Coco brainworm that won’t leave me alone
*spoilers, speculation and angst below*
Mama Imelda never hated music; just what it reminded her of and what it had done to her family. Maybe when Ernesto told her about the death of Hector, she’d resolved to put his picture on the ofrenda. She was hurt, and struggling- but she had loved him once. Coco loved him still.
Then one day, Ernesto’s first record hits the shelves of Santa Cecilia. Imelda picks one up, idly wondering what he’d come up with (he’d always been a deft guitarist, a decent singer- but composition had never been his strength.)
Her heart stops when she reads the song titles listed on the back.
These were Hector’s songs. She knew them by heart. He’d sung Un Poco Loco at their recepcion; she’d kissed him, then. Now she heard it from the mouth of every mariachi, and she feels cold.
Imelda doesn’t hate music. But in Santa Cecilia, de la Cruz is blasted from every corner, and her memories of her once loved husband sour. He left his family and died in a barrio miles from home, and shared private memories- precious memories- with his ambitious best friend, for the sake of fame and fortune.
(De la Cruz was a bit of a penjedo, but one she had grown up with. Hector’s best friend, Coco’s Tio Ernesto. The possibility of foul play never enters her mind.)
She first bans de la Cruz’s music from the house for Coco’s sake. If Un Poco Loco now makes her feel ill, Remember Me leaves her furious. Her daughter’s lullaby has become a bastardized love ballad, and Imelda refuses to let her hear it.
The record does well. Incredibly well. The town is so proud of its hometown hero. Imelda can’t get away from them- except in the privacy of her walls. Words like forgiveness and amends become anathema, as bitter proof of her husband’s betrayal and abandonment are sung from every corner and become woven into the national identity.
Imelda doesn’t hate music. She loved it before Hector, and she loved it after Hector. But as Ernesto de la Cruz becomes a household name in every house but hers, as thinking of his name and his fame mean thinking of Hector, who is and was music, even after his death, and the music lived on-
- she can’t think of music anymore. She won’t. She won’t let Coco think of it either.
When Dia del Muertos comes that year, Hector’s grave is cold and undecorated, his belongings sold and thrown away. His face is ripped from the family picture, carefully stored and hidden away by his little girl. His face is far from the ofrenda, and he stands on the other side of the bridge for the first of many cold and long decades to come.
The Rivera house is quiet. This year, Imelda is busy learning to make shoes in between moments of fond remembrance for everyone but her husband. She’ll give the day its proper attention later, but if she works hard enough now, she can drown out the sound of the mariachi outside.
The house stays quiet for years to come.
