...So Mothers, Be Good to Your Daughters, Too
There was less food to go around with three ponies at the table, up from two. You'd think there'd be more conversation, to balance things out, but the only ones who did any of the talking were Bright Mac, and...
Bright Mac's wife.
Granny had a plate with a tall stack of apple fritter flapjacks, slathered in praline and topped with a half-melted pat of butter. The stack blocked Pear Butter, seated opposite her at the table, from view, but her voice came through loud and clear, as did her conversation with Mac.
"Oh, the bayou's great, Buttercup!" Mac was telling her. "I know it don't sound like much—"
"It really don't sound like much!" Pear Butter's voice had this fluttery quality that made her every word sound like a song. Easy enough to see why Mac fell for her. "I mean, ain't there monsters livin' 'round there? Seems like you'd risk bumpin' into somethin' nasty jus' steppin' outside your door."
"We live smack next t'the Everfree Forest," Granny muttered to her flapjacks. "How many monsters you bump into in yer life, Pear?"
She bit off a hunk of a flapjack, chewing slowly.
Mac was seated to Granny's left, and she could see his expression change as she spoke out. He laughed, and it sounded as nervous as his face looked. "Yeah, uh... but besides that, the swamp folk keep the place safe. They're tough folk – they gotta be, livin' where they are. Good customers, too; they go crazy for our apple pies. They'll have the place nice 'n safe by the time me an' my wagon roll up."
There was a pause. Then Pear, sounding a mite anxious, said, "So yer not gonna get gobbled up by a monster, then?"
Mac's laugh was gentler this time. "Never in a million years, Buttercup, I promise."
"I believe you. Really." The conversation lulled for a moment as she chewed and swallowed some of her breakfast. "I still wish I was comin' with."
"I do too. But..."
Pear picked up his thought. "Yeah, I know. But I still wish you didn't have to go alone, even if I can't come along. Why can't, uh... "
She hesitated.
"Why doesn't your ma go with?"
Granny's teeth ground together so hard she swore she chipped a crown.
Mac, big talkative palooka that he was, fumbled around for his words before he found an answer to his wife's question. "Ah, we used to go together, back when I was a colt, an' she was showin' me the ropes o'the business. But that was when we had other folks workin' the farm. Nowadays, it's just us, so... someone's gotta stay behind, right?"
It was certainly a better answer than Granny's joints give out easier than they used to, and she can't stand the trip no more. Not a bad save.
Pear Butter replied, "But I'm here, ain't I? I can hold down the fort while y'all are out."
It wasn't a good enough save, either.
"Y'know, it ain't polite to be talkin' 'bout other ponies like they ain't in the room," Granny chided. "Taught you better'n that, Bright McIntosh."
"Sorry, Ma." Bright Mac coughed awkwardly. "Y'know, uh, I really oughta be headin' out. Long road ahead, an' all that."
"...Yeah." Pear Butter's voice sounded weaker. "Sorry you didn't get t'finish breakfast."
Mac's gaze turned toward his bride, and he watched her, thoughtfully, for a silent moment. Then, with a glint in his eye, he said, "Buttercup?"
"Mm?"
He moved in a single motion, too quick for Granny's eye. Bright Mac opened his jaws impossibly wide, whipped his tongue out, snatched the entire stack of flapjacks off his plate, and slid them into his mouth like a frog. He chewed, swallowed, and grinned.
Pear Butter laughed. "Bright McIntosh, that is— that is just— disgusting! No, don't you c'mere an' kiss me; you got pancake mouth, you big— mmm...!"
Her protests didn't stop Bright Mac from kissing her – and she didn't try to stop him, either. Thankfully, the pancakes on Granny's plate blocked her view.
She rolled her eyes anyway.
The legs of Pear Butter's chair scraped against the floorboards as she rose from the table. "At least lemme see you off, 'kay?"
"Wouldn't dream of sayin' no." Mac paused by Granny's seat to kiss her on the cheek. "See you in a few days, Ma."
