So I decided to try my hand at writing my first one-shot collection for Imelda and Hector entitled:
Before the Music Fades.
Their relationship has always been so interesting to me and so I thought it would be fun to explore what things were like for them when they first had Coco, before he left Santa Cecilia with Ernesto. I posted chapter one over on AO3 already, but I’ll post it here too in case anyone is interested in having a read!
One-shot contained under the cut 🤍
[Synopsis: Long before betrayals and goodbyes there was only music and laughter, secrets whispered under candlelight, and a love stubborn enough to withstand any storm. In this collection of one-shots, Imelda and Hector - still practically kids themselves - learn how to be parents, lovers, and partners all at once while raising their little Coco in a home full of music and hope. A small glimpse into everything the three of them were before the songs turned sour and the music faded away.]
Link to AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66671299/chapters/172004329
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The Rivera kitchen smelled faintly of soap, warm sun, and a pot of café con leche that had gone cold long ago now. It was a quiet afternoon in Santa Cecilia - clothes were out on the line, dinner was on the stove - and the table was buried beneath half-finished baby clothes, scraps of brightly coloured cloth, and a mountain of idle chatter turned gossip. Imelda, eighteen, sat at the head of the table, posture prim as ever despite the baby weighing almost painfully against her spine. Cecí, her closest friend since infancy, sat loyally at her side, sewing far more with her mouth than with her needle. "It's true! Maria told Lucia who told Sofia who told me..." She paused to take a breath. "She saw him sneaking out through the back door at dawn." She told the group in a half-whisper, Francisca setting down her sewing in surprise and Alba chuckling under her breath, shaking her head.
"¡Dios mio!" Imelda rolled her eyes. "Santa Cecilia is going to run out of secrets at this rate, the way you sniff them out. Like a street-dog to a trash can."
Cecí gave her a look. "I kept yours. I seem to remember you nearly breaking your neck climbing out of your window for a certain troubadour one night. I never said a word."
"Gracias, Cec..." Imelda muttered through gritted teeth.
Julia, rocking her nearly asleep baby boy in her arms, laughed at the other end of the table. "We all knew, Melly. The whole town knew. That esposo of yours doesn't shut up."
Imelda felt her cheeks burn as she brought the needle in her hand through the little nightdress for the hundredth time, running her thumb over the delicate little stich. "Remind me again what I was thinking when I decided to make you godmother," She glanced at Cecí, feigning annoyance. "You're going to fill my child's head with all sorts of nonsense."
"Believe me," Cecí laid a hand on her bump beneath the table, giving it a gentle pat through her dress. "You and Héctor are going to be singing my praises when the little one is here. If he or she ends up being anything like you and I were when we were little, both of you are going to need all the help you can get, corazón, I promise. We were tiranas."
They all dissolved into quiet laughter, hands working stitches carefully as they went on swapping more stories and whispered secrets they had overheard around town. Before long though, the back door opened and their chattering died down. Ernesto wandered in first - like he owned the place - his grin far too wide and far too familiar, his gaze shifting straight to where Imelda was sitting and lingering upon her a fraction too long. She felt it instantly. The little hairs on the back of her neck standing to attention. That prickle of annoyance she'd known since the afternoon she met him. Once upon a time, he'd sniffed around her like a dog. He'd cornered her in side-streets. Made drunken promises of fame and riches in an attempt to win her over. He hadn't realized - well, actually, it had probably been more that he simply hadn't cared - back then that she had already given herself, at least in heart, to Héctor. The one the women of Santa Cecilia actively ignored. The one who followed him around like a shadow, playing his guitar.
He'd had a rude awakening though when she'd made a show of leading Héctor off into a dark corner of the plaza after a dance one night, leaving him in no doubt that he was the one she truly wanted. She'd made sure he had been watching. She'd made sure he'd realized that he hadn't won. For the first time in his life, she imagined, he'd been denied something he craved. Something he believed he was entitled to. And, she was certain, he'd never quite forgiven her for doing that to him. Not even now, two years on.
She was pulled from her thoughts when right behind him came her husband himself, guitar slung clumsily across his back, sandy from the plaza, dark hair sticking to his brow with sweat, and that stupid smile of his softening when his eyes found hers. He moved around Ernesto then, forgetting for a moment he was even there, and approached her, bending to capture her mouth with his in a soft, tender kiss. It was enough to make Ceci roll her eyes and Julia avert her eyes politely, clearing her throat. He soon pulled away, the hand cradling her cheek moving to brush a raven curl behind her ear. "I missed you this morning." He mumbled as he dragged his knuckles down her cheek, voice gentle enough for only her - and a smirking Cecí - to hear him.
"Stop distracting us. If we don't get these finished soon, this child of yours will have nothing to wear," She half-scolded, smiling for a moment before it faded. "Mi amor..."
He didn't even have to turn. "Ernesto."
His friend laughed it off, reaching back to rub at the back of his neck while pretending to busy himself.
Alba, now holding Julia's sleeping son so her friend could drink her coffee, broke the tension. "So, Rivera. You ready for one of your own?"
"Not that he has much choice in the matter." Imelda added as she looked up at him, making her friends chuckle.
Héctor's expression softened and he ran a hand slowly over her hair, letting it settle on her shoulder through her shawl. "A little nervous. Well, terrified," He admitted, Imelda reaching up to rest a hand over his own. "But I've been ready for this since the day she told me. She'll be so much better at this than me anyway, so I'll just follow her lead."
Cecí tutted. "Listen to him. Encantador. Haven't you got pesos to go and play for?"
"Alright, we're going," He laughed, rolling his eyes good-naturedly at her before turning back to his wife for a second and kissing her forehead. "Try to rest this afternoon. I'll stop by the panderia on my way home and bring you something."
"Mmm, and don't you dare end up down at la cantina!" She called after him as he and Ernesto made to leave.
He could only chuckle as he followed behind his friend, making his way out of the door as the kitchen filled with quiet chuckles and hushed whispers once more.
—————
He shut the bedroom door carefully behind him, wincing as it clicked quietly into place. The room was dark except for a sliver of moonlight across the floorboards, silent except for the sound of her slow, steady breaths. He took off his hat and toed off his shoes, slightly unsteady on his feet due to the three - maybe four - shots of tequila he'd had but determined not to wake her. For a moment, he stood there next to the bed, simply watching her sleep. She was curled up on her side, a hand warmly cradling her bump and her long curls like an ink spill across her pillow. Even in sleep, she was divine. He still had no idea what he'd done to deserve her, truly, nor the life he was creating with her, but he'd do it again in a heartbeat if the need arose for him to do so. Without question. Without hesitation. He would.
He knelt on the edge of the mattress, feathering a kiss against her cheek. He should have come home hours ago. He should have been obedient and just said no when Ernesto dragged him to la cantina for 'one drink' on him. He should have been at home with her. Looking after her the way she needed. Letting her put her feet up for once. As he moved to stand again, the bedframe groaned under his weight and Imelda stirred, blinking in the dark. "Héctor?" She managed, voice heavy with sleep and laced with a familiar annoyance. "What time is it? You've been drinking."
He shrugged. "Maybe one or two. You should have seen Mariachi Plaza tonight though, amor, it was alive. So many tips. I did stop by the panaderia, but it was closed and—"
She sniffed the air, brown eyes narrowing at him as he perched on the edge of the bed and cupped her cheek beneath the curtain of her hair. "Tequila again. Ay mi, Héctor."
He chuckled sheepishly. "Lo siento. You know how persuasive Ernesto can—"
"Ah-ah-ah!" She swatted his chest, though it was clear her frustration had begun to settle. "De La Cruz is a lot of things, but he is not to blame for you not having a backbone. I know you heard me say not to go down to la cantina before you left. We need the money. We can't afford for you to throw it all away. Next time, you listen to me. You say no."
"Yes, Señora." He teased, kissing her clumsily on the mouth before climbing over her to his own side of the bed when she shoved him off, tutting, tasting liquor on his tongue. The old mattress dipped under the added weight and she grunted, tying to find a semi-comfortable position a second time while he got himself settled beneath the covers.
She felt him move closer to her once she'd stilled, lacing an arm around her waist and pulling her back against him. Her nose wrinkled. "Ugh. You smell like a cantina floor."
He laughed aloud, muffling the sound in her hair, and then brushed a warm, clumsy kiss against her neck. She felt a shiver run through her as his hold of her tightened, his thumb tracing the curve of her belly through her nightgown. "I'll bathe first thing. Promise. You won't have to make excuses for me with your mamá and papá again."
Despite herself, she relaxed beneath his touch, his mouth on her skin slowly soothing her annoyance. His voice sounded small in the darkness. Innocent, eager for forgiveness. She sighed into her pillow when he found that little spot behind her ear only he knew about. "Sometimes—" She paused for a moment. "Sometimes, it's like I married a child." She reached back, threading her fingers through his hair as he dotted sweet little kisses along her shoulder. She felt more than heard his sigh as he buried his face in her neck.
"I know and I'm sorry," He murmured, his tone more serious. "This is it now though, I mean it. I'll stop being an idiot. I'll bring tips home. I'll be everything you need me to be."
She rolled in his arms to face him - a struggle at eight months gone, but she managed - and they shared a smile when she ran the back of her hand down his cheek. "I'm not sure how much I believe the 'I'll stop being an idiot' part, but I believe all the rest," She whispered. "You have always been everything I've needed and much more, mi cielo."
"I have?" He stroked her hair from her face.
"Mm-hm," She nodded. "And you will be again for this little one. I know you will."
"I love you," He sighed, bringing a hand between them to rest tenderly upon her bump. "Both of you."
She smiled. "We know. We love you too."
He rested his lips against her forehead when she snuggled into him, sighing against her skin as he put his arm around her. "Sleep. I'm not going anywhere."
Imelda mumbled something into his shirt - something about daft men and insufferable musicians - but her voice tapered off, sleep pulling her under again, soothed by him. In the silence, he brought his hand back between them and laid his palm flat against her stomach, feeling for the faintest flutter that never came. Their little one, for once, was sound asleep.
Tomorrow, when he woke with a dull ache behind his eyes, feeling irritable and more than slightly sorry for himself, he would promise her again to be better. To do better. He would prove it with actions, not meaningless words. Tonight though, right now, with the little life they had created together safe beneath his hand and her warm breath against his throat, everything was perfect.
Oneshot Summary: Coco AU. Imelda's parents die in a house fire and it just so happens the only photo she has of them is from her and Hector's wedding. On the Day of the Dead she puts the photo of her, her parents, and Hector on the ofrenda without a second thought. That night, the toy guitar Hector sent for Coco starts playing Coco's lullaby.
TW: Death, implied sex
It started on the Day of the Dead. Imelda’s parents had died in a house fire barely a month before the holiday and the only picture she had of them was from her and Hector’s wedding. She put it up without much thought to her husband standing beside her in the middle of the photo, the only one smiling in what was supposed to be a serious portrait of their wedding party.
“How can I do anything but smile?” he had asked, when her father had complained, “I just married the most wonderful woman in the world.”
Imelda had blushed, and tried to fight down her own love sick smile, but when he’d turned those soft brown eyes her way, she had melted.
So she put the wedding photo on the ofrenda and placed down a few offerings, including the gifts Hector had sent for them three and a half weeks ago. Well, gifts was perhaps not the right word, her parents had asked her to ask him to send them some parts to fix their record player, and he had complied, albeit a few days too late. She didn’t know what she expected them to do with those parts in the after life, but hey, they’d asked for them.
As Imelda placed the wedding photo on the ofrenda, her only worry was that Hector might not have received her letter alerting him that her parents were dead. In the letter sent with the gramophone parts, Hector had mentioned that he was trying to talk Ernesto out of yet another detour that would only serve to lengthen their tour. Based on the return address on the money she’d received two days later, Ernesto had once again gotten his way.
A toy guitar had arrived for Coco the day after, with a note promising he would teach her how to play it as soon as he got home.
She was glad the tour was going well, really she was. They had bills to pay after all, and it was nice to have some savings. However, Imelda missed her husband, and she couldn’t help wishing that he would just come home already. She had started looking at alternate ways for her to make money, perhaps working was a bit below her station, but if it meant their little family could be together more…? Imelda would do it with a smile on her face.
But then on Day of the Dead, less than a month since she’d last heard from her husband, the little toy guitar in Coco’s room started to play music.
