Where is the Twinkle in These Old Eyes?
The tension, the staring, the complete lack of talk: Grand Pear had gotten as comfortable with it as with the sagging wood of his austere chair, as with the room full of furniture and framed photographs. Most of all, as comfortable with the knowledge that out there, in the city, his thriving business had nothing to do with him. Not here. Not now. Packed jam jars didn’t have feelings to bother him.
Nearby, the voice of his wife, Cinnamon Pear, creaked like an oak in the cold wind. We should take those photographs down. What’s done is done. No point mulling over it. Anyway, what have you got to mull over? The Pear Plantation’s getting bigger all the time. Celebrate! Pat yourself on the back! Where’s the twinkle in your eye, you old devil, you?
She could be cruel with her praise. But Grand Pear continued to let his dinner digest quietly. At his age, the body needed a lot more patience and tender treatment. Even sitting down hard could lead to him shuffling over and picking up his special pills for the pain. Yes, he was held together by spit and chicken wire at this point…
“Getting bigger, yes,” he said to the wall opposite; photographs crowded over that space like funerary programs. “But getting better? We need more products. More ideas. More speed. Go big or go home. That’s the ticket.”
Hm. You get any bigger, the city’s going to be yours. You taken your tablets today?
“Yes, dear.”
Checked your tail? You were shedding yesterday.
“Just a temporary thing, dear.”
And you’ve been avoiding the dentist again. I know, Grandy. Your breath smells like a gas oven in a bog.
“Too busy, dear,” he said hurriedly. “Too much business to take care of. The coaches hiked up their prices last year. Gotta be ready for ’em to do it again. This stuff’s selling like hotcakes in San Palomino –”
A stinky manager ain’t a business manager. If you stink, so does their opinion, and what’ll you do then?
Some of the old spirit skipped and winked at her behind legs that were too comfortable to move and behind eyes that kept staring several lifetimes into the past. He hadn’t seen his own daughter in decades, and she’d just been the first in a long line of faces lost. Best right now to pretend he and his wife were having a normal conversation.
“I’ll be Grand Pear,” he said simply.
That was his answer to everything, and her harrumph cut it down to size. He’d been Grand Pear, when he’d cheeked his dad and moved to Ponyville to try his luck. He’d been Grand Pear, when he’d charmed the local Apple girl long enough to swipe a few business tips right out from under her nose, and had used them to grow big and grow fast.
He’d been Grand Pear at the contests, he’d been Grand Pear courting all the ladies (save one angry Apple girl), he’d been Grand Pear when Cinnamon Pear had joined him down the aisle amid hollering loved ones…
…he’d been Grand Pear when his wife had told him he’d been blessed with a daughter, when he’d taught them both country music, when he’d steered his beloved Pear Butter to the Cakes to learn the food craft and keep old friendships alive…
Here and now, Grand Pear would have grinned at his life. He’d ducked and danced and dared anyone to ask him what he was doing, because that meant Grand Pear, the Great Grand Prince Among Pears, had seized the tree of their lives and bent the twig in a new and exciting direction, away from the sun perhaps, but closer to the buzz and the beetling life below.
That is, he would have grinned, if he hadn’t seen where it had snapped.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, trying to force the old joie de vivre into his aching tones, “if I have the honour of this dance, my lady?”
You have to come get me first, snapped his wife. I’m not getting up. Worked me like a slave, you did.
“I gave as good as I got. Never say I forgot how to be a gentlecolt.”
Don’t care! I’ve scrubbed these floors and corrected your sums, you daft old fool. You want my company, you come where I am, you lazy snake.
Grand Pear closed his eyes, the better to hear music that wasn’t playing. Even after he’d left his daughter behind, he’d tried to relive his younger days. Jump to new tunes! Dance, jive, and foxtrot your troubles away! It was better than moping. He had to be Grand Pear. Always remain Grand Pear.
Under her breath, his wife began to sing:
I fall upon the ground, my sweet;
Don’t let me rot away.
Come bring me close, my tasteful treat;
My flesh will die someday.
Alas, he’d married her more for her fine figure and world-wielding willpower than for her crooning capabilities. Yet he remembered the song, from a time when he could click his hooves together in mid-jump and when she’d tittered, despite all her efforts to hide it behind her stern face. Yes, she’d whipped him into shape all right. What a gal! There was no firmer elbow action in all of Equestria. He couldn’t believe his luck to have found someone so forceful he’d had to race her to the marriage proposal…
Smiling, he opened his eyes and turned towards her chair.
