Twelve years later.
The gate swung open, its lightly rusted hinges groaning quietly. Grand Pear stepped through the entrance, his hooves crunching in the gravel as he made his way slowly forward. Every step was stiff, especially on his right front knee, a faint jolt of pain shooting up his leg every time he put weight on it.
Old age hadn’t done him many favors.
In the shadows around him, there were still a few drifts of slushy snow left over, but those would be gone in just a few days. Patches of clover and a few dandelions were blooming all around. A light breeze carried just a faint twinge of chill on it. Springtime was beautiful in Vanhoover, thanks to the city’s weather team.
Grand tugged at his bandana and cleared his throat as he slowly made his way along the old, familiar gravel pathway. He didn’t have far to go, and he found the right row without any trouble. With a sigh of relief, he stepped off the path and into the soft, lush grass that would make up the rest of the short walk to his destination.
Over the last couple of years, he’d slowly come to memorize the stones that led down to the one he was looking for. Pine Needle. Moondust. Sugar Spice. And finally, Péra Rocha.
“Hey, Péra,” Grand Pear said as he knelt down next to the headstone. The first order of business was the flowers. He’d built a small flowerbed around it not long after she was buried, and every week, he’d tended to the carnations that were planted there. Given that it was fairly early in the spring, the flowers were only starting to bloom, but there was one single wilting red flower that already needed trimming, and he was quick to snip it off with the shears he’d brought along. Next he turned to the grass that was always trying to work its way into the flowerbed, cutting off the few runners that were advancing past the carefully trimmed edge.
Time had numbed the pain. For the first few months, he’d hardly been able to go near it without breaking down crying, but gradually, he’d come to terms with it. His weekly visits to maintain the headstone became less painful, and after a while, he began to look forward to them. He took comfort in going to the cemetery to visit her, like he could still be there with her in some small way, and that was all he needed.
But this time, when he looked at Péra’s headstone, he felt that old familiar pang in his chest that he thought had retired long ago. The grass had grown up around the edges of the grave in the several weeks that he’d gone without visiting. Long ago, he’d told the cemetery’s maintenance staff that he wanted to be the one to take care of her gravesite, and so they hadn’t done anything to maintain it while he was away.
“I finally did it,” he said, continuing his work. “I finally went back to Ponyville.” He pulled up a weed that was sprouting next to one of the carnation plants. “Everypony was real happy to see me back. I just about ran out of jam the first day I opened the old stand back up.”
Grand sighed. Even after weeks of neglect, there wasn’t much work to do to the grave. In just a few minutes, it was already as perfect as it always was. He scooted his way over to the edge of the flowerbed and slowly stretched out in the grass. He noticed a couple of joints pop faintly as he settled in. “It wasn’t long before I met the grandkids. In fact, they were the ones who found me. Big Macintosh, Applejack, and Apple Bloom. All three of them.” Grand sat there and watched as a few puffy white clouds drifted lazily overhead, a pegasus pony cruising around them, high in the sky. “They’ve all grown up well. Much as I hate to admit it, Granny Smith did a fine job of raising them.”
Grand paused, wiping some of the mist from his eyes, and then he smiled. “Speaking of Granny Smith, we buried the hatchet. It was just about as easy as you always said it would be. Maybe it was the fact that all of the grandkids were right there, but I think you were right about time healing old wounds. After everything we did to each other, all it took was an apology. Heck, she even let me stay for dinner that night.” He paused for a moment, and his smile faded away.
He looked over to his right, some small part of him hoping to see her there, lying at his side, listening to him talk about his trip, but it was the same thing he saw every time he went: a cold, beautifully carved piece of striking white marble, standing there unflinching in the afternoon sunshine. “I guess I always figured there’d be time. We kept saying every year was the year we’d go back, but something always came up. I hurt my back, the store needed to be remodeled, and—” he swallowed the lump in his throat “—and then you got diagnosed.
“Being totally honest, I was scared of going back. I was scared of facing the Apples, what they might say to me. I could have tried harder to make us go back. I could have stopped coming up with excuses not to go.” Grand stopped and turned back to the headstone. “I’m so sorry, Péra. I just wish you could have met them.”
Grand Pear shifted around a bit to ease the ache that was coming up in his hip. Fresh tears welled up, running past his ears and dripping down into the grass. “I guess apologizing won’t do much. It’s too late for that. Wherever you are now, you probably can’t even hear me.” He sighed and closed his eyes, staying silent for a few minutes, listening intently to the birds singing their songs from the treetops.
“I’ve already told everypony else, so I might as well tell you too. I’m going back to Ponyville to stay. As much as I like it out here, something’s been missing since I lost you. Anjou and Bartlett still don’t talk to me all that much, and everypony else in the family doesn’t pay me much mind anymore. Can’t say I blame them, though. I did a lot of things wrong over the years. A lot of things I can’t fix.” He cleared his throat and coughed a couple of times. “All of our relatives are up here, sure, but I don’t feel like I have any family left here.” Grand coughed once more. “That and I need to go someplace a little warmer. These old bones just don’t like the cold and wet as much as they used to.”
Faintly in the distance, he heard a clock tower chime out the time. Fifteen minutes to three. “My train back to Ponyville is gonna be here soon, so I should probably start heading for the station.” Grand rolled over and slowly pushed himself back up onto his hooves, grunting softly when several joints started complaining as they reassumed his weight. “I’m not gonna be around so often anymore, so I’m going to start letting the groundskeepers take care of the place. You’ll be in good hooves, and I’ll have Anjou come out here to keep an eye on things from time to time.”
Grand looked down at the headstone one more time, more hot tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’ll come back to visit you again soon.” His voice cracked. “I love you, Péra. I always will.” On wobbly, aching legs, Grand Pear turned and began his walk back to the train station, and his family, without another word.