It was when the child friendly festivities were over and Imelda was putting Coco down for bed. Her teeth were brushed, her face was washed, and all that was left for her to do was sing the lullaby her father had written at 8:15 sharp. Coco started singing, and the small guitar sitting on the rocking chair in the corner accompanied her.
Coco laughed and clapped, “Papa sent me a magic guitar!”
Imelda stared at the guitar, slowly nodding, “You know your papa, he wants you to have the very best.”
She tucked her daughter in, kissed her good night, then lifted the toy guitar so she could inspect it for gears. Imelda didn’t find anything, but she decided that they must be there regardless, hidden somehow. It was simply a fancy looking music box, she told herself, that went off by itself after three weeks of lying silent. It meant nothing.
No, that wasn’t true, it meant Hector had tracked down a toy maker and custom ordered a music box for their little girl. That ridiculous man. Didn’t he know Coco would have been happy with a perfectly normal toy guitar? Imelda shook her head, smiling fondly.
When she was done toasting their parent’s memory with her brothers, Imelda changed into her nightgown and laid down to sleep. She thought again of Coco’s “magic” guitar and her heart ached for her husband. It ached so hard that as she fell asleep she could almost swear that she felt a hand stroking her hair, just as Hector sometimes did.
The guitar played Coco’s lullaby the next day, and the day after. Coco was delighted, Imelda was mildly curious about how it worked.
No more letters arrived from Hector. The last gift she got from him was a necklace with Coco’s and his name inscribed on the heart shaped pendant. She wore it every day.
The money he had sent lasted them six months, long enough that Imelda was able to learn how to make shoes and had started doing so before Hector’s money ran out. Her brothers moved in to help her run her new business, they didn’t ask where Hector was, but they eventually did ask about the self playing guitar.
“It’s a music box,” Imelda brushed off the question, “Hector wrote that song for Coco, he must have gotten it custom ordered. Like my necklace.”
Oscar and Felipe had shared a look, a worried frown taking over both their faces. Imelda pretended not to see it, she just focused on the shoe she was making.
The guitar accompanied Coco every night, even when she sang the song a little bit late or early. Most nights, Imelda fell asleep to an invisible hand stroking her hair. She tried not to think about it, she focused on shoes and raising Coco, and tried not to wonder where her husband was.
A year after Hector’s last gift arrived, the radio in her workshop began playing Hector’s songs. Sung by Ernesto.
The first time one of his songs came on the radio, everything in the workshop froze. It was the song Hector had written for their first anniversary, a song that he had never allowed Ernesto to sing.
“It’s not for them Ernesto, it’s not for money,” Hector had said, shaking his head, “It’s for the love of my life, and the many years we will spend together.”
“But Hector-.”
“No,” Hector had stood firm, he always stood firm when it came to songs he’d written for his family, “I’m sorry mi amigo, but this one belongs to Imelda.”
Imelda stared at the radio, Oscar and Felipe did the same. She put down the shoe, and stood to turn it off or perhaps change the channel, but before she had taken a single step towards it, the radio turned off by itself. They could all clearly see the off switch toggle off without anyone touching it. In the ensuing silence you could hear a pin drop, so there was nothing to cover the sound of feet stomping out of the shop and up the stairs.
A door slammed somewhere else in the house.
“Imelda,” Felipe said.
“I know,” she whispered.
She sat back down, eyes still glued to the radio, and her heart pounding in her ears.
“Oscar, Felipe, I… I need you to run an errand for me,” Imelda eventually said, “the last of the money came from Mexico City, I need you two to go, take Hector’s picture and-. I-if the police there don’t recognize him, he was in Santiago de Queretaro before that.”
“Si Imelda,” they said as one.
“We’ll go pack,” Oscar said.
“We’ll leave on the first train tomorrow morning,” Felipe added.
“Bien,” she heard herself say, slowly nodding.
They left her alone and she sat there holding a half finished shoe for who knows how long before she eventually got back to work. Nothing was confirmed. It could have been… a power surge, perhaps the radio was broken. And the stomping was the pipes banging around. And the hand that stroked her hair every night was her imagination. And the guitar was a music box.
Hector… Hector was probably fine.
Except he wasn’t. A week later she met Oscar and Felipe at the station, they looked at her with mournful eyes and handed her a copy of her husband’s death certificate. The cause of death was listed as curare poisoning. Three days after the toy guitar arrived, Hector was found dead in the street with his suitcase and wallet, but no guitar.
“He… he had a train ticket home,” Oscar said, voice choked up.
Felipe nodded, “He would have been back in time for Coco’s birthday.”
Imelda stared at the sheet of paper and wondered how in the world she was going to explain to Coco that her father was dead.
“They’re going to send us his personal effects.”
“And somebody to… arrange for the b-body to be moved here. If that’s what we want-?”
“It is.”
“Imelda…”
“We are so sorry.”
She nodded, still staring at the death certificate, “Curare poisoning.”
Her brothers didn’t respond, when she looked up at them they were avoiding her gaze.
“How does somebody… is it a kind of food poisoning?”
“It… no. It’s not something that…”
“They said it doesn’t happen… naturally.”
Something cold settled in her gut. Her husband was poisoned, and left for dead with his wallet but not his guitar.
And now Ernesto was singing her song on the radio.
“Let’s go home,” Imelda said, she could feel steel crawling up her spine, coating her bones. Her mind whirled with thoughts of violence and grief. She went straight to her workshop and made shoes until it was time to pick Coco up from school. Dinner was thrown together, then eaten, and before she knew it, it was 8:15.
“Coco, mi corazon,” Imelda put a hand on her daughter’s wrist to forestall the inevitable song, “we… need to talk. I need to tell you something, about your father.”
Coco’s face fell. She had stopped asking when her Papá would be home four months after the guitar started playing her song. Imelda hadn’t dared to ask where Coco thought Hector was, Imelda hadn’t dared asking herself where Hector was.
“Where’s Papá?” Coco asked, for what would be the last time.
Imelda swallowed past the lump in her throat, but there was nothing she could do to stop the tears from forming in her eyes, “He… He is not coming home, mija. Your father loved us very much, and he wanted to be here with us, but he… he is with abuelo and abuela now.”
“Are we going to have a funeral for him too?” Coco asked, beginning to sniffle.
“Sí,” Imelda nodded, she would have said more but Coco began sobbing, all Imelda could do was hold her.
Hesitantly at first, then somewhat desperately, the little toy guitar began playing Coco’s lullaby. It didn’t stop there this time, it played every soft song Hector had ever known, one right after another. Coco cried herself to sleep in Imelda’s arms after an hour, but the guitar kept playing until the break of dawn, when it played “Remember Me” one last time, then finally went silent.
Imelda listened to each song, held her daughter, and slowly accepted that her husband was haunting their home.
“Hector, if I can find some way to kill you for dying, I will do so,” she whispered to the room, then when there was no response she continued, “do you have any idea how much we’ve missed you? How much we’re going to-. Hector, you are the love of my life, you can’t just, just-, if you think I’m letting you out of this marriage that easy you have another thing coming!”
She almost, almost heard a chuckle. But it could have been the wind, or an echo from outside.
“Hector, what am I supposed to do?” Imelda squeezed her daughter a little closer, “How am I supposed to raise Coco without a father?”
The rocking chair rocked without anyone touching it.
“Sí, sí, you’re here, but you’re not here Hector,” she frowned at the toy guitar firmly, “you can’t help her with her homework, or run errands while I make dinner. You won’t be there to dance with her at her quinceanera, or walk her down the aisle. You… you’ll be a face on the ofrenda, a hole in the family photo, and a lullaby on a toy guitar. That is not the same thing as being here.”
There was once again, no response, but she didn’t need to see or hear her husband to know he was wearing the same kicked-puppy look he’d worn the first time Coco had gotten sick.
“You never should have left, we could have made do without the money,” Imelda sighed, then said, “I love you Hector, I always will.”
A hand began stroking her hair and she closed her eyes, trying to shut out the tears that fell anyways.
Imelda wasn’t surprised when she got Hector’s things back and his songbook was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t surprised when rumors spread about his fate, and soon the whole town knew he’d been murdered. She wasn’t even surprised when the sheriff showed up at her door and asked if she wanted him to investigate Ernesto.
“I am gathering evidence, anything you can add will be most appreciated,” she’d said, chin raised high.
“What you planning to do?”
“I simply wish to ensure that my husband is remembered well.”
Imelda was surprised by how many people showed up for Hector’s funeral, although she probably shouldn’t have been. Hector was a kind man, a charming one, she was far from the only person who loved him. Still, the crowd that gathered for the modest service was almost overwhelming in its size. The amount of well wishes and offers of help was enough to almost break through her defenses and pull the tears from her eyes.
“The only assistance I require is in gathering proof,” Imelda said, to each person that offered their help, “If you could write down any memory you have of Hector and that man you think may be relevant, I would like to collect them.”
The memories came, and they kept coming. When they could afford to do so, Oscar or Felipe would travel to the towns Hector had played in, and ask around at the venues Hector had written to her about.
Before Imelda knew it, another year had passed, and the guitar still played Coco’s song every night.
Ernesto’s voice was almost inescapable, it seemed that every other song on the radio was written by Imelda’s late husband.
The radio in the workshop would change channels the minute Ernesto started singing. It freaked Oscar and Felipe out at first, but they got used to it, at one point Oscar had even asked for a song to be turned up. The radio had obliged, even as Oscar had frozen solid, staring into the distance as he realized what he’d done.
One night, Imelda sat in front of her vanity, brushing her hair out before bed, and when she looked at the window in the mirror, she could see Hector’s silhouette. She couldn’t see his face, but he was turned towards her, doubtlessly staring at her with a soft smile on his face, like he’d done so many nights before.
There was something about it, about this ghost of her husband sitting in the window, likely giving her the same love sick look he always had, that broke her. As she started sobbing the silhouette came closer, then disappeared. A hand stroked her hair until her tears dried.
She drifted towards her bed and curled up in a little ball under her covers, holding herself as tightly as she could. Arms wrapped themselves around her and out of habit she went to place her hand over his, but there was nothing there for her to hold.
Imelda didn’t sleep that night.
By the third anniversary of his death, she had collected every story of her husband there was to collect. Whenever she wasn’t in her workshop, or taking care of Coco, Imelda was putting the stories in order.
A poster of Ernesto reached Santa Cecilia. He had Hector’s guitar.
Imelda had to stop the musicos in the square from burning the poster, “I can prove that guitar is Hector’s, let me have this. And if you find any other pictures of Ernesto with my husband’s guitar, send them to me.”
The pictures soon came flooding in as well.
With the evidence compiled, Imelda began checking out law books from the library. The librarian ordered books on copyright law and intellectual property.
One night, at 8:15, Coco sang her lullaby along with the guitar, then stared at the toy.
“Mamá, when you said Pá was with abuelo and abuela… are you sure?”
Imelda hesitated, but eventually said, “Your father loves us very much.”
“He’s not stuck, is he?” Coco asked, brow crinkling in concern.
Imelda hadn’t known for sure how to answer that, but she shook her head and simply said, “No mi corazon, he’s just not ready to leave us.”
Coco accepted this with a little nod, “Good night Mamá, good night Papá.”
Imelda pressed a kiss to her daughter’s hair, stood and walked to her own room, doing her best to keep her steps calm and even. As soon as the door to her bedroom was closed she hissed, “You’re not stuck, right? You’ll be there to meet us when it’s our time, right Hector?”
The room was silent. Imelda waited for something, a sign, a whisper, a miracle, but there was only the faint sound of music coming from outside. She sighed and got ready for bed.
As she drifted off she heard a voice, an achingly familiar voice say, “I will never leave you again.”
It took until a little after the fifth anniversary of her husband’s death for Imelda to feel sure that she had all the evidence she needed, and a thorough enough understanding of the law to keep from getting steamrolled over by Ernesto’s lawyers. Now she just needed to figure out the best way to come forward.
Her confidence flagged. She was just one woman and she had no proof that Ernesto had killed Hector, just that Hector had written all of Ernesto’s songs. And that he wasn’t receiving any credit.
She could surely sue and receive enough money to set her family up for generations to come, but she didn’t want money.
Imelda had never cared about the money her husband’s songs brought in.
Then, it happened. It was a normal day, she was making shoes with her brothers, listening to the radio and keeping half an eye on the clock. Coco would come home from school soon, and Imelda would have to get started on dinner. The radio jumped around, avoiding Ernesto as it always did.
