Gertie’s Diner had been established in the 1950s. It had a ’50s layout, a ’50s décor, and a ’50s menu. While other restaurants and chains often tried to change with the times or bring in modern motifs, Gertie’s remained defiantly anachronistic. That had been how Ma Gertie had done it, and by gum that was how her children, grandchildren, and anybody else they invited into the family were going to do it.
Four of the five diners in the chain were run by direct descendants of the Rosenkranz family. The fifth was operated by Cynthia Sweets, a matronly woman with dark skin, half-lensed glasses, and a ready smile whom the patrons invariably called ‘Bun.’
It was to this Gertie’s that Mr. Arrow took his mystery guest. He held the door open and ushered the reluctant teen inside. Bun looked up from behind the counter with her trademark smile as the doorbell jingled, but her expression quickly turned to horror at the sight of the sodden pair. “Good heavens, John! You look half-drowned!” exclaimed the woman, coming around the counter to greet them. “And who’s this? Oh, honey, you must be absolutely freezing! Here, let me get that jacket for you and put you over by the heater! John!” she said sharply. “What in heaven’s name were you thinking, letting this poor girl get herself drowned out there!”
Mr. Arrow’s mystery guest shifted uncomfortably, attempting to protest. “Actually, he wasn’t—”
“Not another word, honey! Let me get this jacket off you and you go take any of those tables by the heater,” she ordered as she unceremoniously removed the jacket, revealing the drenched sweatshirt beneath. “Oh, heavens, it’s worse than I thought. I’ll grab you both towels and get some hot cocoas for you while I hang this up!”
With that, she bustled off, loudly lamenting to herself that the ‘fool old man’ and ‘poor little dear’ were going to catch death of cold. The teen just stared after the retreating woman with a shell-shocked expression that brought a smile to Mr. Arrow’s face. “That’s Bun,” he said quietly as he directed his young companion towards the booths by the heater. “Her family came up from Hawaii. I don’t think she’s ever accepted the fact that Canterlot gets cold now and then.”
“She seems… intense,” said the teen, still sounding shaken.
“She’s a kind and generous soul,” replied Mr. Arrow. “She’ll probably come back with a sweatshirt borrowed from one of her daughters. I advise you not to argue. Bun’s more insistent than I am.”
The girl snorted and muttered something that sounded like “Two in one day. Figures.”
It appeared to be a slow morning in the diner, and the pair had their pick of the booths by the heater. Mr. Arrow selected the one farthest from the other patrons – a corner booth relatively soundproofed from the rest of the diner by its proximity to a thick load-bearing strut and a nearby radio playing a mix of light rock, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, swing, and jazz, with the occasional country song thrown in for good measure.
The mystery girl took off her sodden sweatshirt before sitting, revealing a relatively dry magenta shirt with some sort of red-and-gold sun symbol on the front that matched her hair. She seemed taken aback when Mr. Arrow politely took her sweatshirt to hang on the hooks mounted on the booth seat. He did the same with his own sweater. As they sat, the girl looked quizzical. “If there were hooks here, why did Bun take your jacket to hang somewhere else?” she asked.
Mr. Arrow raised an eyebrow as he sat. “You think I could have gotten a word in?”
He was pleased to see a ghost of a smile on her lips. “No, I guess not.” Her somber tone returned shortly after, along with a hearty dose of suspicion as she regarded him across the table. “What do I call you?”
The old man held out a hand for the shaking. “John Arrow. And you?”
She looked at his hand with an expression somewhere between leery and fearful. “I’m nobody,” said the girl quietly, not meeting his gaze.
Mr. Arrow raised an eyebrow, keeping his hand out. “‘Nobody’ you say? Funny. You don’t look like an ‘Odessa.’”