"Don't get'cher hiney munched on, boy."
Mac lingered at his mother's side, and leaned into her ear, dropping his voice to a whisper. "An' don't do too much at once, y'hear?"
Granny pulled away, glaring at him. "I'll take things real slow, son."
The newlyweds trotted past Granny, Pear nudging Mac's flank with her own as they went. "You gotta teach me t'open my mouth that big someday, y'hear?"
"Y'sure? It ain't easy t'learn. Gonna be years 'fore you master it, too."
"I got time," Pear Butter said. "An' you got the rest o'your life t'teach me."
Mac chuckled, his voice growing distant. "Guess I do, at that."
With the youngers gone, Granny ate alone in the kitchen, stewing and chewing in silence.
Eeypup. My boy's spendin' the rest o'his life cleaved to the fruit of Grand Pear's loins. Ain't that a grand notion.
Her teeth scraped together, awkwardly, making her wince.
Think I chipped that crown after all.
She ate, alone, until Pear Butter returned. "Mac's off on his way," she said, as she took up her seat at the table again.
Granny swallowed a bite and grunted a half-hearted response. She'd eaten enough of her flapjacks by then that she could see Pear Butter at the other end of the table, if she troubled to look up. Not that there was any reason to – she knew what Mac's wife looked like already.
"Hey, Granny?"
"Mm?"
"Jus' wonderin'..." Pear Butter's voice was small and meek. "Think I could grab some caramel syrup for these flapjacks?"
"Don't got any," Granny replied curtly.
"...We don't?"
Granny looked up, narrowing her eyes at Pear – the filly'd given a reason to be looked at, after all. "We don't."
"Oh." Pear Butter bit her lip. "What about the stuff you dip apples in? When you make them caramel apples, I mean, like on Nightmare Night. I thought, maybe I could try puttin' that on my flapjacks—"
"That's fer caramel apples. Not flapjacks." Granny's hoof found the praline jar, and she gave it a shove, sliding it across the table toward Pear Butter. "We got praline fer flapjacks."
The jar skidded to a stop by Pear Butter's plate; the younger mare looked down at it, uncertainly.
Granny's eye twitched. "There a problem?"
"Just that, um..." Pear Butter combed a hoof through that bushy mass of curls she called a mane, blushing. "I always preferred caramel syrup on my flapjacks."
"Well, these are apple fritter flapjacks. Eat 'em with praline, or eat 'em dry." Granny tucked back into her own breakfast, muttering between bites. "Caramel syrup on apple fritter flapjacks, of all the ridiculous..."
Despite herself, Granny did glance back up at Pear Butter. She'd gone back to eating, staring listlessly at Bright Mac's empty seat while she dug into her flapjacks.
The praline jar was untouched.
The strain of the day's work sent Granny to bed early that night, after a long soak in the bath to soothe her muscles. Work didn't go away just because she was tired, though, so she rose early the next morning, hoping to get a head start on another day of apple bucking.
Sunrise was a dull red smear in the distance when she rolled out of bed, and the light in Mac's room – the room he now shared with his wife – was out. Taking care not to wake her, Granny crept downstairs, fixed herself a bowl of cold oats, and was out the door and into the orchard, under the fading watch of the Mare in the Moon.
Her body ached, despite the soak and the extra rest, and the pre-dawn chill wasn't helping her creaky joints any. It vexed her something awful. In her girlhood, she could work her legs from dawn to dusk, and not feel a thing in the morning, but old age was creeping up on her, and she found herself shuffling more and more of that work onto Bright Mac as the years ran on. Of course, he was out of town, and wouldn't be back for days, meaning she needed to pick up the slack, if Sweet Apple Acres was gonna keep up with the harvest.
Part of her was tempted to roust out Pear Butter, and put her to work in the orchard. It was a very, very small part, though, and one Granny wouldn't listen to. Granny didn't mind Pear Butter pitching in with household chores or yardwork, but the orchards were the heart and soul of Sweet Apple Acres, and Pear Butter was...