And then, “Remember me…”
It was like the first time the radio had played one of Hector’s songs, but somehow ten times worse. Oscar and Felípe froze, and so did their breath as it hit the air and turned to mist. The only movement Imelda could muster were a few shivers as the temperature in the room plummeted.
She smelled Hector’s cologne, just a quick whiff of it, and she heard a guitar. Not a stolen guitar playing a stolen lullaby over the radio, but one that floated invisible through the house, echoing and rageful and drowning out all other sound.
The radio lifted itself into the air, and then slammed onto the ground, it cracked but played on. So the radio slammed into the ground again and again until it was nothing more than a pile of broken pieces.
The guitar settled, then disappeared, the temperature returned to normal.
Oscar and Felípe gulped in unison, each as white as a sheet. Imelda, took a few deep breaths, she put down the shoe she had just started and stood.
“Oscar, Felípe, will you go wait for Coco? Take her for ice cream,” Imelda said, and they were nodding, racing for the door before she’d even finished talking.
When they were gone, the room was briefly still, Imelda fought hard to keep her eyes from drifting down to the pile of rubble that had once been her radio.
Invisible arms wrapped around her legs, then she heard Hector weeping.
If she could have touched him, she would have bent down and pulled him into her arms. She would have rubbed his back and kissed his face and told him she loved him. If she could touch him she would have dragged him up to their room and held him until he fell asleep.
But if she could touch him, he wouldn’t be dead, would he?
So all she did was wait. The weeping went on for what felt like hours, and her feet ached by the time the arms wrapped around her legs released her. But she didn’t dare move, standing there and waiting was the only thing she could offer her husband.
When she looked down at her skirt, the lack of tear stains made her want to hit something.
“Hector, go upstairs, go rest. Or whatever it is ghosts do when they’re tired, I will clean up the radio.”
The broom in the corner fell over, Hector had always hated it when Imelda cleaned up after him. It didn’t happen often, if he made a mess he was always sure to clean it up before she got to it, but sometimes even the best of men get sick. Rather pathetically, the broom started trying to drag itself over to the destroyed radio.
It barely moved, Imelda wondered if Hector had tired himself out with all the theatrics.
“Go,” she said firmly, “I will handle this.”
The broom gave up, a kiss lingered against her cheek for a second or two, then she was alone.
Imelda frowned as she realized she could feel the difference between Hector being in the room and him not being there. The startling thing was that she hadn’t felt the absence of his presence since… well, for a long time. Was he always watching her?
It wouldn’t be too out of character for Hector to spend all day staring at her, grinning like a damn fool, the thought that he was doing that even now made her heart ache. But he had been such a vibrant man, a man who so enjoyed life and all it had to offer. He hadn’t spent all of his time staring at her, there’d been too much else to hold his interest.
There had been food to eat, and by extension recipes to learn, songs to write, guitar strings to pluck, a daughter to play with, and an endless list of random hobbies to try.
Now, what did her husband have? A wife to watch, a toy guitar to play for the daughter he loved, and a best friend to hate.
When Imelda was done cleaning up the shop, she went upstairs and sat on the edge of her bed.
“Hector, mi amor, are you happy here?”
There was, of course, nothing but silence.
“We love you, we miss you, a-and I wish-, I do not want to let you go. But I love you Hector,” her voice broke and she stared down at her lap, “I-I can’t-. It’s bad enough knowing what was done to you, what was taken, seeing you suffer like this? Por favor, if there is somewhere you can go, if there is an afterlife that will hold some peace for you-.”
The bed shook, and she heard that guitar again. It wasn’t quite as angry as before, rather it strummed out a tango much like the ones they used to dance to.
Next to her ear, rougher than she’d ever heard it in life, her husband’s voice growled, “I will never leave you again.”
Imelda stopped breathing.
The bed stilled. The guitar faded. She took in a shaking breath.
When Coco got home, Imelda sat with her and explained that Ernesto had started singing Coco’s lullaby. Imelda told her that she didn’t want to hear that man singing Hector’s songs anymore, so she would no longer be allowing a radio into the house.
“From here on out if you want to hear music, you will have to rely on a record player,” Imelda said, sternly.
Coco nodded, “I understand, I don’t want to hear that murderer sing Pá’s songs either.”
“You-, who told you that Ernesto was a murderer?”
“I don’t know,” Coco shrugged, looking up at Imelda with a confused pout, “everybody I guess. Everyone in town knows what happened to Papá, was I not supposed to?”
Imelda sighed, “No, I just- I suppose I wanted to protect you from all that.”
Coco didn’t say anything, she just stared down at the table in between them.
A few months later, word reached their little corner of the world that Ernesto would be starring in a movie. A plan started forming in Imelda’s mind.
She kept up with his interviews as he promoted his movie, taking notes. She also started searching for a lawyer.
One night after everybody else was asleep, she set the law books down on her desk, and set her notes aside. Imelda stood, stretched, and walked to her dresser to pull out her nightgown. As she unbuttoned her dress, the room grew warmer.
Imelda frowned when that guitar came back, she hadn’t heard it in months, and she had assumed it only happened when Hector was feeling emotionally charged.
She shucked the dress and the guitar got louder, she glanced at the mirror and jumped when she saw her husband’s silhouette standing right beside her. Invisible hands began pushing her slip’s straps off her shoulders.
“Ay for god’s sake, you’re dead Hector, I can’t even begin to describe how inappropriate-,” she started to say, but cut off when he kissed her neck.
She had missed her husband, in many, many, ways.
Imelda sighed, “Why now? It’s been almost six years?”
Her slip fell to the ground and her corset opened by itself. Kisses and love bites continued to make their way up and down her neck. Her linen chemise started opening button by button.
“You’ve figured out how to touch me, have you figured out how to let me touch you?”
The mouth on her neck paused, then grinned, it kept going and the guitar sounded almost teasing. She could just see Hector’s eyes sparking with mischief, and she felt a reflexive smile spread across her face.
The chemise joined her slip and corset on the floor, as did her bloomers. The knee high socks were allowed to stay, she noticed.
Hands gripped her hips and began directing her to the bench at her amour, and she gasped. Hector always had her sit there when there was something very specific he wanted to do to her.
“Hector,” she whispered, “this-. We shouldn’t. None of this should-.”
The back of her knees hit the bench and she sat, invisible hands spread her legs wide and she could almost feel him pressing against her as his mouth reappeared on the tops of her breasts. Her knickers started creeping down her hip and she instinctively lifted herself off the bench long enough for them to be pulled off completely.
She closed her eyes, and let herself forget that her husband was dead. His hands caressed her softly and his mouth sucked on her sweetly, as a guitar plucked out an impassioned love song.
After that night she barely went a day without her husband's caress.
He was becoming stronger, she realized, he touched her more, interacted with the house more, his silhouette appeared in the mirror more. Another month, and she stopped bothering with the record player, whenever she was home the invisible guitar followed her from room to room.
Ernesto’s movie came out, two weeks later the lawyer she had chosen knocked on their door. She invited him in, and swallowed back her amusement as he tried in vain to find the source of the playful song Hector was strumming.
“I can not prove any violent crime, but I can prove that my husband’s songs and guitar were stolen,” Imelda said, after briefly bothering with pleasantries.
“Stolen by who?” the lawyer, Señor Bererra asked.
In answer, Imelda placed the family photo of her husband holding what was at the time a brand new guitar down on the table, followed by some of the letters Hector had sent with song lyrics and dates.
Señor Bererra picked up the photo and stared at it, jaw slowly growing slack, “Is that…?”
“That bastard was my husband’s best friend,” Imelda all but growled, and Hector began playing a war march, “he was at our wedding, he was my daughter’s godfather! Then my husband showed up dead in the street with no guitar, no song book, and all of his valuables. And now, he’s playing my daughter’s lullaby as a tawdry love song!”
Bererra gaped, “I-I think I need further proof. What you’re implying is that-.”
“I know what I’m implying, and I’d be happy to provide whatever proof you need,” Imelda pulled out a folder, “here are the receipts from when we bought that guitar, and correspondents between Hector and the guitar’s maker discussing the design. Oh, did I mention it was custom made for him? Here is a signed letter from the guitar’s maker verifying that he made the guitar for Hector, not Ernesto. Here is a wedding photo with Ernesto, myself, and Hector, here is a photo of Hector and Ernesto preparing for a performance in Mexico City two days before my husband was poisoned. Ah, speaking of which, here is my husband’s death certificate and a signed letter from the coroner verifying he most likely died of curare poison. Anything else?”
Instead of responding, he shuffled through everything, shock giving way to grief. Eventually he put everything down, and sat back in his chair.
“I have all of his albums,” he said, in a quiet voice.
“I would thank you to keep them far away from this house. None of us wish to hear Hector’s songs being sung by that scum.”
He didn’t show any sign of having heard her and for a minute she worried she had chosen poorly. He shook his head, sighed, then started nodding instead. With a resigned look he held his hand out for her file, when she handed it to him he immediately began flipping through it.
Imelda waited. Before long, Hector began playing random melodies, and plucking out experimental new songs.
Finally, Señor Bererra put everything back, closed the file, and pushed it back towards her, “You are right, you won’t be able to prove Ernesto de La Cruz killed your husband, not with his team of lawyers. However, you have enough here to end his career if it were to come to light, you and your daughter will be set for life.”
“We are already taken care of,” Imelda waved his words off, “I want my husband to be remembered as the artist he was, I want the entire world to know that he wrote those songs, that he was the genius behind Ernesto’s success. And if I have to burn everything Ernesto has built for himself to the ground in order to make that happen, well! I will consider that a perk.”
He pursed his lips, “Coming forward with this information would be extremely risky, for you and your daughter.”
The guitar music abruptly stopped.
“I am not afraid of Ernesto. That vapid-.”
“It is not Ernesto de la Cruz I am speaking of, although I think it bears mentioning that we have reason to believe he has already killed once for success. It is his fans. They will not accept this easily, some will accuse you of lying, they may come after you and your family in a misguided attempt to protect their idol.”
Imelda drummed her fingers on the table. She hadn’t considered that.
Hector plucked out a nervous melody, he had never been one for caution, not until Coco was born. Even then, while he had staunchly guarded their daughter from every swinging cabinet door and potentially dirty fly, he hadn’t bothered exercising the same care when she was out of his arms. But Imelda recognized his plea for caution in the song.
“I will talk to the sheriff,” she decided, “see what protections he can offer us.”
And she would abandon some of the flashier plans she had made. Much as she would love to grind Ernesto under her heel, she would not allow any harm to come to her little girl. As long as people knew the truth about Ernesto and Hector, that would be enough.
“Ah, sí, that is an excellent idea,” Señor Bererra agreed, “in the meantime, we should have copies made of all this. And I will begin drafting some letters for some friends of mine. This will be quite the undertaking, I will most likely need help.”
“Very well,” she nodded, “is there anything else you need from me?”
The meeting went by swiftly after that, Señor Bererra explained what she might expect to happen next, what letters he would be writing, what judges and agencies he would be contacting. All that. She offered him one of the guest rooms, since he had come all the way from the city, and he accepted.
At dinner that night he seemed quite charmed by Coco’s questions about his job, and increasingly confused by the guitar music that followed Imelda in and out of the room.
He didn’t ask, not at dinner, and not in the morning on his way to the train station.
Imelda spoke to the sheriff and he offered to round up volunteers to guard her house when the news broke, she accepted, despite her pride. She had her daughter to think of, after all.
By the time Señor Bererra returned with his secretary to make copies and take pictures of the evidence, the towns’ musicos had formed a militia they were calling the Hector Riveria Revenge Patrol. Hector was quite touched.
Then, things started happening very quickly.
Señor Bererra got in touch with somebody in the government who did something concerning copyright.
News broke two weeks later that Ernesto was being investigated for multiple copyright violations.
A reporter came to town and asked around the square about Ernesto, and Hector. Somebody, Imelda didn’t know who, spilled the whole story, suspected murder and all.
The story hit the front page of multiple newspapers, mere days after it became known that Ernesto had another movie in the works.
More reporters came.
Then the fanatics arrived. Imelda had expected yelling, anger, even violence. She hadn’t expected a group of fans to camp out in the streets outside their home with a record player and every single one of Ernesto’s albums. Señor Bererra advised her that throwing shoes at them might hurt her case.
Hector did his best to drown them out, but the anger and pain in his songs hurt just a little more than the sound of Ernesto singing Hector’s wedding vows.
After two weeks of those bastards camping outside, Imelda stepped out of the house to do the grocery shopping, only to be met by wolf whistles and drunken offers.