To where he’d imagined her voice. To where she used to sit and knit as though wrestling knotted rope. To where his Cinnamon Pear should have been sitting that very night.
The empty chair did not smile back.
The stallion who used to be Grand Pear threw himself onto his hooves, dreading the crack and sting of his own knees. Who was he, this stallion with Grand Pear’s memories and Grand Pear’s attitude? Who was he now? This room had the photos of every face, as though they too used to be real ponies. Pear Blossom, Pear Squash, Pear Jam, Pickled Pear, Devilled Pear… They were still here. They had to be still here! Even if he wasn’t Grand Pear the father, the cousin, the doting uncle, the husband… even if he wasn’t him, they were still them!
He stopped pacing in front of them. How pathetic, he thought.
Yet he stared at the photograph nearest him, dared it to come to life. Cinnamon Pear. His wife had somehow managed to smile while simultaneously glaring at the camera in an “I’ll have words with you when this is over” way.
Grand Pear was other ponies. Only when he saw another face could he be himself. But it had to be a face of flesh and bright, twinkling eyes, a face he knew. Paper behind glass was killing him. These flat and lifeless imposters lied to him without speaking a word or moving at all. Everywhere he looked, faces he once knew lied to him.
He stared at Cinnamon Pear’s grouchy grimace of a grin. Seeing it frozen in a photograph didn’t help. He couldn’t imagine those lips moving.
He turned away and closed his eyes.
What are you doing, you daft imp? said her voice in his head.
For once, he didn’t reply. Words that could talk to a real Cinnamon Pear wouldn’t dare expose themselves to a phantom. Not for the shame.
Guided by memory, Grand Pear paced the room again. Anything was better than sitting down and waiting for death to fall asleep over him.
Far quieter than he was used to, his imagination whispered her words into his ticklish ear. Still think about going back, do you?
Grand Pear stopped in the middle of the room. The thoughts had swirled around in his mind at the pear factory, yes, but they’d been safely lost to all the charts and sums and boring managerial talks to the other supervisors. They weren’t supposed to be picked out like this.
“It’s impossible,” he muttered, eyes still closed but now tightening in defence. “She made her choice.” His jaw wanted to crush the onslaught of words he forced up his throat.
She got it from you, you know, continued the fake Cinnamon Pear in his head. Who rebelled against their old stallion first? At least your father took YOU back when you came crawling home.
His hooves shook. He wanted to strangle that voice, his own brain, and scream, “Are you my wife? Or are you me? How dare you say that! How would you know what my wife wants? How can anyone know what she wants now!?”
“She chose an Apple over me,” he hissed, or tried to. The venom had run dry years ago.
Over US, said his imaginary wife primly. And only because we forced her to.
“Why did she choose an Apple over me?” his mouth said, but his mind cut in: You didn’t care. You didn’t bother to ask. And once you made your grand, sweeping claim and moved away, you didn’t want to be seen backing down, because that’s who Grand Pear is.
Was.
Might still be…
Anger flared; he ground his teeth so hard the enamel cracked under the strain and the pain.
Then the fight, the old get-up-and-go, laid itself down and groaned with years. He didn’t understand. Was he angry? It felt more like he’d gone through the motions so often it was just a thoughtless habit.
“She could’ve come back to me,” he said, trying to sound reasonable.
In front of the chest of drawers, he pulled one out and rummaged through the letters of decades. He didn’t know why, except to remind himself that they were still there. Not even anger rose up to stop him; he just gave up and slammed the drawer again.
You could’ve gone back to her, said his imaginary wife.
“So could you,” he replied.
The voice hesitated. Just long enough. For a moment, he didn’t feel entirely alone. His wife had gone soft near the finish, battered down by the gentle snow of letters, day after day, year after year. Pear Butter had sent them so many, as though desperately trying to rope them into every minute of her life, as though no choice had to be made.
Grand Pear hadn’t read the first few. Vaguely, he’d felt it would be showing weakness. But as time wore on, he’d started opening them instead of chucking them away. Then he’d started keeping them.
