a blue moon. A treasure trove filled with history buried in every brown box resting in a forgotten corner. The floorboards creak beneath me when I shuffle to the window. Muddy pink curtains are lazily hanging on the nook, lint and dust bunnies decorate the old curtain, complimenting the holes the moths made. I pull the curtains open and allow the sunlight to pour in. The room is a little brighter now, light peeking through the windowpane. My husband slides beside me, offering a mask and gloves when I start sniffling. “Are you sure you packed it?” He muffles towards me. “Maybe your dad left it in his basement?” 

I shake my head, putting on the mask and gloves. “No, I remember packing it when I left for college, I know it’s in here somewhere.” Pulling out a couple of boxes, I start searching for my grandpa’s photo albums. 

“Why is he asking for this now after all these years?”

“He likes reminiscing. I was always close with Papa and I loved his war time photos and badges.” I close a box when I don’t find the album. I go for another, “He let me have the albums when I left.” It doesn’t take me long to pull it out. I wipe the cover with my gloves and rest it on the nook. “I guess we’re done here.” I turn to him and smile with my eyes.

He’s in the middle of opening another box, “You got everything?” I nod in response. “I guess this duck wasn’t much help.” He dangles it in the air. My heart stops when I see the teddy he’s holding, white particles emanate from the stuffed plush, dancing in luminescence. I remember holding it during stars filled nights, or the snowed-in weekends when I was holding it close to my chest after a sled trip with my dad and cousins. I hugged it everyday before I went to school until I forgot to do it one morning. I just stopped. It became a forgotten memory. 

He puts it back and I rush to it. “Let me see that.” I pick up the duck, lost happiness finding its way back into my heart. 

“Is it yours?”

I nod, “My mom got me this for Christmas when I was seven.” The beak isn’t firm anymore, squashed and lopsided with the stitching loosening. The white and yellow fur is tangled with dust, making the colours muted. Its clementine leg has a stain on one foot. I wipe its glossy black eyes, bringing life back into it. I squeeze the stomach, hoping that it would light up but nothing happens. It’s lost stuffing, the zipper at the back is broken. I feel guilt rising in my throat when I say, “I forgot about this...it’s been so long.” 

“Does it have a name?”

“Jonathan,” I smile, “Jonathan the yellow duck.”

“You’re kidding?” His brow cocks up. “You named our son after this duck?”

I didn’t realize how much this duck impacted me. I always liked the name Jonathan, at one point in my life I thought I would marry a Jonathan but I ended up marrying a Michael.

“Yeah...I guess I did.” 

~~~

Michael left to pick our son from school, which gives me the perfect opportunity to clean the duck. I’m planning on giving it to my son today, I have a feeling he'll like it. I don’t remember where the stain came from but it doesn’t want to leave the foot, no matter how many times I scrub it. I trimmed the loose furs and took out all the stuffing, lights and battery pack and threw the suit in the washing machine after soaking it for a while. I bought new stuffing and a battery pack with lights, the old one is busted, I’m hopeful to make it shine again. 

When I threw away the old stuffing, I found a blue star tangled in with the mess. I gasp, I totally forgot about these. The patch I put in the teddy bear before the employee zipped it up. You’ll Shine Forever, it says. I look through the rest of the old stuffing, hoping that I would find the other patch. When I do, the message on it causes a chill to run down my spine. My throat tightens and my eyes become blurry when I read the words on the heart-shaped patch. A weight rests on my chest and my breathing becomes unsteady. I feel numb, my hands tremble and I collapse on the barstool. I squeeze the heart in my hand, looking around my kitchen. This duck means more to me than I thought. The sound of the laundry being done draws me back to the present. 

I keep it in my hand when I take out the lifeless suit, it’s a little harder for me to concentrate after reading the patch but I remember who I’m doing it for. I’m doing it for the little brown eyes that sparkle brighter than anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. The smile that stretches from ear to ear. I drop the star and heart in it and re-stuff the duck, putting the LED lights and the fob in afterwards. It takes a few tries for it to actually work but eventually Jonathan starts shining again. I position the lights all over the suit, the source of turning it on and off rests at its hands. I hug it one last time. It feels like I’m apologizing to it for all the forgotten years. 

The garage door opens and I hear an excited voice rambling about his day. “We’re home!” Michael yells, he’s carrying our dinner. 

“Hi, Baby,” I lower myself to hug my son, picking him up from the ground. He kisses me near the eye with a big smile. He’s five, turning six soon. “How was your day?” 

“Good. I made a snowman from playdough and I got to colour a tree, I coloured it purple and blue.” His speech impediment butchers the name of the colours. 

“He also got an A plus on his additional test.” Michael pipes in.

“Really?” I look back at Jonathan with pride. “Lemme see?” He gives me a wrinkled page with simple math questions in comic sans font printed on. An A+ is written on the corner of the page, right next to a You’re A Star Student sticker. “That’s my boy! I’m sooooo proud of you. This is going on the fridge and you get extra iPad time, Buddy.”

“Yaaaaaay!” He screams. 

“I have a surprise for you.” I put him down and he starts getting giddy. He stops when I go on my knee and show him the duck. He takes it cautiously, his excitement diminishing. “I had this duck when I was a little older than you--”

“That was a very long time, the prehistoric ages.” Michael snickers, causing our son to laugh. I don’t know what he’s laughing about, he’s younger than me by four months.

“Anyways,” I grit, refocusing on the face that looks similar to mine, “this duck holds a very special place in my heart. You two share the same name.”

“Really?” He says quietly, examining it.

I nod, flapping its exposed wings, “You can call it Jona if you want. It lights up when you press here.” He starts pressing the end of the wing but nothing happens. We hear the clicking sound but there’s no light show. 

“Uh oh, Mommy broke Jona.” Michael remarks. For the sake of the kid I refrain from swearing at him.

“Mommy is going to fix Jona, don’t worry.” I sneer towards him.

Breaking the tension, Jonathan says, “Can I go play on my iPad now?” 

I will admit, I do feel slightly disappointed at his reaction. He has a lot of toys but I have hope that he’ll learn to love Jona the most. “Yes, you can go play on your iPad.” He runs upstairs and I go to the fridge to paste his accomplishment. 

“You okay?” Michael asks when he puts our dinner in the fridge.

“Yeah,” I lie, “he’ll learn to love Jona, took me a while to get used to it.” 

He peers over to the side where the stairs are, “Exactly how long did it take you to love it?” I follow his eye and feel the disappointment grow when I see Jona laying on the bottom step.

