Chapter Text
————
Honey, come home
My stubborn ways are behind me now
They're behind me now
And there's nothing here
That will not break down
Like you never did
The kids say hello
To us in our separate homes
Darlin' please come home
I've cleaned out the fridge
Wiped the counters off
Put away my clothes
‘Honey Come Home,’ by The Head and the Heart
————
Chapter One
————
Dying, in the end, is easy.
‘I love you,’ Coco whispers to Elena that evening, stroking a shaking hand up over her daughter’s grey hair. ‘Give Mamá a kiss,’ she says, lifting her cheek up.
Elena laughs, her smile wry. She leans down, pressing her lips to Coco’s cheek.
‘I love you,’ Coco says again, taking Elena’s chin in her hand. ‘So very much.’
‘I know Mamá,’ Elena says, ‘Sweet dreams. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Coco knows.
Elena doesn’t, but that’s okay.
Coco settles in her bed - in the bed she and Julio had once shared, but that she’s slept alone in for years. Over twenty now, maybe, she’s not always sure anymore; time slipping past in clumps and then stalling. Sometimes she swears she’s only nineteen year old, and Julio is waiting for her by the big tree at the end of the path so they can go dancing.
And sometimes she feels the weight of every year she’s lived, every year she’s outlived her husband and her daughter.
And her mother. Rosita. Tíos.
Coco closes her eyes, tucking the blanket up under her chin. She drifts off to sleep easily - more easily than she has in years, and that’s that.
Easy.
————
Except -
‘Hi there,’ comes a woman’s voice, somewhere from her left. Coco blinks. Blinks again and -
That’s not that, apparently.
Because there is a skeleton smiling down at her.
‘I know it can be a very confusing time,’ she says, warmly, glancing down at the cue cards in her hand. ‘But I want to reassure you that you are safe and well, here in the land of the dead.’
She’s very pretty, Coco thinks idly. Bright bones and colourful turquoise flowers decorating her skull.
‘When you’re ready,’ she says, ‘we’ll take you through to the arrivals hall, and get you processed. But there’s no rush. Take your time. I’ll be here if you have any questions. My name is Amelia.’
Another smile, and Amelia takes a small step back, giving Coco space.
It’s -
Not exactly what she expected.
But it’s also, not not what she expected, so Coco sits up - with ease, she notes, the stiffness and ache in her joints and muscles seemingly gone - and stretches her shoulders.
‘I’m dead then?’ Coco says, and Amelia nods, taking a small step closer.
‘That’s right,’ she says.
‘Well, it was about time,’ Coco says, ‘I suppose,’ though she swallows around the lump in her throat. Oh Elena, her poor babé.
Amelia gives her a small smile.
‘That’s not an uncommon sentiment,’ she says, ‘for our arrivals who are older.’
‘And I am old,’ Coco says, ‘believe me.’
A deep breath, and Coco looks down at herself. She’s unsurprised to see the glint of light off bare bone but it’s disorientating. She inspects her hands quietly, confused and fascinated by the way the joints are held together without - without muscle and flesh to hold them in place.
She lifts a hand to her face and gone is her soft, sagging skin.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘what happens next?’
————
Next, apparently, is eyeballs and wig, which is disconcerting, to say the least, though Coco feels better for them.
Amelia leads her gently from the dark, cosy - room? - space where she’d woken, into the brighter hallways of an - entry hall?
Coco has no idea.
She only knows that the halls are large, bright with a strange light, and there are skulls everywhere she looks. It’s a morbid decoration, but Coco likes it. It’s fitting.
She only wishes she had some shoes. She’d never thought to wear them to bed.
‘Here,’ Amelia says, settling behind a desk, and inviting Coco to take a seat. ‘We’ll get you processed. Can I have your name?’
‘Socorro Rivera,’ she says pleasantly, linking her fingers.
‘Age?’
‘A hundred and one,’ Coco says.
Amelia collects some more details, noting them down neatly on the form in front of her - we’ll just call it old age, she says nodding, that's a nice way to go - and enters some details into a computer.
‘Right,’ she says, inspecting the screen, ‘ah, here we go. There are a couple of family connections here - do you have a preference for who we contact?’
Family connections.
‘Uh, oh -‘ Coco says. She has no heart anymore - she checked, nothing in the empty space inside her ribcage - but suddenly there’s a pounding in her head, in her chest.
Julio, she thinks, desperately, Victoria. Rosita.
Imelda. Tíos. And maybe -
She thinks of Miguel - I’ve been there Mamá Coco, to the land of the dead. And your Papá is there, I promise. He wasn’t forgotten. You see, I took the guitar — but she hadn’t understood the significance in that moment.
She thinks she’s starting to now.