Alongside his wife, he’d learned about his grandchildren, but he’d learned as though they were a story, or some kind of dream. Pear Butter’s reality pleaded with him through every letter.
Anger turned to disdain. Disdain turned to uncertainty. Uncertainty turned to doubt. And worst of all, doubt was trying to turn into something heavier, sharper, and more relentless and determined to kill him. Free-spirited as he’d been, he’d never let an emotion like that tie him down. Even his wife’s wedding ring hadn’t scared him; all things considered, she’d fit into his life like a long-lost partner-in-crime, the shrewd schemer to his noble thief. There were harsh reminders and stern words, but no genuine judgement.
Judgement was on his heels. In his old age, he couldn’t run like he used to. He struggled to breathe at the mere thought of it.
I was ashamed too, said the voice.
Cinnamon Pear’s frankness. Imposter or not, the frankness was more certain than her own death.
She said, My daughter made a better mother than I ever was.
Still, Grand Pear’s mind fought back, whether or not it had any actual quarrel. He couldn’t afford to be struck down.
“Didn’t she ever feel ashamed?” he said. “Regret what she did?”
Pear Butter? Don’t be stupid. You’ve read her letters. What do you think?
“I honestly don’t want to think –”
Now would be a darn good time to start, Grandy.
Grand Pear swallowed – his pride, his courage, whatever was trying to spark and ignite his voice – and shuffled back to his chair. Somehow, his wife was still there, trying to get him to think like she always did.
He looked at the empty chair. He forced himself to stare at it.
No. This voice in his head was a phony. He couldn’t tell anymore. Everything he’d loved was no longer here.
His wife’s photo. His daughter’s. Several other faces, who had moved away from Vanhoover or gotten lost among the hundreds and hundreds of strange new employees, in the shell of a business founded for fruit that lost its taste in his mouth every day. What was he doing?
There had been arguments. He’d repeatedly driven some of his family away. But had he really argued so much, with ponies who wanted more in their lives than pear jam? Was this what his old stallion had meant when he’d warned, “You’ll have kids of your own someday, Grand Pear! You mark my words!”
What was he doing? Who was he? What had happened to the real Grand Pear, somewhere in all those years and letters and arguments?
He’d killed his wife.
Not literally. But he’d seen the pain in her eyes. She’d had stern arguments with him, over going back to Ponyville to see their daughter. He’d said no. He’d shouted no. He’d demanded no. Cinnamon Pear had grown soft, and the worst part was that he felt himself going soft alongside her. It had hurt him where it hadn’t hurt before, to read about his grandchildren travelling away from their home, struggling through cider season, sharing presents at Hearth’s Warming, making friends in town, and getting their first bruises working on the farm.
Grand Pear was supposed to be too slick and quick to take a punch. Once upon a time, he would’ve been. Now, one by one, his insides started to hurt. Every punch hit harder and got further. But his pride insisted no.
That pride had said no, over and over to his wife, until every denial had weakened her and shrivelled her curls and drained her mane of colour, and he’d said no for the last time and realized far too late, when he woke up the next morning, wondering why she hadn’t opened the curtains yet… he’d realized far too late that what he’d really meant was yes.
His lips parted, shaking under effort and strain.
“I fall upon the ground, my sweet;
Don’t let me rot away.
Come bring me close, my tasteful treat;
My flesh will die someday.”
Then he sucked in a sodden breath. “I can’t go back. They’re better off if I die here. I’ll take my punishment. Celestia knows I’m overdue one, after all the reckless things I got up to.”
Don’t you dare duck and dodge this one! You are going back, said the memory of Cinnamon Pear, and you are going to face the music like a proper grown-up! Not hide here like some snivelling child.
“It’s those Apples!” he snapped back. “They bewitched Pear Butter’s mind. I always said you couldn’t trust an Apple pony with a cent, never mind anything worthwhile!”
You are going back. And don’t you take that tone with me.
“It’s that Bright Mac! He and his kin are nothing but a conceited, conniving bunch of child-snatchers. They thought just because they founded Ponyville, they could do whatever they liked –”
You. Are going. Back.
“Then it’s Granny Smith! She should’ve stopped the marriage from going ahead –” Just in time, he caught himself. If Granny Smith could be blamed for missing that, then so could he. “It was that stupid town! They put her up to it, I don’t doubt. They put crazy ideas into her head.”