A shudder ripped through Granny.
She's Grand Pear's daughter. She's Bright Mac's wife, and Grand Pear's daughter.
Maybe a day would come when those two notions wouldn't knock up against each other in her brain. But it wasn't gonna be that day, and it wasn't gonna be anytime soon.
Granny ate her words the moment she saw the those peach-colored hindquarters stickin' out from the canopy of the tallest tree in the apple orchard.
"Pear Butter?!"
Pear Butter'd propped a ladder up against the trunk, and climbed to the top to get at the apples on the highest branches; a partially filled bucket rested at its base, among the roots. At the sound of Granny's voice, though, she climbed back down, holding an apple by its stem in her mouth. She spat the apple into the bucket, and smiled at Granny.
"Mornin'!" the filly chirped. A stray leaf poked out from between her front teeth. "Sorry if I woke you this mornin' – I was up pretty early, an' I couldn't get back to sleep, so I thought I'd get out here and get a head start pickin' apples."
"A... head start." Granny shook her head, incredulous. "On pickin' my apples. In my orchard."
"Er... yeah." Pear seemed to notice the leaf in her teeth, then, because her tongue darted out and licked it free. "You don't mind, do you?"
Granny remained stock-still and silent as she stared witheringly at Pear Butter.
"Guess that answers that." Pear shrank back, her smile fading. "I'm sorry. I didn't think it'd be a problem."
"Did anypony say you could work the orchard?"
Pear Butter pawed at the earth bashfully. "I mean... Bright Mac an' I—"
"He ain't here, an' it ain't his decision, besides. So, not only are you doin' a job you weren't asked to do, you ain't doin' it right." Granny sucked her teeth. "Apples ain't pears; they ain't delicate. Y'don't pick 'em one by one; you buck the tree, and shake 'em loose all at once."
"Tried that, actually," Pear Butter mumbled. She stepped aside, and gestured at the trunk, at a series of shallow, half-moon gouges in the bark. "I, uh, don't really got a knack fer it, though – couldn't get any loose. Mac's always talkin' 'bout showin' me how it's done—"
"He ain't here," Granny repeated testily.
"No, he ain't." Pear took a deep breath, and held it for a moment. "But, um... I'd still like to help out, if you'd have me. Not jus' with the little chores, but the big stuff, too, like apple pickin'. Maybe you could show me how to buck?"
Granny opened her mouth to respond, but the request had caught her off guard, and she didn't have a response in mind. She stared, dumbly, at Mac's wife, as a flicker of warmth sputtered to life in the pit of her stomach.
Then golden sunlight crested the horizon, and a thin slat fell onto Pear Butter's cutie mark – at the jar that gave the girl her name.
The flicker of warmth guttered out.
"I got a whole day's work ahead of me – I can't be holdin' yer hoof while I'm at it. Bright Mac can teach you when he comes home."
She brushed past Mac's wife to reach the tree and pulled the ladder down.
Pear Butter didn't quit, however. "But wouldn't the work go faster if you had an extra set of hooves? I mean, jus' showin' me how it's done couldn't set you back by that much, could it? An' I wanna help out; I swear I wanna help out. You looked so tired when you went to bed last night that—"
Granny's frigid glare silenced Pear Butter. "You listen here, young filly. I don't need yer help – I don't need anypony's help – to clear my orchard. Any Apple gal worth her saltlick could buck every apple from every tree in this here orchard, on her lonesome, an' don't you dare say otherwise!"
With that, Granny reared up, and cracked the tree trunk, hard, with both hind hooves. Apples rained from above, piling into the bucket 'til they spilled over the rim.
"That's how it's done." Granny eased her hind hooves back to the ground, clenching her jaw hard to fight back the pain that ran through her right hip. "Now git. I don't care what you do with today, jus' git."
And Pear Butter did just that, shouldering the ladder, and setting off back to the house without another word.