‘Ah,’ Amelia says, ‘it looks like most of these are registered at the same address.’
‘Is it a shoe shop?’ Coco says seriously.
‘It is,’ Amelia says, a small grin on her face, ‘in fact, yes.’
Well.
‘That makes sense,’ Coco says, nodding, as though she isn’t shaking.
‘Shall we call them?’ Amelia says, ‘I need your verbal consent,’ she explains. ‘Otherwise we could call someone you don’t want us too - even if they’re registered as close family - and that’s a data breach you see -‘
‘Yes,’ Coco says. ‘Yes, please. My husband or my mother. Either. Both. My daughter. Oh.’
Coco raises a hand to her mouth, turning her head.
‘Ah,’ she says, quietly, ‘You’ve been waiting a long time to see them, haven’t you?’
Coco can only nod.
‘I understand. We’ll sort it.’
Coco closes her eyes.
————
The phone rings.
Imelda has only just dropped off to sleep and she startles. She sits up slowly.
The phone is still ringing.
There’s footsteps on the stairs, thudding, and then -
Imelda rises unsteadily from the bed, wrapping herself in her dressing gown. When she cracks open her bedroom door, the hall light is already on. Julio is at the bottom of the stairs - it’s him who’s answered the phone - and Victoria is stood on the bottom step, wringing her hands.
‘Yes,’ Julio says, ‘Yes I understand. We’ll’ - his voice breaks - ‘We’ll be there as soon as we can. Tell her, please, tell her we’re on our way.’
Coco.
It’s the only reason the phone would ring at night - Imelda thinks of the phone call that brought her the twins, only eighteen months after she’d arrived; and the phone call that brought her Victoria, over a decade before her father. Rosita had been the middle of the day, when the sun was highest.
Coco.
‘Is - is it Mamá?’ Victoria says.
‘Yes,’ Julio whispers into the dim hallway, ‘Yes.’
Oh.
‘I - uh - ‘ Imelda stutters.
Mamá Imelda is strong. Mamá Imelda is composed and in control
Mamá Imelda always knows what to do.
‘We - we can’t all go,’ Imelda says. ‘That’s too much. Too many people. Overwhelming. We - you -‘
She takes a deep breath.
Composed.
‘You both go,’ Imelda says. ‘Julio and Victoria, the rest of us will wait.’
A glance behind her, and the twins are nodding. Rosita nods too, and Oscar reaches out, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
‘Let’s go,’ Julio says, but Victoria stalls - she’s still in her night gown.
‘Take my coat, mi amor’ Imelda says, taking a few steps down the stairs. ‘Take my coat - there -‘
Victoria does, taking the navy blue coat that Imelda wears to deal with difficult suppliers, long and tied at the waist. She wraps herself up in it, slipping on Imelda’s boots too, and then lets Julio take her hand and they hurry out the door.
————
‘Can you do something for me?’ Imelda says quietly.
It’s not clear who she’s talking to - she can’t quite bring herself to look up from the kitchen table, where Rosita is clutching Imelda’s hand - but the twins are long used to picking up when Imelda can’t make the jump.
‘Of course,’ Oscar says equally quiet.
‘Can you go and get Hector?’
I want him to be here when Coco arrives, she could say.
I want to make sure he’s still here, she could say.
But she doesn’t say anything at all.
‘Of course,’ Oscar says again. ‘I’ll go Melda. You stay here,’ he says to Felipe.
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
Oscar gives Imelda a kiss on the side of the head as he passes, kicking on his shoes and disappearing out into the night.
Imelda sighs - she allows herself only this - she sighs, and lets Felipe take her other hand in his. He squeezes tight.
‘Poor Elena,’ Rosita whispers. ‘Oh bebé.’
Imelda feels a pang.
The twins’ death had brought Imelda equal parts grief and relief. Victoria’s had been awful, so young as she was - Imelda was devastated - Rosita and Julio’s bittersweet.
Coco’s is long overdue, and yet Imelda feels that unshakable sting.
‘All we can do is focus on what’s in front of us,’ Felipe says, ‘and make sure Coco is safe and settle her. There’s nothing else we can do.’
Imelda nods, taking another sip of tea.
————
‘Cousin Hector! Cousin Hector!’
Hector represses a sigh.
‘Cousin Hector!’
‘Come in,’ he calls quietly.
The sky is dark - it’s late - and the murky moonlight glints off the water to Hector’s left. He’s been sprawled out in his hammock, not really sleeping, more dozing.
Skeletons don’t really need to sleep, but it’s nice anyway, and it always feels a bit weird if he doesn’t sleep for a long time. Although -
Hector once didn’t sleep for nearly six months. It wasn’t on purpose, he’d just kind of got caught up in an art project, a musical project, back when he was still young and believing that it was only a matter of time. Back when he was passing time until his picture appeared, and music hadn’t yet become twisted and Imelda still loved him.