“Oh terrific,” she grumbled, eyeing the pile of yelling morons leaning on the house across the street, “somebody gave them tequila.”
“Ay mamacita,” a red faced man hollered, trying and failing to get to his feet, “how’s about you let me give you a reason to remeeeemmmber meeeee.”
A barrage of drunken giggles and guffaws followed his attempts to sing Coco’s lullaby, and they only grew louder when the man finally got to his feet, managing to dance with all the grace of a lame rocking horse.
Hector started playing louder, and the wind picked up.
When the man was swaying in front of the record player, he let out a startled shout, then fell onto the table holding the record player, smashing it.
The guffaws turned to angry shouts.
“Who pushed me?!” The man shouted.
“My record player!” One of his compatriots, presumably the one who owned the now obliterated record player, gasped.
“Hey! That record was limited edition," yelled another.
“Aw the music,” the fourth man lamented, then took another swig from the bottle in his hand.
“I mean it, which one of you assholes pushed me?”
“Nobody pushed you, you moron, you fell and smashed my record player!”
“No, no, somebody pushed me! I felt it.”
“Do you have any idea how much that record cost me?”
“That record-?! Do you have any idea how much the record player cost me?!”
“I know one of you assholes pushed me, now fess up or I’ll-.”
“Or you’ll what?! Break my record player?”
“And my record!”
“Hey lady, do you have a record player we can borrow,” the fourth man called out to her, over the arguing.
“Would you forget about your damn record for a second?!”
“It was limited edition!”
“You know what?!” the first man pushed both of his companions, “There! See how you fucking like- oof.”
Predictably, the three men stumbled their way through a drunken brawl, while the fourth grumbled and scooted away from them. Meanwhile, one by one, all of the records they brought started floating up and smashing themselves against the side of the building they’d been sitting against. By the time the sheriff arrived to break up the fighting, there was only one album still intact.
The sheriff “accidentally” stomped on it as he dragged one of the men off the others.
Hector’s chuckle echoed down the street.
Imelda spent her time in the market racking her brain for a single instance where Hector had followed her out of the house. She had only ever felt his presence in their home, she had assumed he couldn’t leave it. But now the faint sound of Hector’s guitar followed her as she ran her errands.
There were more fanatics, most weren’t calculating enough to actually reach Imelda, usually she only found out about these fans when she had company over and the men would boast about how they’d ran this fan or that out of town. One memorable exception was a young woman with a sweet smile, and a mean right hook. She managed to sneak past the musicos and the Hector Riviera Revenge Patrol to knock on Imelda’s door.
As soon as Imelda opened the door the young woman attacked her, fortunately, Imelda had been holding a shoe at the time and had no qualms with using it.
She’d sported a shiner for the next week, anyone who saw it reacted with either sympathy or awe.
Mostly awe.
Things only got worse after Imelda traveled to the city to tell a judge her story. The courthouse had been surrounded by reporters and fans alike, and she was encouraged to play up her grief for her husband as the cameras flashed. The courtroom itself was empty with the exception of her, the judge, the stenographer, and the lawyers. She was offered a truly obscene amount of money to drop the case.
“Exactly how much money do you think I’d need to convince death to give my husband back?” she had asked the opposing lawyers with narrowed eyes, “I will accept no less.”
They hadn’t responded, and she had turned away from them in disgust.
The judge accidentally let slip to the press that after hearing her testimony he felt the case was all but over. The fans who rolled into town started seeming a bit desperate. Somebody painted threats on the side of her house. A few rocks were thrown through her window. A young couple were caught in the act of trying to burn down the house.
A few months into this pandemonium, Imelda stepped out of her house to head to a meeting with the sheriff and almost tripped over a young man holding a guitar. The boy had been lying on her stoop but immediately got to his feet, stuttering apologies as he did. Imelda examined him closely.
He didn’t look like any of the musicos from town.
“Who are you? What do you want? If this is about de La Cruz my lawyer has advised me-.”
“No! Well, yes, but also no-. I uh, I don’t really,” he shrugged, “I-I guess I just want to um p-pay respects? Or um apologize? I don’t know. I just um wanted to acknowledge, you know, how not great what you’ve been through is?”
Imelda frowned at him suspiciously.
He shuffled his feet and shrugged again, “I know you’ve probably had a lot of Ernesto fans knocking at your door, I read about that stuff in the news sometimes, b-but-. Well, maybe somebody else has come to offer their condolences, I mean, I hope other people have. B-but as an ex Ernesto fan, I-I feel like I should be one of them?”
“Ah,” Imelda said, not sure how to take this, “I am headed to the sheriff, do you know your way to the cemetery?”
“No?”
“Come, I will give you directions, you can pay your respects there,” she started walking, not bothering to check if he kept up with her. After a few beats he appeared in her preferary, so she launched into her explanation on how to get to Hector’s grave.
The boy hared off as soon as she was done, but reappeared outside her door as the sun fell, nervously strumming on his guitar.
“You’re back,” she informed him, through the window above his head.
He glanced up at her, then nodded, “I’ve been a traveling musician for a while, I don’t really know where else to go.”
“The inn.”
He grimaced sheepishly, “I’d need money for that.”
“Then take your guitar to the town square and make some.”
“I uh I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well… the only songs I know are- are your husbands.”
“Ah.” Imelda opened the window so she could stare at him.
“It doesn’t feel right, y’know? Singing his songs,” the boy told her, “not after what happened to him.”
Imelda sighed, leaning crossed arms on the window sill and staring up at the stars, “What do you want? My permission?”
The boy took a couple beats to think about it, “No, I think even if he came back from the dead and gave me permission it still wouldn’t feel right. It- I- His ability to sing his own songs was stolen from him, I-I could never-.”
He cut himself off and sighed, heavily.
Hector played a sad melody that echoed into the street. After a few beats, the boy strummed along, then trailed off.
“I don’t know what to do now,” he whispered.
“I know the feeling,” Imelda quietly admitted. It was easier, somehow, to be honest with this stranger than it was to be honest with her well-wishing neighbors.
The boy looked up at her, eyes shining with sympathy.
“My husband and I used to sing and dance together on nights like this,” she closed her eyes and listened to her husband’s ghost play a song of tragedy, “I still love music, I still love dancing, but to do it without him? What would be the point? It would never hold the same joy as it did when he was alive.”
“So you’ve just stopped dancing?”
“I… I have found other sources of joy,” she said, “other things that keep me going. Like my daughter, or the shoes I make, even the fight to ensure my husband is given the credit he is due. I do not dance any more, but then again, I didn’t use to know the pride to be found in a well made pair of shoes.”
The boy nodded, slowly, eyes growing distant. He looked down at the guitar in his hands, strummed out a few chords, then sighed and leaned his head back against the wall of her house.
“Your husband was a genius-,” he started to say, but was cut off when Imelda broke out laughing.
Hector briefly stopped playing, then when he started again the song was at once playful and angry.
“Sorry, sorry, I-, sí, of course he was incredibly talented, he had a real gift,” she got herself under control, “b-but he also was an idiot. A complete fool.”
“What? Really?”
“Sí, first and foremost, he could have had any woman in town, but he chose the most difficult one he could find,” Imelda said, with a wry smile, “then there was his complete inability to make breakfast, he could make lunch and dinner just fine, but breakfast? If it was before that first cup of coffee it was beyond him. He was terrible at mopping, somehow, but always insisted that if he tried one more time he’d get the hang of it. And he always had way too much faith in people, the poor fool thought everybody in the world was as good hearted as he was.”
The boy gave her a few beats of silence, a chance to say more, then said, “He sounds pretty great.”
She took a deep breath to keep from crying, “I could talk about him all day, and only ever cover half of what made that idiot the love of my life.”
“I’m sorry he’s gone.”
Imelda didn’t respond, all too aware of the love song Hector had started playing.
Eventually, she gave the boy some food, and enough money to pay for a night at the inn. The kid hung around a month or two, joining the musicos in the square, only ever playing accompaniment. He helped to run a few of the more stubborn fans out of town, and last Imelda saw of him he was following some doe eyed girl to the train station, carrying both of their suitcases.
He was not the last of Ernesto’s ex fans to come give their condolences. Soon, there were as many well wishers running around town as there were enraged fanatics. Imelda never let any of them into her home, but she did agree to a memorial being set up for Hector in the town square.
Hector’s songs stopped sounding so sad.
Finally, there came the vultures in their fine suits. Lawyers who promised to get her three times the cash el Señor Bererra could, talent agents offering up a career with the stars if she sang Hector’s songs, even a few fellows with cameras who wanted to make a documentary about her situation.
After consulting her lawyer, Imelda sent each of them packing, but kept the contact information of the most earnest seeming documentarian.
“My only wish is for my husband to be remembered, for him to have the credit he is due,” she told him as she accepted his business card, “I don’t want any of this attention, but perhaps, when the court case is over, you might tell his story.”
“I would be honored,” the starry eyed young man had said, almost breathlessly.
When he was gone and the door was closed, Imelda remarked to Hector, “Hope that boy was just playing innocent, they’ll tear him to shreds in that business if he’s actually that naive.”
Hector chuckled, playing something light.
“Would you want your story told? They’d put it on the silver screen, you’d be even more famous than you are now,” she asked, walking towards the kitchen.
The guitar trailed off and she felt a sigh brush the back of her neck, a ragged voice next to her ear said, “I only want to come home.”
She stopped walking, staring straight ahead. She tried to swallow the emotion rising in her throat, then took a deep breath and continued on with her chores. The guitar picked back up, playing a song of longing.
Slowly, things started to wind down. The money from the various lawsuits started to trickle in, and just to make a point, Imelda donated most of it. As far as she cared, the day was won as soon as the world learned the truth, she never wanted the money. She wanted her husband, alive and whole, and if she couldn’t have him, she wasn’t about to accept Ernesto’s blood money as a substitute.
The well wishers and mourners now outnumbered the enraged fans.
Hector followed her wherever she went.
Coco started trying to learn how to play the guitar.
And somehow, Imelda felt that things weren’t quite over, that it wasn’t safe to let her guard down. So, she always answered the door with a shoe in hand, even though every time she opened it she was met with a friendly face.
Imelda thought perhaps she would finally have closure when she got Hector’s guitar back. Yet, even once it was sitting on their family’s ofrenda, surrounded by wedding and family portraits, there was still this nagging feeling that things weren’t over.
She wasn’t done, there was still more to do.
One night, a week after the last of Ernesto’s blood money had been donated, Imelda sat at her kitchen table. Her hands were cupped around some cinnamon tea that had long since gone cold. She was still, but her thoughts raced.
When they reached the finish line, she all but deflated.
“You need to move on,” she told the gently strumming guitar that had been trying to soothe her all night, “please Hector, I need to know you’ve found peace.”
His voice was quiet, but the kitchen shook from the emotion it held, “I will never leave you again.”
“Trust me, I am aware,” she huffed, being very careful not to shout and wake the whole house, “there will never be a day that goes by where I won’t miss you. But I’m not asking you to leave, not forever. I am asking you to move on, to go… I don’t know, wait for us at the pearly gates. Visit us on the day of the dead, and play Coco’s lullaby in heaven every night, but stop-. Hector, please, stop punishing yourself.”
As soon as those words were out of her mouth, Imelda knew what was left to do.
The air was still, the guitar silent. She could feel him, however, like a thick blanket on her shoulders, like a warm hand in hers, like a vow on their wedding day. She could feel him standing taut, every intangible muscle in his body tensed for action.
Imelda closed her eyes and prepared herself to lose him, to truly be without him.
“I forgive you, Hector,” she whispered, “I forgive you for leaving, I forgive you for dying, I forgive you for not being here. You can stop atoning now. You can rest.”
Like a cut guitar spring, the tension snapped and the heavy warmth lifted from her shoulders. She held her breath, waiting for the guitar to pick back up.
It didn’t.
“Hector?”
There wasn’t so much as a single note.
Imelda’s breaths sounded like thunder in the empty kitchen. One of them shook, then the next one came out sounding like a whimper. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. No invisible hand stroked her hair, there was no mournful melody to assure her she wasn’t grieving alone, it was just her, crying as quietly as she could in the empty room.
When she heard the creak of a floor board, she cut herself off mid sob. Holding her breath, she listened as quiet footsteps approached the kitchen, coming from the foyer where the stairs up to the bedrooms were. Swallowing a curse she took out her handkerchief and did her best to clean her face.