As soon as she was gone, Granny slumped over, and rubbed her aching hip.
"Eeyup," she said to herself, in a thin and brittle voice. "You still got it, Smith." She moved her leg experimentally, and felt a creaking sensation in her bones and her joints.
Maybe not fer too much longer, though.
The work that day didn't get any easier.
Every tree that Granny bucked gave up its yield with a single blow. That was a point of pride for her. But every kick she landed sent ripples of pain through her joints and up her spine, and deep, deep into her muscles, and every tree bucked wore her down just a little bit more. Before she'd cleared even a fraction of the orchard, she was spent for the morning, trudging back toward the farmhouse for a lunch break that came hours earlier than it should've.
The mouthwatering scent of cinnamon greeted Granny, as she stepped into her home. Indeed, her mouth did water, even as her stomach twisted with irrational annoyance.
I swear to Celestia, Pear Butter...
She made her way into the kitchen and threw open the door, scowling. As expected, she found Pear Butter hunched over that newfangled gas stove, stirring a pot with a wooden spoon.
"What are you up to now?"
Pear stiffened at Granny's voice, spat the spoon onto the countertop, and backed away on unsteady hooves. "Sorry fer the mess. I thought I'd surprise you with lunch, but you're back earlier than I thought you'd be."
Granny's eyes narrowed.
"Er..." Pear was sweating – probably from the heat of the stove, but Granny liked to imagine that her gaze just made the girl that nervous. "Not that I'm implyin' you got, uh, winded, or worn out, from workin' the orchard, an' had to knock off, or nothin'..."
She trailed off as Granny pushed past her, to inspect the stove.
There was a pan beside the pot, its surface coated with a thin, brown syrup. Shriveled sticks of cinnamon, and tiny black clusters that might've been cloves, were scattered around the syrup like driftwood. Inside the pot were four peeled apples, yellowish spheres bobbing around in gently bubbling water.
"Fer cryin' out loud," Granny growled. She poked one of the apples with the tip of a filthy hoof, and watched the dirt spread out into the water. "Perfectly good apple, an' you went an' ruined it. What in tarnation are you even doin' here?"
She'd been muttering to herself, more than to Pear Butter. The girl, knowing no better, answered anyway. "I'm poachin' them. Poachin' the apples."
Granny turned, and looked flatly at Pear. "You don't poach an apple, girl."
Pear Butter crossed her hooves, nervously rubbing her fetlocks together. "Um... why not?"
Granny's eyes widened. "Say that again?"
"Why not? Why don't you poach apples?" She was talking back, but she didn't sound all that insolent – more curious, than anything else. "Is there a reason you don't? Am I doin' somethin' wrong here? Tell me if I am; I wanna do right by you, Granny."
"You... you don't poach apples." Granny took a step forward. "You don't poach apples. You bake 'em, you dry 'em, you slice 'em up an' put 'em into pies, you mash 'em up an' make apple butter, you dip 'em in caramel – you do all kinds'a things with 'em, but you don't poach them."
Pear Butter looked her squarely in the eye. "You aren't sayin' why not."
"You— but— that's— it ain't done, girl!" Granny sputtered. "It just ain't done! Generations an' generations of Apples have cooked apples all kinds'a diff'rent ways, but they ain't never poached 'em, and we ain't about to start doin' it! That's reason enough, innit? That should be reason enough for you, shouldn't it?!"
"I..." Pear Butter glanced quickly, nervously, between the stove and Granny. "I jus' wanted to do somethin' nice fer you. My ma an' me used to poach pears this way, so I thought 'bout tryin' it with apples—"
"Pears ain't apples!" Granny pounded the floorboards, hard, making Pear jump back in shock. "An' apples ain't pears! You can't treat one like it's the other; you can't make it somethin' it's not! It ain't never gonna be more'n what it is! Do you understand?!"
"...I understand." Pear was trembling, her eyes dewey, with a wet quaver in that fluttery singer's voice of hers.