He’d written a whole musical with a couple of old-school musicians and it had been such fun, pushing the boundaries of a body that doesn’t need to eat or sleep. And then he’d crashed for two days and Tía Chelo had been angry with him. Though not as angry as Imelda would have been.
In those days, Hector used to pretend, pretend he could hear her voice, pretend he could hear her chiding, her shouting.
Go to bed, she would have shouted until she was hoarse. Go to bed! -
‘Hector!’
‘Yes niñita,’ he calls.
Alejandra pokes her head around the door. She’s small, only eight or nine when she died, though she’s been here for a decade now. She’d absconded from the orphanage she’d been staying in years ago. Tía Chelo is looking after her until her mother passes.
‘You should be in bed,’ he chides gently, though there’s no danger around Shantytown. There’s always someone to keep an eye on the children. ‘It’s late cariña.’
‘Someone’s here to see you,’ she whispers, pulling back the curtain further, letting murky light in the door. She’s dressed in her pyjamas, hair braided and tied for bed. ‘He got lost and Tía Chelo threatened to eat him.’
Hector chuckles.
He rolls gracelessly out of the hammock; his dodgy knee nearly buckles under him, but he catches himself, staggering over to the doorway.
‘She probably wouldn’t really have eaten him,’ Alejandra says, though she sounds unsure.
‘Probably not,’ Hector says kindly, patting her on the head and guiding her back outside. ‘But thank you for bringing him to me anyway, better safe than sorry. Now, back to bed with you.’
Hector guides her back up the pathway, his hand on the back her head, as she chatters and hops alongside him, all the way back to Tía Chelo’s home.
It takes Hector a moment.
He doesn’t immediately recognise the silhouette - the twins had been young still when he last saw them last, Día de Muertos aside - but something twists in his ribcage when he realises it’s Oscar.
In the middle of the night.
‘Is everything - oh, is - okay?’
Hector nearly topples off the edge of the walkway in his haste - Alejandra laughs and pulls him back by his vest - and he takes Oscar’s outstretched arm.
‘Everything’s - it’s -‘
Oscar has a strange look on his face - relief maybe, or amusement - and he puts his hand over Hector’s, balancing him.
‘It’s Coco,’ he says, ‘She’s here.’
Hector’s going to be sick.
————
Coco doesn’t see the phone call.
She’s still with Amelia, talking quietly, when there’s a knock on the door.
‘Señora Rivera’s family is here,’ a quiet voice says, ‘is she ready to see them?’
Coco’s throat seizes and her stomach - does she have a stomach? - twists and turns, and she can’t say anything; but it doesn’t matter because the door opens anyway and there’s Julio.
It’s been twenty-seven years.
‘Oh Coco,’ he says, and his voice is the same. He’s almost exactly as she remembers him - his moustache is as huge as it always has been, his features translated somehow into bone; the yellow swirls on his chin, purple around his eyes.
She can’t find her voice. But it’s okay. Her hands are reaching out and she’s never had to reach too far, because Julio is always there, steadfast, taking her hands in his. She draws him in, wrapping her arms around him.
It’s awkward. He’s boney in a way he never was in life, but he holds her close, rocking her.
‘Mi amor,’ he says, over and over, ‘Mi amor, Coco.’
Over his shoulder -
‘Victoria,’ Coco breathes, and Victoria laughs.
Julio leans back, reaching out a hand out to Victoria. She falls forward, dropping to her knees in front of Coco, her long limbs folding in that graceful way she always had.
‘Mi amor,’ Coco gasps.
Coco grabs Victoria’s arm, pulling her forward, letting Victoria collapse into her lap.
‘I’m sorry,’ she gasps, ‘I’m sorry, Mamá.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ Coco says, ‘Don’t be sorry. Oh.’
There’s nothing she can do or say to stop the tears, but Julio wraps his arms around both of them, holds them to him tight. Coco rests her head on his shoulder, stroking Victoria’s hair, and -
‘I missed you,’ she says, because that’s the most important thing. Even in her last years, when memory was difficult and time was blurred, she still missed them. ‘I missed you both, I missed you.’
‘I love you,’ Julio says.
Coco laughs. ‘I love you,’ she says. ‘I love you.’
It’s not perfect - the skeleton thing is odd, and they don’t feel like she remembers; their faces are different with the colourful markings, and the lack of noses changes them more than Coco would have expected. And yet -
For the first time in decades, she holds her husband and her daughter in her arms. She hears their voices, feels them holding her, kissing her, and it’s enough.