The footsteps were too heavy to be Coco’s and the only other people in the house were Imelda’s brothers, so when somebody pushed the kitchen door open behind her, she said, “Sorry hermano, I didn’t wake you, did I?”
But it wasn’t one of her brothers who responded.
“Oh no Imelda, you didn’t wake me,” a deep, smooth voice replied, “I’ve been up for hours. Drove all through the night to get here, in fact.”
Imelda gasped, standing from her chair and turning, “Ernesto?!”
He closed the door behind him, and smiled at her cooly, simmering rage lighting his bloodshot eyes. Ernesto’s hair was not quite perfect, his suit almost wrinkled, his stubble just a tiny bit more visible than was considered decent. By his standards, he was an absolute mess.
“Hola Imelda, how have you been,” he said, as casual as you please, despite the revolver held in his right hand, “I myself, I haven’t been well. You see, I’ve lost everything thanks to-.”
It took a few seconds for her brain to register what she was seeing, who was in her kitchen, then it clicked and without thinking, she took the chair and hit him with it.
“You’ve lost everything?!” She yelled as he staggered back, no longer caring if she woke the rest of the house, “You’ve lost everything? Hector has lost his life! I have lost my husband! My daughter has lost her father! All because you couldn’t write your own damn songs.”
He tried to speak, but she hit him with the chair again.
“Was it worth it? Was all the fortune and fame worth killing your best friend?!”
“It was,” he raised the revolver before she could hit him again, and although she snarled, still enraged, she stopped.
The last thing she wanted was for Coco to lose both of her parents.
“Well, good for you then,” she sneered, “so glad my husband’s death was so profitable for you.”
Ernesto glared, cocking the gun, “I worked hard to get where I was-.”
“Worked hard! Hah! Oh what?! Did your hand get tired stirring the poison in Hector’s drink?”
“Shut up,” he hissed.
But Imelda shook her head, “This isn’t one of your movies Ernesto, I’m not following your script. You killed my husband-.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“I don’t have to,” she smirked, “you wouldn’t be here threatening me if I did.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he sighed, “you didn’t need to prove it to ruin my life, which is why I’m not here to threaten you.”
“Then what do you want?” she snapped, putting the chair down so she could put her hands on her hips.
“You know what the most painful part has been?”
“The feeling of the devil clawing at your soul?”
“What all this has done to my legacy,” he ignored her, apparently determined to get through whatever monologue he’d prepared for her, “I was going to be remembered as one of the greatest artists who ever lived, people would have worshiped me for the next hundred years, I was going to go down in history. But now? Now you have taken my legacy and turned it into ash to spread on Hector’s grave.”
“Hector shouldn’t even be in a grave,” Imelda said, through gritted teeth. If she wasn’t a mother, if she didn’t have Coco to think of, she would hit him with the chair again.
“And yet, he is. What good does it do to take my success and give it to him? He has no use for fame and fortune,” Ernesto chuckled a little and she snarled almost against her will, “even when he was alive, all this meant nothing to him. For whatever reason, all he wanted was you.”
“Did you ever stop to think that he would have let you sing his songs if you gave proper credit? That you could have had your fame and fortune, and he could have come home safe and sound?” Imelda interjected, she didn’t want to listen to this monster’s practiced speech, she wanted to know how he lived with himself, “Did you even try to negotiate, or did you skip straight to murder?”
Ernesto sighed, “I wanted to sing to the world, he wanted you. Since you have taken my dream from me, it is only fair that I take his.”
“You’ve already taken his dream, you killed him, remember?” she shook her head, making a sound of disgust, “All he wanted was to come home and you stabbed him in the back for it. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Imelda, do you understand I am pointing a loaded gun at you?”
“Sí, it’s the only thing stopping me from beating you to death with a chair.”
“I’m here to kill you Imelda,” he took a step towards her, “you have killed my dream for Hector’s sake, so now I am killing Hector’s dream.”
“You’re going to kill me?”
“Sì.”
“No matter what I do?”
He nodded, and started to speak, but didn’t get the words out before she had raised the chair once more and knocked him back a few steps. The anger was still there, but now she was fueled just as much by fear, fear that if she hesitated Coco would be left an orphan by the night’s end.
Ernesto tried to point the gun at her, but she knocked his arm away even as he pulled the trigger. The sound of the bullet leaving the chamber was deafening, but Imelda didn’t dare let it cow her. She swung the chair again, forcing him to jump back in order to avoid it.
He raised the revolver again, and pulled back the hammer. She raised the chair for another blow, stepping towards him, but knew there was no way she’d beat his trigger finger.
The kitchen started to shake just as the second bullet whistled past her ear.
Imelda almost didn’t hear the guitar music over the sound of her own heartbeat. She had to put the chair down again so she could use it to steady herself as Ernesto was thrown to the floor.
The revolver flew out of his hand and across the room.
“What in the-?!” he started to say, then cut off when he apparently recognized the melody playing.
Imelda had never thought Coco’s lullaby could sound so haunting.
“Remember me,” Hector’s voice echoed low, multiplied and layered on top of itself, at once a guttural growl and a choir of hissed whispers, “and prepare to say goodbye.”
“H-Hector?” Ernesto tried to right himself, only to get slammed back onto the floor.
“Remember me. You owe me for your life.”
Ernesto struggled against whatever force was holding him down as the shaking settled and the air froze, “Hector, what-?.”
“You tried to send me to heaven,” Hector sang, “but now you’ll burn in hell.”
Ernesto was lifted from the floor and pinned to the cabinets instead.
“You killed me for my daughter’s song,” slowly, Hector appeared above Ernesto, face colder than it had ever been in life, his feet didn’t quite touch the floor, “I hope it served you well.”
The gun dragged itself back into Ernesto’s hand and he struggled against it as it raised itself to his temple, “How-?! What-?! No. No!”
“Remember me. The blood you spilt got you far,” Hector sneered, “Remember me. My stopped heart got you where you are.”
“Hector, I’m-. Please, I’m sorry, Hector please!”
“No, don’t try to beg! When you took everything from me,” Hector shook his head, fists clenched, “I’ll let you have one last breath to…”
Hector trailed off, the guitar plucking out a crescendo while a mismatched beat underscored the whispered echoes of his latest refrain.
“Remember me,” Hector commanded, disappearing from sight even as the hammer pulled itself away from the barrel.
As the guitar finished with an angry flourish, Imelda realized that mismatched beat was not accompinate like she’d assumed, but footsteps. The kitchen door slammed open and people spilled into the room.
Imelda didn’t look at them, she couldn’t take her eyes off Ernesto as tears spilled down his cheeks. With the gun still jammed between his hand and his temple, the trigger twitched away from the barrel.
“No!” It wasn’t just one voice, but several. All combined the shouts were almost enough. But they couldn’t quite drown out the gunshot.
Ernesto’s body collapsed back onto the kitchen floor.
Imelda felt Hector’s presence slip away.
“Imelda,” one of her brothers, she didn’t bother to check which one, shouted as they pulled her into an embrace, “thank god, when we heard the gunshots-. The door, it wouldn’t open and-, and-, oh thank god you’re ok.”
“Señora Riviera,” the sheriff put a hand on her shoulder, “are you alright, did he hurt you?”
“He tried to kill me,” she said, faintly.
Several people gasped, and there was a great deal of shouting. A few people surrounded the body, blocking it from her view. She blinked, the world suddenly coming back into focus.
“Coco? Where is she, is she ok?” Imelda asked, raising her voice to be heard over the noise.
“She’s with Oscar,” Felípe told her, only half letting her go, “come on, I’ll take you to her, before she comes racing in here and sees-. I’ll take you to her.”
Imelda allowed herself to be led away, the last thing she wanted now was for Coco to see a dead body in their kitchen. The sheriff called out a promise to take care of things behind her, and she turned to give him a polite thank you, but he was already bent over Ernesto’s body.
Felípe took her to the workshop, where she could hear a soothing melody playing on an invisible guitar. Inwardly, she sighed and wondered if she would ever convince Hector to move on after this.
When she stepped through the workshop door, Coco looked up and shouted, “Má!”
“Mija!”
They ran into each other’s arms and squeezed tight, Coco started crying. Imelda did her best to soothe her even as it started to sink in that she almost lost her life. Her daughter was almost orphaned. Then what would have happened to her?
Imelda shoved those thoughts away and focused on her little girl. She let the sheriff do as he promised and spent what was left of the night hugging Coco close.
When Coco was eventually asleep, and Imelda was alone with an invisible guitar, she drifted off. The transition from waking to dreaming was almost seamless. Almost.
“Ah, you’ve learned a new trick,” she remarked hollowly, even in her dream, she felt boneless, exhausted. She couldn’t stop picturing Coco in her funeral garb.
They were dancing, her in her wedding dress, him in his musico suit. He’d saved up and got a real suit for the wedding, a modest suit, but one meant for formal occasions rather than preforming; it had met an unfortunate accident shortly after arriving from the tailors. In hindsight, Imelda wondered if the accident had anything to do with the fact that Hector had lived with Ernesto at the time, Ernesto had never wanted Hector to settle down.
In real life, her family’s courtyard had been full to the brim with people. Here in her dream, it was just them. Cheek to cheek.
“Sorry I wasn’t there,” Hector’s voice only sounded a little muffled, a little distant, “I-I was saying goodbye to Coco.”
Imelda blinked a few times, before the words made sense, “So, you’re moving on?”
“Uh, sí, eventually. I uh, I have to wait until the day of the dead,” he smiled sheepishly, she couldn’t see the smile, but she felt it pressed against her face and knew exactly what it looked like, “it-. I will need-. Leaving won’t be easy.”
Imelda nodded, then pulled back so she could see him, she drank his face in but couldn’t manage anything else, it took almost everything she had in her just to whisper, “I will miss you.”
“I will visit, every year, I promise,” he held her tighter, but the sensation was muffled, “although not like this. I-I don’t have any unfinished business anymore. Once I move on-.”
He cut himself off, but Imelda’s tired mind eventually churned out what he’d left unsaid. Hector would be at peace, but that meant she would lose him. For real this time. She swallowed back the urge to rescind her forgiveness, to come up with some other reason why he should keep haunting them. He could touch her sometimes, and talk to her in her dreams, and play his guitar. It was almost, almost, like he was alive.
But she loved him too much to keep him, “Promise me you’ll be happy. Wherever you go when…”
“I will be as happy as a man can be when he is separated from the love of his life, and his daughter.”
Imelda nodded, closing her eyes, resting her chin back on his shoulder, “Good enough.”
“And I will wait for you,” Hector said, “at the gates. However long you take, however long we are apart, I will wait for you, mí amor.”
They spent the rest of her dream dancing in silence, tears mingling on their joined cheeks.
The last month didn’t last near long enough. Hector managed to appear to her four more times, but never as solidly as he had on that night; he appeared to Coco once, to give his final goodbye, but Imelda didn’t find out about that until days after it happened.
It ended on the Day of the Dead. Imelda allowed Coco to stay up all night, and they danced along to the invisible guitar that followed Imelda wherever she went. Eventually, Coco could barely keep her eyes open, but stubbornly persevered through the night. Finally the toy guitar Hector had gifted Coco plucked out Coco’s lullaby, the last few notes seeming to echo through the room as the sun rose.
elena is ten and alone, cursed and sitting on a bench alive in the land of the dead. how she got there isn’t important: what is important is this.
she is brought quickly, swiftly, to the department of family reunions, thick hair tied into pigtails with soft purple ribbons, the same colour as her abuela’s dress.
and she gets asked the rather simple question: “who is your family, here in the land of the dead?”
and elena, guileless and brave and fierce but still ultimately ten, answers, carelessly: “my abuelo.”
you see - you see, elena’s abuelo on her papá’s side had died just that year. elena doesn’t think about her other abuelo - in fact, she doesn’t consider him much of one at all, just that dastardly husband of the best abuela in the world -
but she does say abuelo, and she does say mine, and well. nobody has ever dared accuse the department of family reunions of not keeping meticulous records.
so that brings us back to the here and now: a little girl with purple ribbons in a waiting room in the land of the dead, and a burgeoning argument outside.
no one was there with elena except one staff member, and well. no freshly-minted staff member would be prepared for this .
“héctor!” and elena perks up, even though the voice is angry, even though she is a little confused, because: that’s her abuelo! she has missed him so much. “what are you doing here?”
papá alberto says his name like a curse.