Granny felt something twist in her gut as she watched the filly shrink away from her. She tried to ignore that rotten feeling, shove it deep down, and lifted her hoof from the sizable dent she'd knocked in the floor. Immediately, she cringed at the pain that shot through her whole leg, almost doubling over.
...Dang. She forced herself to stand tall, and rested her weight upon it, before turning to leave the kitchen. Shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have...
She misjudged her own strength, rested too much on the leg, and fell forward.
Aw, this ain't goin' well.
Behind her, Pear Butter rose – she could hear her shifting on the floor, her hooves clopping against the wood. Granny was about to tell the girl off, thinking she was moving to help her. Instead, she heard metal scrape on metal, as she moved the pots and pans from the stove.
"I can't do anything right fer you," Pear Butter mumbled. "Stupid of me to try."
Granny shut her eyes, thinking about that hole in the floor, and sighed. "I'm sorry fer snappin'. I jus— we got a way of doin' things, an—"
"An' I gotta learn that, right? If I'm gonna stay under your roof, be married to your son, I gotta do things your way don't I?" Pear Butter laughed bitterly. "But yer not gonna like me, anyway, so why does it matter so much?"
She choked back another snotty laugh. "Doin' the chores ain't good enough. Cookin', cleanin', tryin' to pick apples – that ain't good enough. Givin' up my family ain't good enough, an' I ain't good enough for your family. Nothin' I do is good enough, and I'm not good enough anyway, so why does it matter what I do, huh? Huh?!"
Granny heard the pots and pans flung against the floor, the noisy, metallic clatter of them striking the wood. She turned, and saw Pear Butter alone among a puddle of syrup, and water, and half-poached apples.
"I don't have a daddy anymore," she sobbed. "But I thought, after the wedding, I thought that maybe I'd have a mother, that that'd make everything okay. But you... you're never gonna see it like that. Best I can be is Bright Mac's wife."
"Pear..." Granny gathered her legs beneath herself, staying off her still-throbbing front limb. "I mean... if it means that much t'you, we can always try again with the poached—"
"Who cares about the stupid apples?!" Tears streamed openly down her cheeks. "I'm pregnant, Granny Smith!"
Granny's eyes flew open, the wind sucked out of her lungs.
...Oh.
Pear Butter, receiving no response – no spoken response – shriveled back and wept, among her rapidly cooling, unfinished lunch.
Granny, a little numb, forced herself to move. Keeping her affected hoof off the floor minimized the pain, though she still felt it throb with every step she took. She reached the stove and twisted the knobs, shutting off the gas. Then she leaned her weight against it, examining the refuse from Pear's preparations: the coils of apple peels, the soiled measuring cups, the slotted spoon she'd been stirring with...
She worked her jaw thoughtfully. "How long've you known?"
Pear Butter sniffled. "...I started thinkin' I was a couple weeks after the weddin'. I didn't know 'til jus' the other day."
"That's why Mac didn't want you to tag along? To the bayou?"
"Yeah. I mean, he did, but... long trips ain't the best fer expectin' mothers, he said."
"Mm." Granny closed her eyes. "This, uh... this something y'all were plannin' fer?"
"We've been... tryin'... 'bout as long as we've been married." Granny could all but hear the blush in Pear Butter's voice. "An' we've been talkin' 'bout it, too, so... yeah. We want it."
Granny exhaled. She turned away from the stove to look at Pear Butter; the girl was tracing a hoof over her belly. When she realized Granny was staring, she looked up, blinking.
"You haven't heard from your Pa, yet, have you?" Granny said softly.
Pear shook her head – there were droplets of water, and syrup, in her bushy mane, and the motion flung particles of both in all directions. "I write him every day, but he never writes back – an' sometimes the letters jus' come back, unopened. I... I wrote him as soon as I knew I was pregnant, but I don't know if he'll..."
Granny pursed her lips and nodded. Then she stepped forward, knelt beside Pear, righted the upturned bucket, and started gathering the apples she'd spilled.