————
‘Mi amor,’ Coco coos, taking Victoria’s face in her hands. She kisses her, kisses her cheeks, her forehead. Her baby. Here, in front of her, as if they’d never been apart.
Victoria closes her eyes, lets Coco fuss over her, and that tells her everything she needs to know.
‘I - I’m so confused,’ Coco says, ‘the - it’s - skeletons -‘ is all she can manage and Victoria laughs.
‘Papí said something similar,’ she says, casting wry eyes to her father. Julio only smiles.
‘I know,’ he says, leaning back in and gathering Coco to him - he’s here, she thinks, he’s here in front of her - ‘it takes some getting used to. But you will get used to it, and it’s - it’s okay Coco, it’s okay.’
She believes him.
‘We should go,’ Victoria says eventually, rising to her feet, and retying her coat belt around her waist.
It’s not her normal style. The coat is old fashioned, with it’s heavy patterns and material. It’s pretty though, the colour is good for Victoria.
‘You look so pretty,’ Coco says, ‘my mother used to have coat like this,’ and she reaches out rubbing the material between her thumb and forefinger.
‘Funny you should say that,’ Victoria says, a laugh in her eyes and it takes Coco a moment to catch up. ‘It’s the boots too,’ Victoria says, leaning back to show Coco. They’re handsome boots, for certain, Rivera made, clearly. But they’re dated, with the wooden heel and pointed toe that Imelda always favoured.
Oh.
‘I was in a rush,’ Victoria explains, taking Coco’s hands, helping her to her feet. ‘And she met with a supplier this afternoon, so they were on top.’
Victoria hasn’t styled herself after Imelda - she’s borrowed her coat and shoes because she was in a rush. Because Imelda is here, her mother is here.
‘My mother,’ Coco says, squeezing Victoria’s hands, ‘and Tíos, Rosita.’
Julio nods, laughing.
‘And -‘
Coco pauses.
Victoria looks to Julio.
I’ve been there Mamá Coco, Miguel had said, to the land of the dead. And your Papá is there, I promise. He wasn’t forgotten. You see, I took the guitar -
Julio takes her hands, a strange expression on his face.
‘Hector is here too,’ he says gently. ‘Last Dio de Muertos, it was all very exciting - Miguel got cursed if you can believe! And the truth came out. Do you - do you know? Did Miguel tell you?’
He did, of course. A couple of times, to make sure she understood. But the fog that clouded her mind, her distance from reality had made it a fairy-story. One she’d believed, one she’d grasped at, clinging to the answers she’d never before known. But she’s not sure she understood.
It’s different, being here, in the land of the dead, understanding what that means.
‘He did,’ she whispers, ‘he did tell me, but I’m not sure I understood. He - my - my -‘
‘Your Papá,’ Julio says, ‘Hector. He’s here. He’s been waiting a long time to see you.’
‘He’s here?’
‘He is, I promise.’
It’s almost too good to be true.
————
Hector arrives in a whirlwind. Imelda doesn’t know where he goes, when he’s not here. She’s heard of Shantytown, of course, where the forgotten go. And she assumes, she assumes that’s where he ended up, but they’ve never talked about it.
Why haven’t they talked about it?
‘She’s here,’ he says, a strange, manic light in his eyes. ‘She’s really here? And - And I’m here -‘
He pats himself down, feeling his ribcage, his arms, as if checking he’s still in one piece.
They -
Imelda had assumed, from the way he’d become more tangible, the way his bones healed up quicker, the way he had more energy, more force holding him together. She’d assumed Miguel had succeeded, that Hector was remembered, that Coco had managed to pass on her meagre memories. That Hector wouldn’t vanish into dust the moment Coco died.
But she hadn’t known.
Still. Imelda loves it when she’s right.
‘I’m still here,’ Hector says, ‘and she’s here, oh.’
Imelda purses her lips.
‘Sit down Hector,’ Felipe says, pulling out a chair for his anxious cunañdo, patting Hector on the back. ‘They’ll be along in a bit, I’m sure.’
‘I’m sure,’ Hector repeats, helplessly.
Imelda grits her teeth.
————
They’re all on edge when the front door clicks open.
Hector’s knee is jumping, bouncing frantically. Imelda wants to reach over, put her hand on his leg and stop him. Settle him. But she’s sat too far away, and it would be far, far too intimate.
They all glance at each other and in other circumstances it would be humorous, all of them adults, startled and scared of the door.
‘Go on Rosa,’ Imelda says quietly, as voices start to travel through the house, and Hector looks like he’s going to vomit.
Can skeletons vomit? Imelda wonders, she thinks no - they don’t really expel anything - though trust Hector to be the exception.
