The First Time, Chapter 8
Title: The First Time
Rating: R
A/N: There were a lot of things they didn't give us in the final season, scenes that were needed but ignored. But I still can't quite believe we never got something along these lines. In my mind, it goes without saying that Pepa would make this visit.
Read Chapter 1 here
Read Chapter 2 here
Read Chapter 3 here
Read Chapter 4 here
Read Chapter 5 here
Read Chapter 6 here
Read Chapter 7 here
Chapter 8
The first time she visits Silvia’s grave, a week has passed since she’s been back.
It’s a bright beautiful day, and Pepa’s standing in the sun, on legs that are threatening to give way at any second. She’s a few feet from the grave, and she cannot seem to get any closer.
It’s an elegant headstone, next to a big shady tree. Pepa knows that Lola picked it out, and Pepa thinks Silvia would approve. Her name is etched into the stone, and below it is written “Beloved daughter, sister, and wife.” Pepa reads the words and again nearly drops to her knees as something twists inside her. She can barely breathe.
“Hi, Princess,” she whispers. “I’ve missed you. So much. I-”
But she can’t continue. She’s never felt terribly comfortable with words, though Silvia used to tell her she was better with them than most. (“I was ready to run for the hills when we first got together,” she’d said one time. “And you, you made me believe it would be okay. Because of your words in that hangar, I knew I couldn’t walk away from you.”) But she’s not sure.
Pepa reaches up and tucks her hair behind her ear.
“I don’t know what to say, Silvia,” she says. She wants to go closer, but she can’t seem to do that either. “I’m just…I think I’m going to just stand here, if that’s okay with you. Unless you have a better idea. In which case, I’m sure you’ll let me know.” Pepa smiles a little to herself at the thought. Because for some reason, she has no doubt that if Silvia has an order she’d like to issue, she’d find some way to do. Even now.
And so Pepa stands, trying as best she can to regulate her erratic breathing, and ignore the shaking in her legs.
She doesn’t know how long she stands there, but eventually she feels a presence behind her, just behind her left shoulder. And without turning, she knows who it is.
She bows her head.
“She’s been waiting for you,” Don Lorenzo says. At his words, a sob escapes Pepa’s lips, and once she starts, she can’t stop.
Pepa frantically wipes at tears, but the action does little. “I can’t get any closer, Don Lorenzo,” she says between hitched breaths. “I want to, but I can’t. It’s too…”
“Pepa, shhhhh,” Don Lorenzo soothes, immediately coming closer. His hand is on her back, rubbing circles. After a moment, he slides it around to take her own. “We’ll do it together, okay?”
Pepa finally looks up at her father-in-law. His eyes are also bright with tears, but there’s a strength in them that Pepa knows are not in her own. She has no idea where he finds it, but he’s offering it to her. She grasps his hand and nods.
“Okay.”
Don Lorenzo nods back, and pulls her forward, step by step, until they are at last close enough to the grave to touch it. But Pepa doesn’t. Not yet. She can’t.
Instead, she turns to the man at her left.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to the funeral.”
Don Lorenzo untangles his hand from Pepa’s, and reaches up to lay it on her shoulder.
“It’s okay, daughter,” he says. Pepa squeezes her eyes shut briefly at the endearment, and reaches up to cover his hand with her own.
“I didn’t know how to say goodbye,” she says, though she knows it’s such an inadequate explanation, and one she can’t believe she is giving to Silvia’s father.
But Don Lorenzo simply nods.
“Pepa, if I had known you were leaving that day, I would have probably gotten on the bus with you. Burying Silvia was the single hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. And if I had had the chance, I would have run far away from it.”
Pepa considers his words.
“How did you do it?” she asks at last. “How did you make yourself go?”
“I don’t know,” Don Lorenzo answers her. “Everyone was here. Lola was here. It helped. But I don’t know what got me through.”
Pepa at last turns toward the gravestone, and taking one more step forward, her legs at last give out. She sinks to her knees. Hand shaking, she reaches out, and tentatively touches the stone. Her long fingers trace the “S” and then the “i”, all the way until they reach the tail of the “a.” She continues, her fingers finding each letter in turn. And when she reaches “wife,” another sob escapes her as she presses her hand flat against the word.
She leans forward as a wrenching pain grabs at her abdomen. She’s afraid she’s going to be sick. Or pass out. She nearly doubles over.
“How do you do this, Don Lorenzo? I have no idea how to let her go. I don’t know how.”
Don Lorenzo’s hand is suddenly on Pepa’s head, stroking her hair.
“You will,” he says quietly. “When the time is right, you’ll know how.”