Please. You used to sneak off from your home all the time, you told me! You spent half your nights in town and not sleeping on the farm. You ARE going back, Grandy. I’ll haunt you if you say no.
“Then it must be…” Grand Pear didn’t dare say his daughter’s name even as the sentence ploughed on. No. Not that. Anything but that. Once a Pear started accusing his own kin, he wasn’t a Pear anymore.
“But look,” he pleaded with the empty chair. “She couldn’t have really chosen her husband over me. Not my little girl. I raised her, I loved her, I fed her, I taught her the way of the Pears just as my old stallion taught me. My Pear Butter wouldn’t throw all that away. She wouldn’t!”
Why not? You did. We both did. We paid for it with our lives.
Grand Pear rose from his chair as though scalded. Anger refused to let any tears break through.
“That Bright Mac didn’t deserve her as his wife!” he wailed.
Read the letters again, you dolt. I did. The husband and son-in-law I read about was a fine young stallion. Bright Mac was as honest as an apple was sweet, as strong as Rockhoof, and as brave as any Royal Guard. Pear Butter thought the world of him. If he’d been born a Pear, you’d have slapped him on the back and invited him to the tavern every night.
Hopelessly, Grand Pear’s words marched off to be struck down. “But he’s no Pear! He’s a darned Apple!”
What does that make our grandchildren, then? Apples? Pears? What difference does it make now, anyway? The old squabble’s dead. Dead! Stop acting like it’s not!
Grand Pear bristled. Most of the arguments he’d had with his kin had revolved around just this squabble. He’d been sure he was right, to keep up the Pear side against those Braeburn-boasting, cider-swilling, Pink-Lady-picking lummoxes. Except that the younger Pears just didn’t care anymore: lots of Apples had married into the family by now. It wasn’t odd anymore, and no one kicked up a fuss. At the time, he’d called them traitors.
Stupid word, he thought now. I’m the traitor. I grew old. I said I’d always be a young rebel, and in the end the world rebelled against me. I was unshockable! I could’ve taken anything!
You know I’m right, said his wife’s cold voice. Quit fighting it.
The worst part was that he rebelled against himself. It was as if his own stomach rejected him, tried to bleed itself out. He felt the room around him threaten to spit him out, and staggered. As long as he kept saying no, he’d kill himself too.
He was the most hated Pear in the entire clan. Even he hated his past arrogance, his twinkling sleaze, his refusal to accept anything other than what he wanted. And he hated his future stupidity. What a sorry way for the “great” Grand Pear to end, alone and littered with mistakes he’d made by recklessly smashing his life to pieces.
A pony like that didn’t deserve a second chance.
And he would never get one. Because Pear Butter, his own daughter, a loving wife, proud mother of three worthy children, a soul so eager to keep him in the family that she’d sent letters chronicling her life story to him, and the only mare in all of Equestria who could possibly give him that second chance he so desperately craved… was no longer around to forgive anything.
He had to face his wife’s chair.
Cinnamon Pear had lost her second chance. He’d said no to her once too often. Oh, the doctors said it was simply heart failure in her sleep, and thus natural causes, but they only focused on the body, not the spirit. Once, Grand Pear could’ve seen it in her eyes.
It’s your choice to make, said her memory, without malice or compassion. Facts are facts.
Facts are facts. She always ended an argument with those words. What else could he say? Facts are facts.
Firmly, he told his mind to stop imitating her voice. Darn it but his wife wasn’t telling him what to do! He was just trying to convince himself he hadn’t killed her, and there were enough crimes on his conscience without insulting the dead. They had no choices to make.
When he dared to open his eyes, the empty chair blurred and swam. His eyes burned between shame and the melting sensitivities of old age. Manfully, he sucked in a breath, and the old spirit of Grand Pear pushed the layers of suffocating regret out of his lungs.
He spoke gently, “I’m going to surrender. No more rebellions. One last grand gesture, Cinnamon. But this time, no more moping. No more pride. No more stupidity pretending to be charm. I’m not going to die a smiling coward. I’m not dancing any more. I’m facing the music. Facts are facts. If it kills me, at least I’ll have tidied up my own sorry mess before I join the choir.”