‘Sure?’ Rosita says, though she’s already rising from her chair.
‘Go on,’ Imelda says, folding her hands around the coffee cup.
Rosita hurries out the kitchen, down the corridor and then there’s boisterous laughter. They can hear Rosita cooing, laughing, and Victoria too.
‘Breathe, Hector,’ Imelda snaps. Oscar laughs, a nervous, impulsive sound, and without her permission, Imelda laughs too.
She clasps a hand over her mouth, but the damage is done. Felipe throws his head back, and Hector cracks a grin.
‘Ay dios mio,’ Imelda sighs, putting her head in her hands.
————
In the end, Rosita draws Coco into the kitchen, calling -
‘Hector! Come here!’
Thank god for Rosita, Imelda thinks.
Hector stumbles up in a fit of confusion, long limbs flailing as Coco is pulled into the kitchen, holding Rosita’s hand.
It’s strange, Imelda thinks, to see your child older then you. It had been disconcerting, seeing Coco, Rosita, Julio ageing into their seventies, ageing past Imelda. But pleasant, positive, in a sad sort of way, seeing them live their lives.
(The twins made it eighteen months without Imelda, barely enough to count. ‘You look just the same,’ Oscar had said, in the department of family reunions, her hand clutched in his, Felipe’s arms around her.
‘Stop fussing,’ she’d snapped out of habit, and then they’d been delayed twenty minutes because they couldn’t stop laughing - all three of them giddy and Imelda weak with relief.)
Coco is small now, stooped and shrunken as she’d transitioned from merely old to elderly and frail. Her skeleton face is reflective of her aged one, but Imelda can see in her the child she was, the young woman, her smile familiar and her face warm.
‘Oh,’ Coco sighs, laying eyes on Hector. ‘Oh. Papá.’
Imelda can’t watch as Hector drops to his knees and Coco wraps him up in her arms. Hector is babbling; I’m sorry and Coco and I love you. Imelda wouldn’t be surprised if he was crying.
Rosita wraps an arm around Victoria’s waist, resting her chin on Victoria’s shoulder.
Felipe reaches across the table and takes Imelda’s hand in his.
Imelda grits her teeth.
————
Coco draws away, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed and -
She stumbles forward, feeling like an overtired child, into her mother’s arms.
Of everyone, seeing Imelda brings the most relief.
She’s exactly as Coco remembers her.
Gone is the weakness and the uncertainty of those last few years, when Imelda’s health had started to decline. Gone is the frustration that seeped in to her, that comes from not being able to do what she expected to do.
No.
Imelda stands tall, composed and collected. She is, as always, the eye of the storm.
Coco melts into her.
‘Mi amor,’ Imelda coos, tucking Coco’s head against her breast bone. She doesn’t really have a middle any more, but Coco naturally rests her hands on Imelda’s hips, lets her mother rub her back, kiss the side of her head. ‘I missed you,’ Imelda whispers. ‘I missed you.’
‘I missed you Mamá,’ she says. ‘I missed you.’
Imelda draws back, taking Coco’s face in her hands. She presses a kiss to her forehead, resting their heads together.
‘I’m sorry, Mamá,’ she whispers and Imelda shakes her head.
‘Don’t be sorry mi amor, there’s nothing to be sorry for.’
It’s almost exactly what she’d said to Victoria - Coco wonders at the instinctive need for daughters to apologise to their mothers.
Imelda draws her back, her arms cradling Coco’s head.
————
It’s late. It’s time for bed.
It’s time for Hector to leave.
‘What do you mean he’s leaving?’ Coco says.
‘They’re not together,’ Rosita mouths, her eyebrows raised, head tilting.
‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ Hector assures her, taking her hand and nodding eagerly, repetitively, a gesture that belays his youth. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise.’
Over the chattering voices and kisses goodbye, over her father’s hand clasped in one of hers, and Julio’s in her other, Coco looks at her mother.
Imelda stands in the doorway, as tall as she always has, her arms crossed across her chest. Her shoulders aren’t hunched - of course not - but there’s something in her stern face, the stubborn purse of her mouth. Coco blinks.
They’re not together, she thinks slowly.
‘What do you mean not together?’ Coco mouths back, glancing at Julio.
He gives her a little shrug, his moustache twitching.
‘They’re not together,’ he mutters, as Rosita leans in.
‘They flirt,’ she whispers, ‘Sometimes, if they think no one can hear them. That’s about it.’
‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ Hector whispers.
————
Hector leaving is nearly unbearable.
She feels like she’s four years old again, watching him walk away down the path, waving jauntily over his shoulder; blowing kisses.
‘I’ll be back in the morning,’ he’d promised, ‘First thing, for breakfast - well, as long as that’s okay?’