“I don’t know,” someone else says, someone elena does not know, another man. younger, less certain. “I - well. I try to keep the department on my good side. but.” a nervous laugh. “how’s the family?”
papá alberto remains quiet for a few solid beats. “good. but why would you care?”
a nervous chuckle. “well. I want to hear about how things have been going in santa cecilia.”
a strained, heavy silence pierces through the air.
elena cocks her head, curious about this stranger - this héctor - who angers her papá alberto. adults never tell her the full story.
“how’s mi familia ?” the other man - héctor asks - his voice now painfully desperate. “I have never been able to cross over - ernesto won’t talk to me - I just.”
something cracks.
“I just want to know,” héctor finishes, soft and unsure.
"you just want to know?" papá alberto asks, mocks. "it's decades too late for that, héctor!"
"you think I haven't tried ?" héctor asks, this stranger making her abuelo upset.
"no one has seen hair or hide of you since 1921!"
elena tilts her head to the side. who is this man, and how does he know her papá alberto? she wants to tell him off, to stop making papá alberto upset, like mamá imelda would, wagging her shoe fiercely.
"that's when I died!" héctor says, anguished.
a pause: one, two, three. elena leans forward.
the next time papá alberto speaks, it is a little softer. “you died in 1921?”
“did you not know?” another pause, this time more pained. “does no one in santa cecilia know?”
elena leans forward, intrigued. nothing much happens in santa cecilia - day by day life comes and goes, and that estupido músico is from it, the one all the tourists fawn over, but not much else.
papá alberto’s silence is enough answer.
another question, softer and more uncertain. “does imelda not know?”
“your wife is included in everyone,” papá alberto says, shortly. “I did not know you were dead before tonight.”
there is a loose connection forming, between héctor and abuelita, mamá imelda - but a wife from santa cecilia named imelda is not conclusive evidence in elena’s mind, a mere curiosity. she is ten years old and alive in the land of the dead, after all, and her mamá imelda's husband has long been a non-entity in her head. she is not scared, certain in her papá alberto’s ability to fix everything.
it is one of the most certain things in elena’s life: that her mamá’s papá is a non-entity, a scoundrel and a liar, who left without a word - not someone who died.
right?
héctor speaks next, cheerful in a way that sounds forced. “foolish me, thinking my best friend would tell my wife I died! what’s next, did he also frame me for robbery when I was dead and buried?”
“ah,” papá alberto says, stumbling a little, “not that I’m aware of? but everyone does think - well.”
"I gathered, gracias." the faux cheerfulness drops. “that explains a lot, alberto. I died! I didn't -”
a repetition, a yearning, like he is trying to reach between the land of the dead and the land of living and tell people the truth, tell his wife the truth.
it will be scandalous news in santa cecilia, that’s for certain.
(elena still does not make the connection. why would she? she has never known her mamá’s papá name, knows nothing more about him than that he was a good-for-nothing walkaway músico.)
(that’s all about to change.)
“I know,” papá alberto says, a little faintly. “you never seemed the sort to - well. you dying makes more sense. we’ll discuss that later. we have more pressing matters to attend to.”
“of course,” héctor replies, smoothly. “did the department call you here too?”
it looks like they have stopped fighting and that elena is going to get her blessing and going to give her papá alberto one big hug and then go back home, with a secret to tell the whole town.
“the reason the department called me,” papá alberto says, slowly, “is that my granddaughter - she’s only ten - got herself cursed and needs my blessing to return to the land of the living, or so I have been told.”
“oh, poor chamaca !” héctor sounds genuinely troubled. “well, I shouldn’t hold you any longer, thanks for telling me my family doesn’t know that I’m dead!”
a clatter of feet, and elena looks towards the door, but it still doesn’t open, not yet.
“wait, héctor. I know why they called you,” papá alberto says, before stopping.
This is a one shot/sequel to @pengychan ‘s Mind the Gap that I had brewing in my head for sometime. 100% Pengy approved, I hope you enjoy some silliness.
WARNING: Has some language, sexual descriptions and deals with a M/M/F relationship. Also you should really read Pengy’s fic before you read mine.
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“Señor De la Cruz? The doctor will see you in about five minutes.”
“Never mind. I’m leaving.”
“No—nngh! No! Sit-… down!”
With a none to gentle shove and with great effort Héctor managed to pull Ernesto back down into the waiting room seat. The crashing of a heavy body and screeching of the plastic chair led to a disgruntled brow raise from the receptionist, but she just sighed and returned to her computer work. Ernesto grumbled to himself and crossed his arms with a glare.
“This was your idea, amigo.” Héctor whispered, not wanting to agitate the lady behind the counter even more.
“Exactly, which is why I should be allowed to change my mind.” Ernesto said, pouting as he looked down at his groin. “You don’t understand. I’ve spent my- no wait, every man has spent their whole lives protecting their manhood with gentle care and affection. It is a sense of pride, of thing of power. Potency! It’s what makes a man a man. To get a vasectomy goes against everything I believe in. It’s not in my nature.”
“Aw, Ernesto…” Héctor gripped Ernesto’s arm and squeezed comfortingly. “We’ve talked about this. You’ll still be a man. Imelda and I won’t think any less of you. In fact we’re both extremely proud of you for doing this.”
“Oh shut up.”
“How about this. Once you have the operation, get all healed up and are ready for some action, then…” Pausing to check to see if the receptionist was watching them. “Then you get to go to town on Imelda. No more condoms, just skin to skin. You thrusting deep inside of her while she screams your name, coming together in one rush of pure ecstasy.”
If it weren’t for his nerves and the flight-or-fight struggle going on inside of him now Ernesto would have been fully erect by Héctor’s words alone. Not an ideal situation to be in when one was in a urologist’s office and about to be fully nude from the waist down. Still his cheeks gave a slight flush and he swallowed thickly. “And, uh… what will you be doing while I’m with her?”
“Me?” Héctor chuckled huskily. “Why I’ll be right behind you. Just how you like it.”
Ernesto gasped softly. An Ernesto sandwich, his favorite. A sandwich was something Imelda had come up with that always depended on who was in the middle of their combined lovemaking, a silly little thing hardly compared to how fucking awesome it really was. Penetration and getting penetrated, two forms of stimulation all at once that left one howling in pleasure to the heavens and beyond. Ernesto’s face went full red at that and could already feel the tingle of arousal pooling in his stomach and creeping down into his groin. This was bad. He couldn’t get hard now. He had to think of something to cool down. Something to stop the progression of his-
“Alright, Señor. The doctor will see you now.”
‘That’ll do it.’ Ernesto thought as all thoughts of sex had switched back to nauseating terror.
“Ay, puta madre.” Ernesto whispered and stood up with Héctor. He started to actually tremble when they went through the door, Héctor’s hand on his shoulder failing to stop it. “Shit, shit, shit…”
“Uy, you’re so tense.” Héctor said, now a little worried. “You took your Valium pill almost an hour ago. It didn’t calm you down even a little bit?”
“Do I look calm?!” Ernesto whispered harshly.
No, Héctor had to admit. In the last half hour in the waiting room Ernesto had done anything but relax. He had stood up and sat down multiple times, paced the room, gotten a cup of stale coffee, and had picked up every single magazine that they had, read exactly one page of each, and had thrown it back down onto the table. Héctor believed that if he hadn’t had any Valium in his system right now then there would have been an Ernesto shaped hole busted through the wall of the receptionist office.
“Well they’re gonna give you something stronger once we’re in the room.”
“It won’t work. I know it won’t work.”
“How?”
“Héctor you know me.” Ernesto said, the trembling now reaching his voice. “I have a very strong constitution. Alcohol barely phases me, I need an extraordinary amount of caffeine to really wake up. That valium might as well have been an aspirin. I’m telling you there is nothing in the world that’ll calm me down at this point!”
----------------------
Apparently that nothing had been a Demerol shot to the ass by an elderly nurse.
Héctor cursed the person who had made up the stupid rule that no cell phones or cameras were to be allowed in the doctor’s office. For this was a golden moment that would soon exist only in his memories. And maybe even only his memories because Ernesto himself was just a touch out of it. There he was, laying on the reclined operating chair in a hospital gown with his bare waist covered by a thin paper sheet. Singing baby songs.
“Quince elefantes se balanceaban sobre la tela de una araaaañaaa…” Ernesto sang drowsily while he languidly twirled his finger in the air like a conductor’s baton.
He had slowly but surely diminished over the past half hour, starting with the sluggish shaking of his head as the drugs started to paint his brain with a slight fog. Then came the slow blinking and the monotone, droning humming. Then finally to this: awake sedation as the doctors called it. To Héctor though it was pure hilarity.
Suddenly Ernesto stopped singing and his brow furrowed in thought. “You know they say that a strand of a spider’s web can be tougher than steel.”
Héctor nodded. “I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere.”
“I don’t think a spider web can hold fifteen elephants, though.”
“No.”
“Then why would they make a song about something that is physically impossible?”
Héctor laughed. “It’s just a song to teach babies how to count, Ernesto.”
“Well it’s doing a very poor job about teaching them physics.” Ernesto huffed. “When we make it big we should do some kiddy songs, sí? Public domain stuff. That’s free money right there. Quince elefantes se balanceaban-.”
“Ernesto.” Héctor clapped a hand across Ernesto’s mouth, stifling a grin when it seemed to take a few seconds before the drugged man realized his song had been silenced. When Ernesto glared up at him he continued. “You’ve said quince elefantes five times now. You aren’t adding anymore elephants.”
This seemed to be news to Ernesto, and when Héctor removed his hand he actually looked downright embarrassed and ashamed. “Oh… I’m sorry.”
Yes, drugged Ernesto was hilarious alright. Also endearing and adorable.
“It’s okay, I forgive you.” Héctor said with a smile, and then bent over to give him a kiss on the forehead.
Ernesto hummed in contentment, a faint red on his cheeks as he suddenly looked bashful. “Someone could have come in when you did that, you know.”
“But they didn’t.”
“The room could have a security camera.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Oh, okay… Then…” Ernesto pouted and pointed to his forehead on the same spot. “Uno mas.”
Héctor happily obliged, and no sooner had he leant back from the kiss when the door opened. It was enough to make Héctor’s heart seize a little bit before forcing himself to relax. He hadn’t seen, it was alright. Ernesto just smiled wobbly and waved at the doctor coming in.
“Well, Señor de la Cruz!” the doctor said cheerfully as he set down his clipboard and began to slip on his gloves. “It’s been a little while now. How are we feeling after the Demerol shot?”
“Philosophical.” Ernesto proclaimed grandly, nearly smacking Héctor in the face as he threw out his hand in a dramatic pose. “Young Héctor and I have been discussing the fallacies of nursery rhymes and how they are negatively impacting a child’s learning structure.”
The doctor blinked at that, before giving Ernesto an indulgent smile. “Ohh, so I see. Yep, the medicine is in full effect.” Looking over at Héctor his smile seemed to falter a bit. “You know I usually see wives, girlfriends and even mothers come in to offer support, but rarely male friends.”
Héctor chuckled. “Well I think if his mamá realized that he would be cutting off any chance of her having grandchildren she would explode into a flood of tears. And besides, my wife and I would like to have more kids in the future, but I also might one day want to have a vasectomy. What better time to weigh my options than with my best friend, you know? See what it all entails.”
“I understand.” With a snap of his glove and turning on the overhead light to illuminate Ernesto’s crotch, he moved his tray of surgical equipment towards him. “All right then. Shall we begin?”
With a slight whimper Ernesto held out his hand for Héctor to hold. “You won’t let go at all, right?”
Seeing Ernesto so vulnerable and adorable melted Héctor’s heart, and he wished that Imelda had been there with him to witness Ernesto being so cute. He clutched Ernesto’s hand and gave it a firm squeeze. “I won’t. Don’t worry amigo, this is a perfectly normal procedure. Nothing to worry about at all.”
---------------------------
With Coco laid down for her afternoon nap, all the dogs and Pepita fed and watered, and no shoe orders to work on at the moment Imelda was enjoying some private time to herself curled onto the sofa, watching TV and drinking a nice cup of coffee. She knew this momentary bit of peace wouldn’t last.
Soon Héctor and Ernesto would be back from the doctor’s office and Imelda would be ready for them. She already had stocked up on acetaminophen and had several cold packs in the freezer for when they would be needed. She had even stocked up on Ernesto’s favorite soda, or at least one he tolerated when he wasn’t able to drink beer or other liquors.