"Your, uh, poached pear recipe don't call fer flingin' the apples on the ground, I imagine," she said.
Pear Butter sniffed, and giggled wetly. "Nah... I botched that, I think."
"Well... lesson learned, I s'pose." She eyed the dent she'd knocked in the floor – the unfinished syrup was oozing into it. That'd take some work to fix. "Y'know, your pa..."
Granny paused in her work, and Pear, expectantly, listened.
"...I weren't always called 'Granny Smith,' y'know. 'Smith Apple,' that's the name I got when I was born." She felt the knot return to her gut. "Your pa, he was the first one t'call me 'Granny.' Weren't long after he an' his family moved in an' started up their own farm – straightaway, he thought it was a right hoot an' a holler t'call me 'Granny Smith.' Said that I—"
"—was sourer than a Zap Apple jam jar full'a stale granny piss?"
Granny Smith looked up, aback.
"He liked to say that. A lot. To us, around the dinner table." Pear Butter blushed and dipped her head. "Ma, she'd yell at him fer it. An' I always thought it was pretty low, too."
"Your ma always was a decent pony. More'n your pa." Granny shook her head. "Anyhow, he started callin' me that, an' soon, it was all anypony 'round town'd call me. 'Cept fer – heh – we had this stick-in-the-mud from out Dodge Junction way, name o'Hickory Switch, an' she was the one pony he couldn't get t'call me that. 'Cuz she was—"
"A stuck-up ol' biddy who jus' hadn't gone gray yet?" Pear looked up, smiling shyly. "He liked to talk 'bout her too."
He called her that to her face, once, Granny almost added. She didn't care for it. Don't think they ever got his jaw quite the way it used to be, after that.
"Moral of the story is... your pa has a funny way o'gettin' on other ponies' bad sides. Never really grew out of it." Granny coughed to clear her throat. "He ain't the most likable of ponies – an' he's stubborn, real stubborn, about it. But, uh... I don't gotta tell you that, I guess."
"You don't." Pear sighed. "But he's my daddy. I love him. Even if he don't love me no more."
Her voice almost broke as she looked into Granny's eyes.
"An' more than anything, I want my foal to know her family. Her whole family. I jus' don't know if they're gonna want to know her back."
Granny cracked a smile. "'Her' family?"
Pear Butter blushed. "We have a feelin'. Bright Mac an' I. First one's gonna be a girl."
First one. She really was in it for the long haul, wasn't she?
"Sugarcube, I won't lie to you," Granny said. "I don't know what's goin' on in yer pa's head. I wanna tell you that he'll come 'round, but... us older folk, we get set in our ways. There jus' ain't no changin' our minds sometimes."
Pear bit her lip, nodding. "What about you?"
Granny swallowed, and looked at Pear – and tried as hard as she could not to see Grand Pear's daughter.
"Your girl's gonna have a home here. An' a family, too." She reached out to cup Pear Butter's cheek. "Jus' as sure as you do."
Pear smiled, and leaned into the touch.
"By the by, Pear— or, uh... Buttercup. That's what my son calls you, right? You mind if I...?"
Pear— Buttercup giggled. "Please do."
"Buttercup." The name brought another smile to Granny's lips, mirroring her daughter-in-law's. "That thing Mac said, about 'expecting mothers' and 'long trips?'"
"Uh-huh?"
"That's a load o'horseapples. I made that same trip when I was full to burstin' with him, an' I was no worse fer wear. Even wrassled a chimera, an' won. Don't be 'fraid t'call him on stuff like that, y'hear?"
Buttercup laughed.
"Whatever you say, Gran..." She paused, and shook her head. "Whatever you say, Mom."
That flickering little warmth sprung up in Granny's belly again. The word didn't quite sound natural in Buttercup's voice, but she could see herself getting used to it.
An', shoot, she thought, as she mused on the life quickening in Buttercup's womb. Maybe I oughta thank Grand Pear for gettin' me used to "Granny."
Someday. Maybe.