The glance towards Imelda goes unmet, but Rosita - wonderful, sweet Rosita - says ‘Yes of course Papá Hector, we’ll see you for breakfast.’
Coco watches him walk all the way down the street; Imelda doesn’t.
Coco’s not sure why she assumed her parents would be together. After the truth had come out - after Miguel had explained - after it became obvious, because of course.
Of course Hector would never have left them.
Of course Hector was coming home.
She sits slowly, on the patterned bed spread - yellow and pink, her favourites; she can feel the love in the bedroom, Julio’s love for her, in every piece, every flower, every colour - and she rubs a hand over the material.
Somehow she thought that with the truth revealed, that with answers, clear and definitive for the first time, all would be forgiven. All forgotten.
She’s forgotten how stubborn Imelda is.
————
The walk home is long.
Hector meanders, takes a long, winding path to try and wear away the manic, twisting energy in his bones, but it doesn’t quite work.
By the time he’s home, in his haphazard little shack, in the heart of Shantytown, he’s still antsy. Jumpy.
He entertains, for a moment, going next door and trying to borrow a guitar. It would give his itchy fingers something to do, but -
No, he thinks, sighing. Too many questions. The risk of requests. He’s in no mood to perform for an audience tonight.
So Hector flops into his hammock, one leg hanging off the edge, tucked comfy and cosy in the soft material and tries to breathe.
Coco.
Coco.
Hector breathes. He laughs, shakes his head. Thinks of the smug little smile on Imelda’s face.
She’s been saying for weeks, how she was certain he was remembered. Because of this and that and healing bones and so on - she loves it when she’s right - but Hector -
Hector’s too old now. Too jaded to hope, and yet.
And yet.
Hector laughs, loudly, into his hands. There’s corresponding laughter from outside. Maria and Carlos in the next hut over, knocking on the wall.
‘Okay amigo?’ comes the call, and Hector calls back.
How strange, he thinks. How strange.
There’s a hollow feeling growing beneath his breastbone.
What do you do, he thinks, when you get everything you ever wanted?
Coco is beautiful. Warm and sweet and old, and it’s everything Hector had been praying for.
Well.
Not quite everything.
Imelda had looked at him this evening though - twice! Twice. Two glances, when she thought he wasn’t looking.
Hector’s arms flop down, and he rolls over as best he can, looking out over the water, relaxing.
The hut is small, but clean. Hector might be messy but he’s not typically dirty. Everything is fairly neat, tucked away in bags and boxes along the side. It’s nothing like the Rivera home, but it’s safe and comfortable in it’s own way.
It’s been home for a long time now.
Hector swallows. He gazes out across the water, watching the lights twinkle, the waves and ripples flow.
Little lights on the water, he composes in his head. A melody with bells, maybe.
Ah, overdone. Too overdone.
Hector sighs again, the energy of the evening finally fading, and he drifts into a comfortable doze.
————
Julio shows Coco the bathroom - the mirror, shower, bone scrub and polish, that smells overwhelmingly floral -
‘It’s the one your mother likes,’ he whispers, glancing over his shoulder, as though Imelda can hear them, and Coco laughs into her hands.
And Coco has her pick of nightgowns and dresses, all washed and pressed, hanging neatly in the wardrobe. Julio falls over himself showing her the chest of drawers - under garments, gloves, handkerchiefs, socks - everything she could ever need.
‘If there’s things in the living world you want,’ Julio says, ‘You’ll have to wait. But we can get you anything else you’re missing.’
Victoria sits on the end of the bed, legs crossed under her like a little child, chin resting on her palm, watching.
The door cracks open.
‘Sorry,’ Rosita says, poking her head around the door, not sounding particularly sorry at all. ‘I just wanted to check whether you needed anything else?’
Coco is overwhelmed by emotion.
Rosita had been, for the longest time, Coco’s dearest confident. She’d moved into the Rivera house when Julio and Coco had married -
(‘I can’t leave her,’ Julio had said, long before he and Coco were even engaged. ‘I’d love to live with my wife’s family, honestly, but I can’t leave her. I’d live anywhere so long as Rosita could come with us. I couldn’t leave her home alone.’
Coco was never the only one missing family.)
Coco and Rosita had been friends, polite friends before that, though Julio had seemed keen to keep them apart - the reason had become clear once they’d moved in.
It had taken mere days, for Coco to realise Rosita was kind, sweet, witty, and that she was going to be a dear friend. Only weeks for Coco to think of Rosita as the sister she’d never had.
(‘He didn’t want me to embarrass him,’ Rosita had whispered, first chance she’d gotten. ‘Didn’t want me to get involved. He liked you too much.’