She looked up, blinking in confusion. “Um—”
At that moment, Bun rematerialized, bearing several towels and a pair of sweatshirts. “Now get yourselves dried off, and this sweater’s for you, honey. My daughter’s about your size, so it oughta fit alright, and, John, my old man went ahead and offered this old thing of his for your sorry self, so go on and get warmed up and I’ll be back with your hot cocoas.” She then bustled off before the mystery girl could get a word in edgeways. Chuckling at the stunned look on her face, Mr. Arrow obediently put the sweatshirt on.
After a moment’s hesitation, the girl did the same with hers. “Like Pinkie’s distant cousin,” she muttered. “Is she always like this?”
“Always,” replied Mr. Arrow, once more sticking his hand out. “Now, do you feel like telling you your real name, or will ‘Odessa’ do?”
“Maybe if you tell me why the hay you picked ‘Odessa’,” she countered.
“You said your name was ‘Nobody’,” Mr. Arrow explained. “Odysseus told the cyclops his name was ‘Nobody.’” She stared, and he wondered if they still taught the Classics in schools; he’d be disappointed to learn they didn’t. “‘Odessa’ is the feminine form of the name.”
“You just… know that off the top of your head?”
Mr. Arrow shrugged modestly. “My wife’s influence. She was an intellectual.”
She regarded him oddly for a moment, but said nothing. Mr. Arrow grimaced mentally. He wasn’t accustomed to needing to carry the conversation. Even with the Apples’ influence, he still preferred to listen rather than to speak. Yet now he had to speak; the girl’s eyes had fallen to the table at his silence, and Mr. Arrow felt that, though she wasn’t moving, she was slipping away.
The sensation was disturbingly familiar to him. In Bastogne during the war, there’d been a young trooper named Billy Wilder who’d been driven to silence by shell shock. It had taken time and patience for Sergeant Arrow to bring Wilder out of his trauma and into the present. Wilder had eventually recovered, returned to the States, and raised a family. But in Bastogne, Sergeant Arrow had been afraid the boy would keep looking into the abyss until he slipped and fell in.
Just as Mr. Arrow felt that familiar fear, however, the memory of Billy Wilder and his family gave him the insight he needed.
“Rebecca,” he said.
The girl looked up in consternation. “Do you often just blurt random names out?”
“Only when people won’t give theirs,” he replied dryly.
It brightened his mood when she almost smiled. “Fair enough. Why ‘Rebecca’?”
“You remind me of a man I knew in Belgium,” he replied, carefully leaving out the reason why. “He had a daughter he named ‘Rebecca.’”
The young woman mulled the name over for a moment. “It has a nice ring to it,” she admitted. “Not exactly a Canterlot name, but,” she raised an eyebrow, “I’m guessing you’re not local.”
Mr. Arrow nodded.
“Rebecca… Rebecca… I do like the sound of it.” She bit her lip, then nodded. “‘Rebecca’ it is.”
He held out his hand for shaking. “A pleasure to meet you.”
With bemused snort, ‘Rebecca’ shook his hand. “Now that we’ve been properly introduced, so to speak,” the girl said, her eyes narrowing in inquisition, “maybe you’ll tell me why—”
Again, Bun’s return interrupted her. “Here are your hot cocoas,” announced the woman. “Plenty of cream for yours honey. And none for you, John, I know you ain’t got much of a sweet tooth.” She whipped out a pad and pencil. “Now,” she said looking to Rebecca, “what can I get ya?”
The girl looked to Mr. Arrow, mutely begging him to go first. In response, he gestured a mute “ladies first.”
“Um,” Rebecca said finally, “I’m not hungry—” a rumble from her stomach betrayed her. “R-really, it’s no—"
“What would you recommend, Bun?” interrupted Mr. Arrow, not inclined to let a growing teen skip a hot meal.
He and Bun shared a meaningful glance. “Well, we just made some fresh gravy for our famous biscuits and gravy,” supplied the restaurateur helpfully. “Old Ma Gertie’s recipe you know, with nice hot hashbrowns on the side. That sound good, hon?”