She was very proud of Ernesto for bringing up the idea of getting a vasectomy for himself, and even prouder when he had set up the appointment all by himself and left for it this morning with Héctor. She knew he was nervous, heck she was nervous about it too, but she also knew that Ernesto was a man who once he set his mind on something there was no turning back. It was one of the things that she loved about him, even though it sometimes aggravated her.
Loved.
It was so weird thinking that now, even though she knew it was true. Although she was still deeply in love with Héctor and he was in love with her, the end of their sexual arrangement with Ernesto did not make their feelings for him disappear like she thought it would. In fact it only strengthened them. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say.
And in the end the only thing it succeeded in doing was completely breaking Ernesto’s heart and left him wanting for almost a year. She was ashamed of herself but there was no way she could have foreseen what would come of the night she had slapped that strap-on in front of Ernesto. She had no idea that she would have two men holding a third of her heart while she held a third of theirs.
But it was fine now. For how long she didn’t know. But they would just take it one day at a time.
When she heard the door knock she blew out a sigh and set her coffee mug down. Dante and Ernesto’s four little chihuahuas immediately ran to the door in their room where they were currently shut up in, but thankfully for once they didn’t yip or bark. Just whined pitifully and slightly scratched the door. But they would have to wait until she got Ernesto set up on the couch and was safely protected from them.
Opening the door, she greeted them with a smile. “Well, how did it… go?...”
Ernesto was standing there, straight and tall as ever, an annoyed pout on his face while with one arm wrapped around him was Héctor. Trembling slightly and his face the color of putty, Héctor pointed a shaking finger to Imelda. “We… are stocking up on condoms. Either that or we’ll have a dozen kids. But I am never… going to get one of those… things ever! Never ever!”
Imelda was shocked. “Dios mio! What on Earth happened? Ernesto, did you get the vasectomy or not?”
Handing Imelda a pamphlet with his free hand, Ernesto nodded. “Yeah, I got it. Surgery was short and went without a hitch. Here’s the aftercare treatment plan he gave me. No, the real problem was Princess Héctor right here. Fainted like a dainty maid after the doctor held up my sperm tube for us to see. I know it has another name, but I forget and don’t care.”
“Fainted!” Imelda gasped. “Are you all right? Did you hit your head?”
“No, but he did throw up.” Ernesto smirked.
“Don’t remind me.” Héctor groaned, holding his stomach and struggling to support himself. “I’ve been nauseous the whole ride back. I need to see something cute. Something pure. I need to see my Coco. Coco, my love, Papá is coming!”
“Do not wake her up Héctor, I just put her down twenty minutes ago!” Imelda called out to Héctor’s retreating form. “And don’t let the dogs out of the other room either!”
“Ay, ay ay ay…”
At the sound of pain, Imelda’s attention turned to Ernesto. He was hunched slightly against the doorframe, his eyes closed tight and face pinched. “Oh, I’m so sorry Ernesto. Héctor distracted me. Are you in a lot of pain?”
“Just tender more than painful.” Ernesto grunted out. “Though it might hurt more after the anesthetic wears off. No, what really hurts is my hand. Héctor crushed the hell out of it during the whole surgery! I regret ever asking him to hold it in the first place! It’s not like my whole livelihood rests in the full use of my hands…”
“You’d still have your voice.” Imelda smiled. “And your so-called good looks.”
“Whatever… can you help me to the couch? I- nng!-… think I reached my limit helping Héctor.”
Ah, so he was in pain. Taking hold of Ernesto’s large arm she helped him slowly shuffle his way around the couch. “He was supposed to be helping you.” She chastised.
“Well he was pretty much useless afterwards.”
“You could have hurt yourself. You shouldn’t be lifting heavy objects.”
Ernesto smiled. “Well look on the bright side. If one of my cajones swells up like a grapefruit then he can pay for my medical bills.”
“Mmm hmm.” Imelda couldn’t help by snicker a little at that. “Okay, let’s sit you down. Okay, easy. Easy…”
Slowly Ernesto sat down on the couch, letting Imelda support him as he slowly eased his way down. With a pained grunt and then a sigh of relief he let his head fall back against the headrest and let his knees spread enough to the point where there was no pain, the sweatpants he was wearing lifting away from the sensitive area. He closed his eyes for a few moments, listening to Imelda bustling through the kitchen quietly, before a soft ahem made him open them again.
Imelda handed him a glass of water and two white pills, then placed a frozen ice pack next to him on the couch. Taking the pills without complaint and downing half the glass of water, he then took the ice pack and ever so gently molded it against his sore nether regions. Gasping softly at the cold at first he then sighed in relief as the coolness soothed the aches and pains, smiling gratefully up at Imelda. “Gracias.”
“De nada.” Imelda said before sitting down next to him, careful not to jostle him too much. “So, the vasectomy was a success?”
Ernesto nodded. “Yep, my cannon is now just a water gun: I may be shooting blanks, but I can still squirt you in the eye.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Oh am I?”
“Hmm…” Imelda leant against her arm that was resting on the back of the couch, relieved that the pain seemed to be slowly fading from Ernesto’s features. She smiled a little, watching him until he looked over her way with a question on his face. “I’m proud of you, you know.”
Shifting a little uncomfortably, he gave her a smug look that used to infuriate her but now knew was just a mask to cover up his own insecurities. “You’re going to have to be more specific. I have done many things in my life you should be proud of.”
“Oh, of course.” Imelda tittered, then rested a hand on his arm. “No I’m proud that you did this. It would have been… hard to explain to others if I gave birth to a child that looked like you… I know you don’t necessarily like children and wouldn’t want one to begin with, but it was still a big decision to make. It couldn’t have been easy-”
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to stay with you two… Whatever it takes…”
This startled Imelda. Ernesto’s face had darkened considerably when he had said that, but his eyes displayed the same misery she had seen during the year where Ernesto had been separated from them. Because of her. She had been acting on her motherly instincts when she had found out that she was pregnant with Coco, surely a threesome between her parents and her godfather would end badly for her once it would be discovered. And it had only been about sex at the beginning and one-upping each other in terms of sexual prowess when it came to Héctor.
But love had grown first in Ernesto. And then in her and Héctor. All the separation had done was make them all miserable. It was no one else’s concern what they did behind closed doors, and they would raise Coco and their potential children to have open minds and kind hearts.
Ernesto’s eyes cleared and his face reddened in embarrassment as he quickly tried to back pedal. “Oh, uh… Forget I said that. I guess I’m still a little high from the drugs the nurse gave me. They always make me a bit chatty.”
Leaning forward, she wove her fingers into Ernesto’s wavy hair and smiled. “Well I wouldn’t worry. Like it or not you’re stuck with us for life.” And then she gave him a kiss on the forehead, not knowing it was in the exact same spot that Héctor had given him hours earlier. Ernesto touched where she had kissed him, face even redder, and smiled back.
Standing up from the couch, Imelda handed him the TV remote and brushed herself down in a way to calm her own nerves. “Well all right then. Don’t leave that ice pack on for too long. Just do it twenty minutes every hour. Would you like a soda?”
“I’d prefer a beer.”
“Not with medicine still in your system.”
“I also want to see my dogs.”
“I’m sorry, do you want four bony and dense cannonballs jumping directly onto your crotch?”
“…No…”
“Didn’t think so. I’ll get you some soda and chips before I have to rescue Coco from her father. Just holler if you need anything else.”
Watching her walk into the kitchen Ernesto settled further into the couch with a grin. The ache in his groin was lessening, he was now and forever barren, Imelda was pampering him, and he’d seen Héctor make a total fool out of himself today.
“This is nice.” Ernesto said to himself as he turned on the TV. “I should have gotten a vasectomy years ago!”
-------------------------
“And this is from his concert last month in Guadalajara! Signed photographs! Isn’t he handsome? My precious boy! He told me that they were charging 1000 pesos for one foto and they were selling like crazy! But he sent me a stack so that I could share them with my friends. And so I was wondering if you would like one too, Maricarmen?”
Maricarmen stopped stacking a pyramid of oranges long enough to glance at the photograph in Señora Adela de la Cruz’s hands. Ernesto was handsome all right: Dressed in a fine royal blue mariachi suit with a wide brimmed sombrero, grinning with pure machismo and his name signed in gold ink. But the sight of him didn’t melt her insides like it would other girls who glanced at his rugged features. It never did, really. Now just looking at him made her… anxious.
“I think I’ll pass Adela, but gracias anyway.”
Adela’s smile faded and she had that pitying, patronizing look that so many other people gave her that made her so mad but unable to defend herself against. “Are you still upset because Ernesto left all those years ago?”
“…I’m not… upset, but-.”
“Because it was my fault really! Ernesto left because of what I and his father did to him, we betrayed his trust and hurt him deeply. But finally we’ve patched things up and everything is right as rain again. He even visits us again, my precious boy! I know that you and he were good friends-”
Friends…
“-but every time he visits you never come over. Are you upset with him? Are you upset that he’s…” Adela paused, looked around to see if anyone else was listening in on their conversation, and whispered none too quietly, “…gay?”
Shocked into a sputtering snort Maricarmen managed to knock down her carefully made orange pyramid all over her fruit stall and onto the ground. Rolling her eyes she bent down to pick up the fallen fruit, shaking her head. “No, I’m not upset about that.” She said, not at all wanting to explain to the older woman what bisexuality was.
“I know you had some feelings for him.”
“… No offense, Dona, but the only feelings I had for him were tolerance but mostly annoyance.”
“Then what is it?”
“Mamá!”
The uncomfortable conversation was finally over with when all of a sudden a piercing cry and quick steps caused both woman to turn at the sudden intruder. A cute little girl, no more than eleven years old, came running up to them with her pink backpack slung over one elbow and her other hand reaching out for Maricarmen. She practically collided with Maricarmen with enough force to garner an oof! from the thin woman and gave her a big hug. “I’m done with school Mamá! May I have some money?”
“And a cheery good afternoon to you too, Maricruz.” Maricarmen said drily.
Maricruz laughed sheepishly and let go, putting her backpack underneath the fruit stand for safekeeping. “Lo siento, Mamá. It’s just that Dolores and Primavera are going to the movies and they invited me. So can I have some money, por favooooor?!”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, mija, but you know things have been tight recently. I’m going to have to start doing some night shifts at the cantina so we can stay afloat and have enough spending money.”
Maricarmen stayed strong when her daughter’s face instantly dropped. She knew that Maricruz was used to not having enough money for things she wanted, but being alone at night while her mother worked was something she hated most. Maricarmen knew that, but it wasn’t like she had anybody else to help her with raising her daughter. Her parents had both died years ago, and she had no other relatives willing to help the poor little slut who had a bastard child.
Maybe I could ask… her father for help?
No. Out of the question. What a fine time to tell him he had a daughter after all these years. And after he had just made it big.
“Oh, okay…” Maricruz said dejectedly, before turning a wide winning smile to Adela. “Señora de la Cruz! How nice to see you. Could you spare a few pesos so I could go see a movie, por favor?”
“Maricruz!” her mother instantly scolded. “You do not just ask someone else for money immediately after I said-”
“Of course I can, niña!”
“ADELA!” Maricarmen cried. “I’m trying to show her she can’t always get what she wants!”
Adela waved her off as she reached for her wallet. “Oh, it’s just a little money and our movie theater isn’t expensive. Going to one movie isn’t going to spoil the girl, especially one as sweet as she is. Here you go, chiquita, here’s enough money for the movie and a few snacks as well.”
“Gracias Señora de la Cruz!” Maricruz said as she pocketed the money and gave the elderly woman a big hug. “You are the nicest woman in all of Santa Cecilia!”
“Oh ho ho, you charmer you.” Adela chortled and then handed her one of her signed photographs. “Here you go also. A signed photograph of my son Ernesto, soon to be the greatest singer in all of Mexico! I’m giving it to everyone for free.”
“Oh cool, gracias!” Maricruz said as she took it, clearly not as excited as she was when she got the money. “I think I’ll give this to my friend Paloma if you don’t mind. She’s a de la Cruzito for life, at least that’s what she told me.”
“Oh, and you’re not?” Adela asked confused.
Maricarmen shook her head and smirked. “No, she likes Héctor, don’t you mija?”
Maricruz sighed dramatically and clutched the photo to her chest. “Ahhh, he’s soooo dreamy!...”
“Really now!” Adela laughed in surprise. “I must admit I’m a little shocked. Don’t get me wrong Héctor is a fine boy and everything, but I guess I’m just used to everyone fawning over my Tito.”