She and Coco had laughed, giggling in the kitchen.
‘He was right to worry,’ Coco had said.)
Even Imelda had been charmingly disarmed, with Rosita taking charge in the kitchen, baking and tidying, saying ‘Oh I’d love to learn how to make shoes, do you have any pink ones?’
And Imelda had made her a pair of baby pink huaraches. In Coco’s eyes, that had been the height of approval.
To see her now, after so many years apart -
‘Oh Coco,’ she says, as Coco opens her ams and Rosita tumbles through the door, wrapping Coco up into a hug.
‘Please,’ Coco says, squeezing Rosita’s ribcage under her palms, ‘Come in and - and tell me, what have you been doing for - for -‘
For nineteen years, Coco thinks.
Julio shuts the door, as Victoria clambers under the covers, and Rosita laughs as she joins them on the bed.
‘Let me tell you,’ Rosita says, settling down comfortably, ‘Let me tell you.’
————
Hector’s up with the sun.
It’s difficult to sleep in here. Someone always comes by, to poke, to prod, to make sure no one is wasting away the day.
Tía Carmen has been around nearly as long as Hector, and she’s been eying him for weeks now, with narrowed eyes. He knows she’s dying for an opportunity to come and pester him. This would be just the chance.
It had upset them, a lot of them, finding out his past.
Which, he thinks, is exactly why he doesn’t tell anyone.
Not that he knew, of course, before the sunrise spectacular. Before that evening, before Miguel, he was unsure - he’d never been able to piece it all together. Never been able to make it all make sense.
Everything, all adding up to something, but he couldn’t understand - an estranged friend, an angry wife, a daughter he’ll never see again.
Before that night he was, at best unlucky, at worse a looser.
Now.
He’s a victim. He’s the injured party. He’s interesting.
Oddly, Hector hates that more than the chorizo jokes, a sore sour taste in his mouth.
The walkways are clear and quiet this early, the murky sun just rising, as Hector hurries down the path. He taps out a little tune on the pillar, clicks his heels a couple of times - an indulgence - and then runs to catch the cart to Imelda’s neighbourhood.
It never feels like a homecoming; never how he imagined going home, when home was their small house in Santa Cecelia, and he would have walked up from the train station, up past the market, around the square.
Home.
And his wife would have been waiting for him, soft and smiling, and his baby would have been happy and -
Enough, he tells himself firmly. Enough of that.
————
Hector is there for breakfast. He’s there long before Coco wakes - dying is exhausting, after all, and Imelda is certain Victoria and Rosita had been up with Coco until the early hours.
‘I’m sorry,’ Hector says, spinning on his heel when he sees Imelda. ‘I let myself in, no one was up yet, but I wanted to be - here.’
‘That’s fine,’ she says, as if the sight of him in her kitchen doesn’t make her stomach twist. ‘You’re welcome here. That’s why I gave you a key.’
‘Of course.’
They fall into silence.
‘Coffee?’ Imelda says, once the pot has boiled.
‘Oh, please.’
Imelda pours two cups, passing one off quickly. Hector sits at her kitchen table, and drinks from her cup and Imelda wants to scream.
She doesn’t. She just swallows her coffee, and joins him at the table.
————
The house is awake by the time Coco stirs.
The sky is light, and there’s sun - sun? - shining through the window. There’s the smell of breakfast cooking downstairs, voices that she associates with home, and Julio tucked into bed next to her.
‘Hi,’ she whispers, reaching out to stroke a finger down the nasal bone, around the gap where his nose used to be.
‘Hi,’ he says back.
Coco feels like she’s twenty years old again, shy and exhilarated to share a bed with her new husband - it’s a strange and silly feeling for a woman of her age.
‘I missed you,’ she whispers, stroking his face.
‘I missed you so much.’
————
It’s strange.
Breakfast is uncanny.
They’re trying - clearly - to act normal, to not overwhelm her. And it has remnants of every breakfast Coco can remember, from when she was little and it was just Imelda and Tíos, to later, when the girls were small, to even later, when they were trying desperately to get Imelda to take a step back - sit down, Rosita used to shout Mamà please - and that’s how Coco knew it would be a stubborn day.
But it’s also completely alien.
Hector sits across from her, in the space between Victoria and Rosita - and not, Coco notes, next to Imelda.
He plays with his fork, not really eating. He’s tapping in a way that would have had Imelda snapping at her if she’d been doing it, but no one comments. He smiles at her every time she catches his eye, but it doesn’t seen to relax him.
After breakfast she grabs him, catches his hand in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. She plants herself against him, her head against his chest, and Hector’s hands come up immediately, holding her gently. He ducks his head down, close to hers.
‘I missed you,’ she says.
Hector laughs.