Fear crept through his mind. Here he was, still talking to his wife as though she could hear him, not a minute after swearing he’d stop pretending! But it wasn’t like the other stupidities he’d committed. For once, he felt… right. At least this time, he wasn’t pretending all this just to avoid facing something. This time, it was helping him.
Hurrying to the drawer, he seized the first spare piece of paper he could find and managed, after much cursing and swearing, to scrounge up a pen near the back. Flashes of his daughter’s careful mouth-writing tempted him to stop and read. Instead, he slammed the drawer. He knew the whole story off by heart.
Yet he stopped. Who was he writing to? What was he writing?
To the grandchildren? To Granny Smith?
His heart wanted to destroy him from the inside out. This was madness. He’d die of shame if he ever found them. No one could face them with a heart as dangerously leaden as his own.
Briefly, he opened the drawer. He read a few letters. Maybe if he got some idea of how to say this properly…
That was what hurt him the most. His daughter had shed tears and stayed in Ponyville despite his shock at her “betrayal”, but she’d stayed loyal and written to him all the same. He’d still been loved by her, still been called kin despite what he’d said to her all those decades ago, the last time he’d seen her alive.
Finally controlling his trembles, Grand Pear made himself write.
His hasty writing blotted the page several times, but his letter was ready in hardly any time at all. The words had been waiting so long…
If his daughter still thought him worth a pip in a pear, then he’d believe her. For a moment, he imagined her sighing, as she sometimes did when he’d let her off the hook, and perhaps he imagined her presence over his shoulder, always curious about what daddy was doing.
Then Grand Pear spat out his pen. “This is ridiculous. Only a fool would write to a ghost.”
Don’t know, said the smug voice of Pear Butter, every inch her teenage self. How’d you know if ghosts can read or write, Daddy? You ask ’em?
“Har har. They wouldn’t dare come near a Pear,” he said proudly, making sure he didn’t go so far as to smirk like the old days. “Why, your old stallion would go hoof-to-hoof with Celestia herself over the old farm, and no mistake.”
You? Not with your creaky bones, Daddy!
“Although you could backtalk her to death, Pear Butter. My own father never got this much lip from me.”
Well, they say every generation is better than the old one. Amid her own tittering, Pear Butter vanished from his mind.
His old parenting days vanished along with her. This was just old age getting to him! He was talking to nothing!
Nonetheless, he picked up his pen once more. So what? Was he worth listening to?
The night wore down his eyes, his head sagged, but he kept on writing. His wife’s memory nagged him about doctor’s orders. A little embarrassment tempted him to pause. Only for a minute or so. Besides, the writing was hard-going for someone who had gotten used to hiring clerks to do it for him.
His wife’s voice nagged at the back of his mind. There and then, he knew he was the real Grand Pear. That didn’t mean he had to be the same old angry fool all his life. An old Pear could learn new tricks.
Love you, Daddy, whispered Pear Butter.
Just like she used to say before bed, and the ghostly breath of a kiss tapped his cheek gently.
Every letter ended the same way. “Lots of love, from your Pear Butter.” Over time, more names joined hers, but those seven words were always there. They pushed against the weight pressing down on his heart, never removing it, but just easing it off for long enough.
Cinnamon Pear was tapping her hoof behind him when he turned.
So you’re moving out, she murmured coldly. Without me.
He gave a winning grin. “You’re in my head now, old girl. You tell me.”
Talk to me anyway.
“All right, since I can’t shake the habit, and anyway, I’m not sure I ever want to shake it. You are my wife, one way or another. I can’t have spent fifty years happily joined to your hip without getting a bit of you inside me, now can I?”
She snorted at his “joke”. Grandy! I’ve told you about that kind of talk!
“Very well. In all seriousness, my love, you really are in my head whether you like it or not. That’s how love works. Till death do us part, I said, but no one points out it never has and never can and never will.”
Grandy! said his Cinnamon Pear warningly.
“Love! Love, my dear Cinnamon! It’s where the best of life comes from: memories, happiness, dignity, comfort, and (if I deserve it) forgiveness. Imagine if a tree fruited both pears and apples. Just because the pears have fallen out, doesn’t mean it’s not still a pear tree.”
What makes you think you deserve it? The question held no malice or doubt. Cinnamon Pear had been a very serious pony.
Grand Pear’s bravado nodded back and sank down a little. “I don’t know. I’ve wasted the pear harvest. I might have a chance with the apples.”
