It was still too early in November to be called winter. The leaves still had their vibrant orange brown colors, and the fall breeze hadn't quite chilled yet.
Applejack stood at the base of the porch steps, her breath coming out in short puffs of air. Though the colder weather hadn't come, it was still a chilly morning. She shivers, her arms reflexively going to her orange coat sleeves.
She let out a sigh before trudging on, her work boots crunching at the ground beneath her. It was no more than 7 am, Mac just stirring for the work day ahead and letting Bloom sleep in for a while before getting her up for school.
Granny was probably up now too, cooking her famous buttermilk biscuits and crispy Applewood bacon.
Applejack’s stomach growled at the thought. She hesitated, slightly turning as if to make the motion to go back inside.
But she did not.
For she had a job to do.
Getting in her pick up, she pushed a dirty blonde strand of hair out of her face and started the truck. The engine hummed to life and she quickly turned the heat to warm the cabin up. To make herself feel less lonely, she turned on the radio, humming to a song she only knew through Pinkie Pie.
As she turned onto the main road that lead into town, Applejack’s shoulders slumped. She hadn't really gotten any sleep the night before, and getting up this early didn't help.
Her first stop was the florist. The flower shop in Ponyville run by Rose Luck and her sisters. They grew the best flowers in town, and Applejack didn't doubt for a second that they probably had the best in the county.
Parking in the parking lot, Applejack got out and stretched, before heading inside the small colorful shop. A bell above her head signaled her arrival, and a older woman looked up and smiled.
"Ah, Applejack. I have those white roses you asked for. " she greeted as the aforementioned girl walked up to the counter where she was.
"Thank ya kindly Miss Rose. They still as pretty as they used to be?" Applejack asked, pushing her hat up with her thumb.
"Yes, just like always." Rose Luck responded, going over to a fridge and pulling out a beautiful bouquet of bright white roses. She handed them to the farm girl and smiled. "If you don't mind me asking, what's the special occasion?" She prodded.
Applejack took the bouquet from her and sighed. "They're for someone special." She explained, almost stiffly.
Rose Luck laughed. "Well, I sure do hope your someone special likes those roses as much as you do." She told her, ringing her up.
Applejack felt a twinge of pain. "Yeah," she breathed, reaching into her pocket for her wallet. "Me too."
The grumbling of her stomach got the best of her, and she winded up at Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie greeted her with a bright smile. Almost too bright for this early in the morning.
"Hiya Jackie!" She called, bouncing over to the counter.
Applejack leaned over it. "Hey, Pinkie." She greeted back dully. She was still a little tired and the day ahead of her wasn't looking too cheerful.
"What brings you here so early?" Pinkie was always one for keeping the conversation going, even when the situation didn't really require it. She was that one cashier at the supermarket that always asks you more about your life than she needs to. Simply put, Pinkie was not letting you go until she knew everything about you. Especially when you were not in a happy mood. The girl could pick up on emotions better than a mood ring.
Applejack reached up and scratched behind her ear. "Jus' some breakfast. Had ta wake up early an' couldn't stay for Granny's grits." Her stomach grumbled in agreement.
Pinkie laughed. "Alright, two donuts, a hash brown, and a large apple cinnamon latte coming up!" She copied down on a notepad. After doing so, she told Applejack to have a seat.
"Sorry ta disappoint ya Pinkie. I would love ta sit an' talk, but I gotta be hittin' the road. It'd be much appreciated if ya made this to go." Applejack gave her an apologetic look.
Pinkie shrugged and smiled brightly, before giving Applejack a sad nod. "Yeah, it's cool. I understand." She packed everything in a brown paper bag and handed Applejack her drink. "See you later, Jack!" She called.
"Yep!" Applejack shouted back to her, backing out the door with a slight nod of her head. And with that, she was gone. Out into the parking lot, then in her car and driving down the street.
Pinkie sighed, looking up at the calendar beside the phone hanging on the wall. She smiled sadly, staring at the now closed door. "It's the fourth. Oh, the poor thing. She must be devastated."
The ride to the cemetery wasn't long, but for Applejack it felt like an eternity. Her stomach sank as it came into view. The food she had just eaten threatened to come back up. "C'mon Jack, they would want you to do this." She mumbled, the words of encouragement barely helping.
She picked up the white roses that had been laying delicately on the passenger seat next to her and stared at them. Her vision became blurred for a moment before she pulled herself together. Slamming the car door, she put her Stetson on and crossed the green.
She knew the way from memory. She had come lots of times a few months after. She had stopped going to school for while, stopped talking too. The first time she came back, she was dragged by Granny. She could remember it like it was yesterday.