Photograph still in hand, Maricruz just shrugged and smiled widely, her light brown eyes almost giving off a golden hue. “Sorry Señora. But Ernesto de la Cruz just isn’t my type!”
Miguel Rivera’s been fascinated by the story of the legendary ghost, the Musician with Poison Tears, since he was a kid. He’s always wanted to know the full story behind the weeping specter that haunts the train station with its invisible guitar. Now 18, the travels to Mexico City to try to observe the ghost from afar and get some clues about its origin. Who knows? He might even get a song out of it.
This story is based on the art and ghost!au created by @melcecilia14. Go check out her artwork here, here, here, and here. It’s really awesome.
Miguel and his cousins watched from the doorway as their Abuelita sat in the courtyard reading the newspaper.
“You think this is a good idea?” Abel asked?
“Not really, but it’s the only one I’ve got.” Miguel spent all night preparing what to say to her. He rubbed his thumb over the cover of the journal in his hands. He figured, if she wouldn’t listen to him, she might listen to Mamá Coco. Even then, it might not be enough, but he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t try.
“Maybe it would be better if one of us did the talking,” Rosa suggested.
Miguel shook his head. “No, it has to come from me.”
With one more breath, he stepped out into the morning sunlight. “Abuelita?” he said approaching the table. She flipped one corner of her paper down and peered at him over it. “I have something to show you.” He sat down beside her and set the book on the table. “I opened Mamá Coco’s gift. You know? The one she gave me right before she died?”
Abuelita put her newspaper aside, looked inquisitively at the book, and opened the cover.
“Careful,” Miguel instructed. “It’s very old and there’s a few loose pages.”
She turned to a random page and her eyes went wide when she saw the handwriting inside. “Miguel, what is this?”
He grinned. It was a small victory but those were the first words she spoke to him since that awful fight. At least he was making progress. “Mamá Coco gave me the journal she kept when she was young. She writes about a lot of things in here. She talks about Mamá Imelda and Tío Oscar and Tío Filipe. She talks about growing up in Santa Cecelia and working in the zapatoria… and she talks about music.”
Abuelita threw him a sharp look.
“I know, I know, it’s not your favorite subject,” he conceded, “but if you read her words, you’ll know she loved music too. Though, I already knew that because she’s the one who introduced me to music in the first place. She used to sing to me when no one was listening.”
Her lips curved downward into a hard frown. “You’re trying to use your Mamá Coco to justify your lies?”
“No, that not it,” he backpedaled. “I just meant that she loved music and she wanted to share it with the people she loved. She did it because that’s what her father did. She loved him and he loved her. She never believed he abandoned them on purpose and she was right. I know because I met him.”
Abuelita looked at him like he was trying to convince her the earth was flat.
“I know how it sounds, but it’s the truth. He’s the ghost who’s haunting the train station. I talked to him. Rosa and Abel talked to him. He went on tour with his best friend, Ernesto de la Cruz, always planning to come home, but when the time came, Ernesto wanted him to keep going. He tried to go home anyway, and Ernesto murdered him for it, stole his songs, and became famous off of them. Now he’s trapped, but he’s still trying to come home.”
He placed the small photograph corner on the table, showing her Héctor’s face. She looked at it like she’d seen a ghost. Well, I guess she has.
“That’s him,” Miguel explained, sliding the picture closer. “His name is Héctor. Mamá Coco kept this for a reason.”
Abuelita kept staring at the photo. The initial shock left her face, but now, Miguel couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
“All he wants is to see Mamá Imelda and Mamá Coco again. That’s his unfished business. It’s why he’s still hanging on. He’s too late to meet them in person now, but there might still be a chance. You’re Mamá Coco’s daughter. I think if her met you, if he knew his family still loved him, it’d set him free. He’d be able to cross over and he’d finally return to Mamá Coco and Mamá Imelda.”
She was silent for a long time. Miguel resisted the urge to fill that silence. He knew she needed it and it was best to let her take this in at her own pace. “You lied to me,” she finally said. She didn’t sound angry, but hurt. “You lied to your whole family for years. After all those lies, why should I believe you are telling the truth now?”
Miguel felt a lump form in his throat. “I’m sorry I lied,” he began, gently taking her hand, “and I’m sorry for what I said to you on the night we fought. I regret that the most. I have no excuse for that. I was wrong to say those things. All I ever wanted was to share my love of music with my family. I still hope I can someday and I hope you’ll be there when I do, but this isn’t about me. Héctor is part of our family and he needs our help.”
She went quiet again and looked off into the distance. He thought he could see tears brimming on her eyes. “You don’t have to answer me right now. Here,” he slid the journal closer to her, “I’ll leave this with you. I hope you’ll read through it. I think Mamá Coco wanted us to know how she really felt.”
He waited for a response. When none came, he picked up the picture of Héctor and left her with her thoughts. He wasn’t sure how long she would think it over or if she’d consider it at all. He hoped she would, but not just for Héctor’s sake. Their whole family revolved around this one painful event. If they put Héctor to rest, maybe they could put that pain to rest as well.
[-]
A few days later, Miguel had his answer. He was hanging out in the living room with his cousins when Abuelita walked it, journal in hand. “Alright, when do we leave?” she asked, looking at Miguel.
He went dumb for a second. “Leave for what?”
“To see this ghost of yours of course.”
“You mean Héctor?” he asked, jumping to his feet. “You want to help him?”
She nodded. “At the very least, I can see what he has to say for himself.”
“Great, so when do you want to leave?” It was really best to let her take the reins from here.
“Tomorrow, bright and early” she said. Her voice made it clear there would be no argument.
“Right, of course Abuelita. Tomorrow.”
[-]
The drive back up to Mexico City was tense to say the least. It was nearly silent. The no-music rule was still in effect, after all. Rosa and Abel sat up front and exchanged a few words but that was about all the sound they had. Miguel sat in the back with Abuelita, who looked out the window with a determined look on her face. At least the quiet gave Miguel time to think about how best to approach this whole day. That last thing he wanted was for Abuelita to chew out her long-dead grandfather in front of a crowd who couldn’t see who she was yelling at. And he definitely didn’t want Hector’s first encounter with his long lost family to leave him feeling even more alone than he already did. He just had to cross his fingers and pray this all went smoothly.
When they arrived at the train station, Miguel begged Abuelita to let him introduce her. “Fine Miguel,” she agreed with a shrug. “This is your ghost. We’ll do it your way.”
Once they got inside, it didn’t take them long to find Héctor. He popped up in front of them as soon as they walked through the door. “Miguel, what are you doing back so soon? I thought you had a promise to keep with your family.”
“I did and kept it. In fact, I brought some of them.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at his cousin.
“I see. Hola Abel. Hola Rosa,” Héctor said cheerfully as he waved at them.
“I also brought my Abuelita,” Miguel said, gesturing toward her. “Abuelita, this is Héctor.”
“Can she see me?” Héctor asked.
Abuelita nodded. “I can.” From her awestruck expression, there was no doubt.
“That’s great! It seems your whole family can…” Something seemed to click in his mind and his face shifted into a thoughtful expression.
“About that, I did some more digging while I was at home and there’s a good reason we can all talk to you.”
Abuelita clutched Mamá Coco’s journal in her hands. Miguel gestured for it and she handed it to him without taking her eyes off Héctor.
“This Journal belonged to my great grandmother,” he said, showing it to Héctor. “She started it when she was fourteen. She wrote about her life in Santa Cecelia, her love of dancing and music, and she wrote about how much she missed her father. You see, he disappeared when she was a little girl. And her name was Coco Rivera.”
Héctor’s eyes went wide. If he could still breathe, it would have left him. “My Coco?”
Miguel nodded with a soft smile. He put his hands on Abuelita’s shoulders and gently guided her closer to the ghost. “Héctor, this is your granddaughter, Elena Rivera.”
“My…” He stared at her like he was seeing the sun for the first time. “I can hardly believe…”
“You…” Abuelita started. Miguel held his breath. “You…” she said again, apparently searching for the right word.
Miguel braced himself. Would it be an insult? A tirade about how he abandoned his family? Could he even hope she’d say something kind? Please God, let this go well.
“You’re a baby!” she said at last.
Miguel’s jaw hit the floor.
Héctor drew back and blinked. “Excuse me?”
“How old were you when you died?” she demanded.
Héctor’s eyes darted between her and Miguel. “Twenty one?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“No I’m telling…” He looked helplessly at Miguel who could only shrug. Neither were able to comprehend the awesome power of Abuelita.
“Dios mio, I have grandchildren older than you,” she sighed, shaking her head. “My boys were idiots at that age. It’s no wonder you got those ideas in your head. All this time I thought you were cruel and careless. Turns out you were just young and stupid.”
Héctor’s eyes turned to the floor. “You’re right. I was stupid. My stupid choice caused my whole family pain. I’m sorry.”
“Is that all you have to say for yourself?”
Héctor shook his head. “It’s all I think I have a right to say.”
“Don’t give me that,” Abuelita scolded. “I want to know exactly what you were thinking.”
“Abuealita,”Miguel interjected, “Héctor only recently got his memories back. I don’t think he’ll remember.”
“It’s alright Miguel,” Héctor said, floating closer. “I do remember.” He straightened himself up and looked Abuelita in the eye. “I remember that we were poor. I remember wanting to give Imelda and Coco a better life. I thought becoming a famous musician was the only way I could do that. I always planned on coming home. I never thought I wouldn’t make it and I never could have imagined why.”
“Your friend murdered you?” she asked frankly.
“Yes.”
“How long did you know him?”
He sighed. “My whole life.”
“How did he do it?”
“He toasted our friendship with a poisoned drink,” he answered with a bitter sneer.
Abuelita shook her head in disgust. “Coward,” she spat with the venom of a snake. “Well, you were stupid, but you didn’t deserve to die.”
Héctor’s face seemed to lighten up slightly. “Miguel mentioned before that after his great-great grandfather left, your family hated music. That you believed music tore your family apart.”
“That is true.”
He nodded sadly. “I am ashamed to be the cause of that. If I knew how much my family would suffer for my mistake, I never would have touched a guitar.”
“That’s nonsense,” Abuelita snapped, taking both Héctor and Miguel by surprise. “Miguel tells me your songs became very popular.”
“More like iconic,” Miguel corrected.
“If you have a talent like that, you should use it,” Abuelita affirmed.
Miguel thought he might lose his breath now. “Do you really mean that, Abuelita?”
She cast a teasing smile in his direction. “Do you think I’m a liar, Miguel?”
He beamed. “No, ma’am.”
Abuelita returned his grin and turned back to Héctor. “My family spent generations being angry at you. I used to think you were the slimiest, most self-centered snake to ever slither across the planet. I must say,” she let out a breath and smiled up at him, “you are not what I imagined. I think you’ve been punished more than enough, don’t you?”
Hope grew in Héctor’s eyes. “Does this mean you forgive me?” A faint glow began emanating from him.
Abuelita nodded. “I could never stay mad at my family, not when I know they meant well.” She gave Héctor a once-over and tsked. “Look at you. So skinny. That’s the real curse you put on my family. My sister, my son Enrique, and just look at Miguel.” She swung her arm in his direction. “All twigs thanks to you.”
Héctor laughed. “Now that I’m not sure how to apologize for.”
“Look at that, Miguelito,” she said, putting her arm around him, “you’ve got his dimple.” His cousins gathered around him as well. Héctor’s joy at seeing them all together radiated off him like the orange glow.
“Now what are you waiting for?” Abuelita said to him. “I think you’ve kept your family waiting long enough.”
Héctor’s light dimmed. “Do you think they’ll take me back?”
Abuelita gave him a sad smile. “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer, but I read my mother’s journal and I do know this: she still loves you.”
Tears fell from Héctor’s eyes once again. There was no scent of tequila and not a trace of poison. These tears were real.
The orange glow around him grew brighter. The flesh on his fingers faded, revealing bone underneath.
“Héctor! Your hand!” Miguel cried as the skin continued to disappear.
Héctor smiled as he examined his hands, completely unalarmed by this change. “It’s alright, Miguel,” he laughed. “It’s alright. I feel better than I have in a century.” His flesh continued to burn away and he laughed as if filled with pure delight. “I love you all. I couldn’t wish for a better family.” His smile was enough to warm the hearts of everyone around him. “You set me free. I can’t thank you enough. Please never forget how much you love each other.”
“We won’t,” Miguel answered, tears filling his own eyes.
Héctor’s grin somehow made his glow even brighter. The light became blinding as it enveloped him. He let out one last jubilant laugh and he was gone.