It’s your choice, she continued, and now her voice threatened to quaver more than old age could account for. Are you choosing Ponyville over our home?
Grand Pear sagged. Another choice.
He’d been thinking it. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it. He took one last look around a home he’d rooted fifty years of his life in. Dozens of photos, meant to stay here. A story that had grown on this soil, whether or not it should have been planted.
The home of his wife.
He saw her tears. In his mind, he wiped them away. His real hoof stayed put.
“There was never really a choice,” he said gently. “I never should have forced one.”
Stay here with me, she pleaded. I’m here!
“I promise I will come and visit you. If I can find a friendly face, I can keep this old place lived-in. Maybe one of our grandchildren will want it. But I’m needed in Ponyville first. We’ve got roots to go back to.”
Don’t leave me behind!
“You’re coming with me, you silly old biddy!” Grand Pear suppressed a chuckle and carefully placed a hoof over his heart. “Didn’t I explain? You’re wherever I go. Besides, I said there was never really a choice.”
Despite her tears, the ghost – the memory – the only remaining Cinnamon Pear in his life stood before him, and she bore the burden grimly on her wrinkled face. If she’d been military, she would’ve saluted. Even now, she had her old bones regimented rank and file through sheer discipline.
I wish I’d said no to you before, she admitted, trying to sound as though this were a minor nuisance on her otherwise spotless record. I’d have loved to see ‘Big Mac’ and Applejack and Apple Bloom in the flesh.
“I know. And you’d tell them to tidy their rooms, wouldn’t you?”
If they were messy.
Grand Pear let the chuckle through this time. Why resist the chance to redo your own youth, after all? Besides, he’d had cause to frogmarch Pear Butter up to her room and make her put her guitar and books away before dinner. Some traditions were worth keeping.
“If I remember to check their rooms, I’ll do it on your behalf,” he said. “Deal?”
Why are you still talking to me? she said suspiciously. I thought you were giving these ‘delusions’ up out of respect. She sniffed at this, and it was a mighty fine sniff indeed. Canterlot ponies snorting couldn’t have matched her for sheer hauteur.
“They’re not delusions. I know you’re not really here. It just… helps me.”
Helps you to remember, or helps you to forget?
Grand Pear winced. “Helps me to be me.”
And, he thought, if I am going mad, I might as well go all out.
Nearby, he imagined his young Pear Butter once more, sitting in the empty chair this time and accompanied by her old guitar, the one that he’d handed down from his father to her. She’d played the thing the same way a muse inspired a mortal; Grand Pear had taught her the old songs, and the master wasn’t a patch on the student. Every twang had made – did make him smell the heady petals from his old Ponyville farm, and every sung syllable brought back the crunch of pear pie crust his own mother used to bake for him.
Under her breath, his daughter began to sing:
I fall upon the ground, my sweet;
Don’t let me rot away.
Come bring me close, my tasteful treat;
My flesh will die someday.
“Madam?” With the old flourish, Grand Pear offered his hoof to his wife’s memory. It was far more wrinkled than the last time he’d tried this, but under the skin, an old passion roared in triumph. “May I have the honour of this dance?”
After staring a little too long – as usual – Cinnamon Pear shrugged and reached forwards. If he closed his eyes, Grand Pear could feel the warmth of his never-forgotten wife draw close enough to breathe on his own nose.
And the unseen Pear Butter sang on:
My flesh becomes your flesh, my love;
My seeds need love to grow.
Please let me cast my leaves above
And spread roots down below.
But the time we have to harvest wanes
When summer turns to fall.
We’ll dance among the leaves and rain;
My love, we’ll have a ball!
Tis a shame, my dear, but from the frost,
This old tree will never stand.
Yet its seed will spring, no love is lost,
Colour grows upon the land.
And though our flesh was what it cost,
It’s reborn as something grand…
Grand Pear did not dance with his living wife that night. In any case, he’d done his best dancing years ago.
Yet for a moment, as he twirled and spun around the room, and as he heard the laughter of his young Cinnamon and the music of his daughter and the clapping, stamping, cheering chaos of the family hoedowns he thought had gone forever from him, he was sent back to his youth by the song of an angel. And there was enough of his wife with him for the old twinkle to return in her eyes.