“Why do we have to come back here? Ah don’t like this place.” Applejack sobbed as her grandmother pulled her towards the two freshly filled graves at the end of the green.
“Because it’s time you saw them again.” Granny Smith told her, squeezing her hand. “Yer gonna have to learn sooner or later people don’t live forever.”
“But Ah’m only nine. I shouldn’t be thinkin’ ‘bout this kinda stuff.” Applejack responded. It had begun to rain, the weather making the cemetery look even more eerie and unsettling than before. Something about cemeteries didn’t sit right with Applejack. Maybe it was the quietness of it, or the being surrounded by thousands of dead people part. She couldn’t put her finger on it.
Granny said nothing to her, and instead, the two walked in silence as the they approached the two tombstones. Granny pushed Applejack to stand in front of them, but not before handing her a bouquet of white roses. “They were yer mama’s favorite.” She had told her. “Your papa used ta get them fer her all the time.”
The funeral had been months ago. Four, maybe five. Applejack couldn’t remember. All she knew was that her life changed the day it was Granny who had picked her and Mac up from school. She refused to go after the funeral. She saw no point. Yeah, they were both there. But then, they weren’t.
Her papa wasn’t there to swing her around and put her on his big, strong, shoulders.
Her mama wasn’t there to comb the loose strands of blonde hair out her face and tell her how pretty she was and how beautiful she would be when she would grow up.
Just two identical tombstones with Joseph and Justina Apple, Beloved Parents to Applejack, Applebloom, and Mac Apple written on them. It hurt her to even look. She glanced back at Granny, whose face was covered by the black umbrella in her hand. She turned back to the tombstones and placed some of the flowers on both.
And for the first time in months, she cried.
Her mind was now back in the present, the muscle no longer being clouded by memory. She guessed she had been walking without thinking, because when her vision came back into focus she was once again in front of the twin slabs of granite.
She hadn’t been here in a while. She usually came with Applebloom, telling her stories about what life was like before she was born. Sometimes they would go out at night and look at the two stars in the sky, the ones Granny told them was their Mama and Papa, looking down at them, watching them grow.
By the time Applejack was in high school she knew that was nonsense, but kept believing for Applebloom’s sake. Applebloom was just a baby when they died, having blurry memory of their faces that sometimes became clear with the help of old family photos. Applejack felt sorry for her younger sister. She never got to fully be loved by their parents.
“Applebloom misses ya’ll.” She finally said, scratching her neck. “She wishes ya’ll could see her now.” Applejack looked around to see if anyone was nearby, or listening. When she was sure there wasn’t, she continued.
“Ah miss ya’ll.” Her voice croaked, and tears began to fall even against her best effort. She laughed a little. “Ah promised Ah wouldn’t cry.” She said, smiling a bit.“Guess I’ve always been a bad liar, huh?”
She was met with silence, just like she always was.
“Ah still got your hat, Papa. Wear it all the time. Course, Ah can never pull it off as good as you did.” Did. The word rung in her ears like a siren. She sniffed, her whole chest hiccuping.
She let out a shaky breath. “Granny says Ah’m startin’ to look like you, Papa. She says Ah’m just as stubborn as ya too.” She wiped her face with her sleeve. “AB looks just like you, Mama. She laugh just like you too.”
Some foolish part of her wanted to hear something, anything. Her mother’s angelic voice, her father’s infectious laugh, just, something. But what she got was a cold hard serving of nothing. Just like all the other times she came to talk to them.
As if on cue, it started to drizzle, and Applejack knew she didn’t have much time before the real rain started. “Guess Ah gotta make this quick then, huh?” She asked, running her hand along the length of both tombstones.
She pulled out the bouquet of white roses and split it, just like she always did. She knelt down and gave some roses to her father, and then the rest to her mother. She laughed a little. “Sorry Pa, Ma really loves those things.” She touched both of them again, before getting up from her squatting position.
Thunder rolled up in the sky above. Applejack tipped her hat, took one last glance, and then turned on her heel and left. As she walked back towards her pick up, something her mother had told her when she was younger flashed in her head.
“Love is like a rose, sugarcube. When pressed between two lifetimes, it will last forever.”
Author's Note
I had started this one in September, never finishing it because I didn't know where I wanted to go with it. But recently, on Monday, last Monday, one my best friends took his own life. He messaged me that morning, and by the afternoon he was gone. So, in honor of him, I finished this. Please, if anyone or if you are suffering from suicidal thoughts please get help. Or if you need someone to talk to, you can talk to me. Well, I hope you guys liked this. And if he was here, I hope he would've liked it too. Rest in peace, Ian. <3