~~~

It’s been two weeks and I haven’t seen Jonathan play with Jona at all. It’s disheartening. I’ve attempted to throw away some of his toys, not the ones he plays with the most, of course, I’m not a monster, just the ones he would come back to now and then so he would be forced to pick up Jona. Fortunately for him, Michael stopped me. My attempts in getting Jonathan to like it keeps failing. I do it subtly, making him watch duck related cartoons, telling him to wear his Donald Duck pajamas and shirts a little more. Nothing’s working, all he wants to do is to play with his stupid dinosaurs. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t get the lights to work properly in Jona. 

More recently I’ve been trying to implement Jona in his playtime. I open his bedroom door,. “Hi Baby, what are you doing?”

“Mommy, look, I’m playing with T-Rex and Pterodactyl.” He continues to clash the two toys while making explosive sound effects.

“Ouu, that sounds cool. Do you want to play with Jona, hm? He’s feeling a little lonely right now.” I wiggle it towards him. 

“Mommy, I’m playing with dinosaurs.” He says without looking at me.

“I know, but wouldn’t it be fun with Jona joined in the fight?” 

“The T-Rex will eat Jona. I don’t wanna play with the dumb duck.” The feeling of defeat has never been this insulting and brutal to me before. No matter how hard I try I can’t get him to like it. Without saying anything I close his door and walk past Michael, ignoring his concern. I put Jona down on the island and unzip it, tearing the lights out of it. Maybe he doesn’t like it because there’s not enough stuffing in it? Maybe it’s too dirty for him? The stupid lights still won’t work. 

Michael stops me from tearing the lights in half. “What’s going on?” 

“Your son doesn’t like Jona.”

“So?”

“So?” I mock him, giving him a once over, “he needs to. It’s the stupid lights, I can’t get this thing to work--”

“You can’t force him to like something he doesn’t want. He likes dinosaurs. So what if he doesn’t want to play with the duck?”

I slam the lights on the floor, “It matters!” We keep quiet until I feel the overwhelming sensation of humiliation. I sit on the barstool and cover my eyes. Stillness, nothing but the sound of the air conditioning blaring a few feet away. He drags the second barstool and sits next to me. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” 

Not really. I look at him, to my surprise he doesn’t have a sarcastic grin on his face. Where do I even start? My eyes wander to the scattered stuffing. Some are on the floor, blowing away like a dandelion seed during spring, there’s a trail of cloud-like cotton resting near the lifeless duck. I’m killing it all over again. 

Reluctantly, I sigh and give in. “It was December...everybody wanted this Barbie, the holiday addition. My mom was never good at surprises, she loved Christmas but hated the whole hiding the presents and wrapping them each year, because I would always find them or figure out what she got me. I begged her for a doll that year but she brought me to a Build-A-Bear store instead. She told me to pick out any animal I wanted and I was obsessed with yellow at the time so I picked the duck,” I cradle the flimsy toy in my hands, focusing on its disoriented feathers. “The person at the store told us to pick a patch and put them in before they zipped it up. I never knew what patch my mom put in, all I remember was that it was a heart.” I dig into the toy and find the patch, allowing him to glance at it. He rubs my back for reassurance when my voice starts to crack. I wipe my eyes with my sleeve and laugh, “I just found out a couple of weeks ago that this said I’ll always love you. And she put lights in it because she knew I was afraid of the dark. The year after she passed,” I give the heart to him and stand up, packing the lights. “I just wanted Jonathan to love this thing the way that I did.” 

With an apology, he kisses my forehead and rubs my back. I look back at the duck, the past feeling of solidarity makes me smile. It was good for its time, being a blanket of commemoration and security implemented by my mother’s soothing nature. But it’s been almost twenty years. Dad remarried, I’m a mother now and Jonathan has his own comfort. I just pray my son will never know the destroying feeling of loss. As if the world snatches the rug right under someone’s feet and attempts to swallow the last of their hope. 

Taking a deep breath, I thank my mom for Jonathan and the message. “I guess Jona is not as useful anymore.” With a sad smile I give it to Michael and tell him to throw it away. 

~~~

I wake up to the sound of the door slowly closing behind him. I check the time, it’s almost ten. Michael rests next to me, I don’t go to bed this early but dreaming about way-back-when does that, I guess.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” I close my eyes again, “I was being ridiculous.”

“No you weren’t, you should’ve told me.” He goes quiet for a while. My eyelids start to weigh a ton but it flutters open when he shakes me. 

“What?” I snap at him.

“Wake up, I have something to show you.”

“Show me tomorrow.” I turn on him but he turns me back. “What do you want?” He gets up from the bed and drags me out with him. He takes me to Jonathan’s room. His night light is on like always but I see pink, blue, red and green light up in his bed. I flick the lights on, my heart swelling when I see him cradling the duck the way I used to do.

~~~

Fun fact: I used to have a duck plush named Jonathan from Build-A-Bear :)