Rebecca looked back and forth between the politely firm generosity of the two adults, searching for a hole in their defenses and finding none. She sighed tiredly. “Sure.”
“The usual, Bun,” ordered Mr. Arrow, not needing a menu.
“Sure thing, hon,” said Bun with a wink as she jotted down the orders. “I’ll get right on that and—say!” her face brightened. “How about some nice hot apple cider! Perfect thing for such a cold day! Fresh from Sweet Apple Acres!”
At the mention of the Acreage, Rebecca blanched. Mr. Arrow raised an eyebrow. “N-no thanks,” the teen stammered. “Apples… don’t really sit well with me.”
Bun shot Mr. Arrow a puzzled look, then nodded. “Okay, hon. You just let me know what else I can get ya.” With that she bustled off to fill the order.
Once she’d gone, Mr. Arrow took a sip of his cocoa and motioned for Rebecca to pick up where she left off.
He needn’t have bothered. “Why are you doing all this?” she demanded the instant Bun was out of ready earshot. “Why help some random girl on the street?”
Mr. Arrow took an extra long sip of the cocoa. He’d never admit it, but he had more of a sweet tooth than most people thought, a fact he suspected that Bun secretly knew. The cocoa warmed him as he replied, “Charity is a cause in itself.”
Rebecca’s face contorted in a sneer. Then she flushed and shook her head, a pained expression replacing the sneer. “That can’t be it though. You’ve got to have some other reason!”
“Why?” he asked.
“Why?” she repeated, incredulous. “B- because it’s not that simple! Because people aren’t just nice like that! Because the world doesn’t work that way!”
“Doesn’t isn’t the same as shouldn’t,” Mr. Arrow replied.
Rebecca’s mouth flapped open and shut several times as she tried to come up with a response. Eventually she gave up and took a pull of her cocoa, muttering, “Just like the flipping princess,” under her breath.
Mr. Arrow wasn’t sure what to make of that remark. He decided not to worry about it.
Setting down her half-drained cup, Rebecca leaned forward, a thirst for answers plain in her features. “So, what, you think any random person off the street deserves kindness?”
“Yes,” he said, his tone adding, an unspoken ‘of course.’
Her eyes narrowed. “You really think life is that simple? That easy?” The way she asked it gave Mr. Arrow the impression that she thought the answer was ‘no,’ but that she wanted it to be ‘yes.’
“Simple? Yes,” he told her. “Easy? No.”
She sat back, folding her arms. “What’s the difference?”
Mr. Arrow let his eyes fall to the table as he pondered how to answer. He wished Bess was here to say what he wanted to say; she’d always been good at saying the things he struggled to voice aloud. Still, the girl needed him, so he’d do his best.
After a moment’s thought, Mr. Arrow looked up at Rebecca and said, “Life is sacred. That’s simple. Sometimes people threaten innocent lives, and we have to do something about it. That’s hard. It’s not always obvious how to reconcile the need to protect the innocent with the violence that might take. We should all be guided by the simple principle that life is sacred, but living that principle is difficult.” His hand clenched unconsciously. “Especially when the only way to protect life is to fight.”
“Simple, not easy,” Rebecca said. She glanced down at his hand and raised an eyebrow. “You’re speaking from experience.” It was an observation, not a question. He nodded. “Where?”
“With the 101st Airborne in World War II and the 187th in Korea.”
She blinked and sat back, visibly impressed. “That’s… quite a résumé,” she said at last. “You’ve got some serious guts.” Mr. Arrow shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t think his past was noteworthy. Not next to the millions of others who’d not only served, but also made the ultimate sacrifice. “So,” continued Rebecca, “you must have had to make those hard decisions a lot.”
Mr. Arrow took a sip of his drink and nodded wordlessly.
“Didn’t you ever… I don’t know… didn’t it ever seem like it wasn’t worth it? I mean… like it wasn’t worth it to be that… careful?”
The old man understood the implied question – why bother caring for the lives of evil people? Images of the horrors he’d seen at Dachau flashed across his vision as he set his mug down. “Yes,” he answered quietly.
“So… why?” she asked. “Why did you bother caring when it would have been easier not to?”
Mr. Arrow felt sorry for her that she didn’t know the answer. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“And that’s it?” Rebecca demanded. Mr. Arrow raised an eyebrow. She snorted and glanced out the window. “Right. Stupid question.”
The two sat in silence for a moment, watching the rain and sipping their cocoa. Mr. Arrow waited patiently, knowing that her thirst for answers would eventually get the better of her. Bun arrived during their quiet contemplation and delivered their meals and his coffee. After hovering over them for a minute and paying special attention to Rebecca, the motherly woman let them be, casting a worried glance back at Rebecca as she left.
They ate without speaking. Mr. Arrow kept his eyes mostly on his own food, but he watched his companion on his peripheral. Rebecca’s hunger initially got the better of her, and she tucked into the food with gusto. Then, after a few bites that brought a genuine smile to her face, she winced, flushed, and started picking at her food as she cast guilty looks in his direction. This lasted for a few minutes until the enticing flavor of the meal drew her back in and she began to eat more normally and enjoy herself. A few minutes later, she winced again and went back to picking and guilt.
This pattern repeated several times before she spoke again. “Mr. Arrow, what do you think…?” Rebecca paused, biting her lip. “What do you think about…?” She trailed off, then shut her mouth tightly.
“Yes?” he prompted, hoping to draw her out.
Rebecca prodded her hashbrowns with a fork and refused to meet his eyes. “I- it’s nothing,” she stammered.
Mr. Arrow raised an eyebrow. “No, it isn’t,” he said simply. There was no judgment or condemnation in his tone, but Rebecca flinched all the same. “Young lady?” he said gently, leaning forward in an attempt to catch her eyes. She glanced up at him briefly and her face reddened with shame. “Please, ask me.”
For a moment, she said nothing. Then, just when he became afraid that she’d refuse to speak at all, she asked him, “Do you believe in forgiveness?”
Mr. Arrow let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Yes, I do.”
“For everyone?” she pressed. “Even for people who don’t deserve it?” Her tone was desperate, pleading.
Mr. Arrow was a father; to hear such a young woman ask that question with such fear tore him up inside. “Them most of all,” he answered.
Tears welled up in her eyes. Tears of mingled confusion and hope and despair and regret. “But… why? Why forgive someone if she doesn’t deserve it?”
Now, finally, Mr. Arrow knew why he’d found Rebecca in the rain. He nodded in acknowledgment to her question and tapped his fork against his plate, collecting his thoughts. It didn’t take as long as before; he’d heard this question many times as a father, grandfather, and friend.
“When I was young, there was another boy who lived nearby named Derrick. Derrick was bigger than me, he had a temper, and he was a bully. He made fun of me, knocked me down, stole my marbles, kicked me in the shins, did whatever he pleased. I hated Derrick. I hated him almost as much as I feared him. But fear, and embarrassment, kept me from telling anybody. He tormented me without punishment for a year.”
As Mr. Arrow spoke, he noticed that Rebecca looked guiltier and guiltier. But now he was committed to the story, so he continued, “Eventually, I screwed up the courage to tell my mother. She told Derrick’s mother, and he was punished for it.”
He could have sworn that he heard Rebecca mutter, “Good,” but he wasn’t sure.
“When my mother told me Derrick would be punished, I was giddy. After all, I hated Derrick, and I wanted him to suffer. But my mother told me I shouldn’t hate Derrick.” Rebecca straightened up at that. “When I asked why, she said, ‘When seeking revenge, you’d better dig two. One grave for your enemy, one grave for you.’” He smiled dryly. “Of course, I was a child, so she had to explain what that meant. Mother said that every moment I spent hating Derrick was a moment I could have spent doing something better with my life. By hating him, I was letting him keep hurting me even after he was done bullying me. I was hurting myself. Derrick had gotten punished; justice had been done. In order to be happy, I needed to forgive him and move on.”
Rebecca recoiled at that. “So she just wanted you to forgive and forget?”
“Not forget,” Mr. Arrow corrected. “Evils, especially great evils, should not be forgotten. If they are forgotten, then the lessons we might have learned or the strength we might have gained is lost, wasted. We don’t forget, and we don’t stop seeking justice. But… we must forgive, if only to move on. Forgive so that we add no more evil of our own.”
Rebecca sat back, massaging her temples as though she had a headache. “So, what, you just forgave him?”
Mr. Arrow chuckled. “No,” came the honest reply. “No, I did not. I tried, because my mother told me, and because I think I knew she was right, but I didn’t forgive him for a long time. Not until the day I saw Derrick crying.”
“Crying?” asked Rebecca.
“Crying,” confirmed Mr. Arrow. “He was hiding behind the school house crying. I saw him before he saw me, and, well, I wanted to make fun of him,” admitted Mr. Arrow. “I wanted to make fun of him like he used to make fun of me.” The old man shook his head. “In that moment, I realized my mother was right. He’d done evil to me, I hadn’t forgiven him, and here I was wanting to do evil to him. I didn’t want to be like that. So, instead, I worked up the courage to walk over and ask him what was wrong.”
Mr. Arrow grimaced. “That day I learned that Derrick’s father was a drunk who used to beat him.” Rebecca spat a curse. “Language,” corrected Mr. Arrow automatically. “I felt so bad for Derrick that I gave him my apple.” He smiled faintly at the recollection. “From that day forward, he followed me around like a little brother.”
Rebecca blinked. “The guy who used to bully you followed you around like a little brother?”
“Yes,” laughed Mr. Arrow, “that surprised everyone at the time too. It got even stranger when he started beating on the other bullies for being bullies. Stranger again when he started teaching the smaller kids how to defend themselves for when he wasn’t around.”
The young woman gaped at him. “Seriously?”
“He didn’t want to be like his father,” replied Mr. Arrow, leaving out the fact that he’d been the one to push Derrick to that revelation.
“That’s… that’s good,” said Rebecca, swallowing. “Did his miserable drunk of a father ever get what he deserved?”
Once again, Mr. Arrow grimaced. “Yes, but not for that. I never was able to convince Derrick to report his father.” Though not for lack of trying on the part of young John Arrow, John Arrow Sr., Mrs. Arrow, and eventually the entire Arrow family. “One day, Derrick’s father got sent up the river for a barfight that turned deadly. Derrick never spoke to him again.”
Rebecca frowned. “Wait, doesn’t that contradict… I mean… I’m glad that dirtbag got what he deserved and that Derrick never spoke to him again, but didn’t you say we should always forgive?”
“Forgiveness doesn’t mean we let people get away with doing bad things,” explained Mr. Arrow. “It also doesn’t mean leaving the door open to further evil. Forgiveness doesn’t remove the need for just punishments, even severe ones. Sometimes, forgiveness requires cutting ties with a man serving a life sentence. After all, the principle of forgiveness is simple…”
He was pleased when she finished, “… but the application is hard. Yeah, I can see that. So, part of Derrick forgiving his father was closing the door on him so he couldn’t hurt him anymore?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Arrow. “It was hard for him – blood runs deep, after all – but in time he was able to move past the sins of his father.” He paused, then, with false casualness, said, “Derrick had a much harder time moving past his own sins.”
Rebecca swallowed. “Why was that so hard?” she asked, her voice small.
“Because Derrick hated himself,” explained Mr. Arrow. “The more time he spent trying to change who he’d been, the more he saw how cruel he used to be. It haunted him for years. He’d hurt so many people, he wondered how he could ever be forgiven. He was afraid to make friends, even afraid to be friends with me, all because he felt he didn’t deserve friends.” The old noticed Rebecca’s hands were shaking. “At his worst, Derrick thought he deserved the same fate as his father.” He took a sip of his coffee. “One day I decided enough was enough and sat him down for a talk.”
The girl seemed to shrink in her seat. “What… what did you say?”
Mr. Arrow smirked. “I told him to quit being selfish.”
Rebecca blinked. “You told him— buh— huh?”
“I told him to quit being selfish,” repeated Mr. Arrow. “Derrick had it in him to be a good kid. In fact, by that point he already was. But, by focusing only on the bad kid he used to be, he was hobbling himself. He was keeping his past alive alive by letting its shadows block the light. I told him if he wanted to make up for his past, the kindest thing he could do would be to forgive himself and move on so he could focus on being good.”
There was a pause as his words sank in. “Did he?” Rebecca asked, her voice husky.
Mr. Arrow smiled. “He did. My friend became one of the best men I ever knew. It wasn’t easy for him to forgive himself, but…”
“… it was simple,” she finished.
His smile broadened. “Right.”
Rebecca lapsed into silence, staring at her food. Sensing a lull in the conversation, Mr. Arrow finished up the last of his meal and sipped his coffee, allowing her time to think. He deliberately kept his eyes everywhere but on her, affording her what privacy he could.
The first sob drew his gaze back to her. At first, it was only a few tears, but soon the young woman was weeping, releasing her pent-up recrimination, fear, and pain.
Quietly, Mr. Arrow rose from his seat and eased around the table, sitting down next to her and putting a gentle arm around her. She buried her head wordlessly in his chest and cried it all out.
Bun refused to let Mr. Arrow pay for the meal that day. He didn’t bother pressing the point. Long experience had taught him better than to argue with her. Instead, he discretely slipped forty dollars into the tip jar while the restaurateur retrieved his jacket. Rebecca saw him do it and managed a genuine laugh when he put his finger shushingly to his lips.
The rain had stopped some time during their breakfast, but it was still cold. Even dry, Rebecca’s sweatshirt offered little protection against the elements. When Mr. Arrow offered her a ride to wherever she was going, she accepted the offer with amused resignation and a fair amount of gratitude. When he asked if she had anything warmer at home, she replied that she had a leather jacket that was currently being repaired after damage resulting from an event that she didn’t elaborate on. All she said was that it was “a mistake” and that the jacket was, thankfully, being restored by “a friend.”
Mr. Arrow noticed that she hesitated a little on the word “friend,” but that she still brightened up once she’d said it.
To his surprise, she wanted to be delivered to Canterlot High. He didn’t feel it was his place to ask why she’d be there on a Saturday, but she noticed his confusion and explained that she was “serving out her just punishment.” A part of him wondered if it had something to do with her “mistake” and if Applejack knew anything about it, but he immediately stomped on his curiosity. It was none of his business.
When they arrived at CHS, Mr. Arrow was surprised, and not a little appalled, to see heavy damage had been done to the school. He’d heard rumors about a gas explosion, but hadn’t realized the damage was this extensive. Workmen were chipping away at the damage, and Mr. Arrow couldn’t help but notice that a hardhat and gloves that looked rather too small for any of the bulky workmen was sitting on the back of one of the trucks.
Again he wondered about Rebecca’s connection to the damage and repairs, and again he shoved the thought down. He had no need to know.
Rebecca greeted the sight of the school with a sigh somewhere between a groan and acceptance. “Well, this is my stop,” she said as he pulled up to the curb. She unbuckled herself and reached for the latch. Just as her hand touched the handle, she paused, turned to the old man, and hugged him. “Thank you,” she said huskily.
“You’re welcome,” he replied.
The young woman hopped out and trotted over to join the workmen. Mr. Arrow decided that, if she did not look enthusiastic, she at least looked optimistic.
Shifting back into drive, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed home, noticing with pleasure that the sun was starting to peek through the clouds.
As he drove, the old man felt a chuckle well up in his chest upon realizing something:
He’d never gotten Rebecca’s real name.