‘Oh I missed you so much,’ he says, ‘and I - I was coming home, you know that - I was coming home.’
‘I know,’ she assures him, taking his face in her hands - he looks like Enrique, she thinks, and now, of course, she knows where Victoria got her height - ‘I know you were,’ she assures him.
‘Okay.’
————
Days pass in a blur then - she goes to the market with Rosita and Victoria, she joins her Tíos on errands, goes to the library, and to the grocery store, she cooks with Rosita, gossiping with her in the garden; she eats breakfast every single day with Hector.
He’s careful not to impinge on her time - not that Coco thinks he ever could, she’s desperate, hungry for his attention - but he insists on them not spending all day everyday together.
‘They’ve been waiting for you too,’ he says quietly one morning, ‘I know what that’s like after all.’
But he’ll join them every morning for breakfast, arriving before Coco gets up, and he’s there to greet her with a gentle good morning.
‘Morning Papá,’ she says, pressing a kiss to his cheek as she passes, reaching for the coffee pot.
‘Morning Coco,’ he says, and they share a pleased look.
It’s -
She can’t think on it for too long, or else she’ll get upset.
He’s so young. Incredibly young. Unbearably young.
Twenty-one, she thinks. Twenty-two, maybe.
Younger than her grandsons, only a couple of years older than Abel. When she’d been a child he’d ageless, in the way all adults were - now he was a young man who’d had his life stolen from him.
Of course age doesn’t work like that in the land of the dead, Julio had explained to her. In reality, he’s over a century old. But it’s hard to look at him and see anything but a young man.
‘Do you play still?’ Coco says, reaching out to take Victoria’s hand on the kitchen table - she’s propped up her book against her glass of orange juice, turning the pages in between bites of her breakfast.
‘Play what?’ Hector says.
‘The guitar,’ Coco says, ‘The piano, I don’t know, anything.’
‘Oh,’ Hector says, accepting another plate from Rosita. ‘No, not really.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, well,’ Hector shrugs, taking a sip of his juice, looking around as if expecting someone else to step in. ‘I haven’t had much occasion to,’ he says eventually.
He glances to the right, where Imelda sits at the head of the table. She’s sipping her coffee quietly.
‘Will you play for us?’ Coco says, ‘Something?’
‘We’ll see,’ Hector promises. ‘We’ll see.’
He gathers up the plates at the end of the meal, carefully putting the cutlery on the top plate, and standing. He puts them on the side, by the sink and then with a careful hand he fills up Imelda’s coffee cup.
She doesn’t smile.
————
He doesn’t have a guitar, Imelda thinks, taking another sip of coffee. That’s why.
He’d borrowed one, she knows, to play with Miguel last Día de Muertos, and had given it back to friends in Shantytown. He’d had a replica of his real guitar, taken from backstage at the sunset spectacular, but he’d dropped it in the confusion, and Imelda had never considered taking it for him.
They have the radio now, set up in the kitchen, which Rosita turns on in the afternoon. The twins borrow it sometimes for the workshop, but not necessarily when Imelda is in there.
Fortunately, Ernesto has fallen out of fashion recently - for obvious reasons - so the risk of hearing him on the radio has decreased exponentially. Which was, of course, the reason why Imelda stopped listening to music in the first place.
She doesn’t like the new music - too electronic, too fake, she doesn’t understand what instruments make these noises. She doesn’t understand the lyrics, and she finds the rhythms contrived.
A small part of her does want to hear real music. The croon of a guitar, Hector’s low voice, meaningful poetic lyrics.
And not only because most of the songs he’d written had been for her.
And yet.
‘We’ll see,’ Hector says, smiling at Coco. Imelda thinks he’s going to touch her shoulder as he passes, but he doesn’t.
————
The Rivera workshop is a feat of magic, Hector thinks, as he sticks his head tentatively around the door.
He’s been in there before, of course, he’s been visiting the Rivera home for months now, and they’ve very firmly and clearly told him nowhere’s off limits. That he’s welcome, whether they’re here or not. He’d had a tour that first time, when things had been awkward and uncomfortable, everyone nervous and tentative.
There’s work stations, spaced out across the room. Bookcases from floor to ceiling, stacked with leather and rubber and tools, that Hector can’t even begin to name. There’s machines, presses and grips and something that spins, that Hector thinks is for polishing. It’s all fantastical and clever, so incredibly clever and Hector feels nothing but proud when he thinks of everything Imelda has achieved.
She’s sat at her desk, at the far end of the room. A huge desk made out of rich wood, littered with paper and leather and a huge ledger that Imelda writes in with blue pen, carefully and intently.
She has a pair of glasses perched on her face, and she’s hunched over, sewing a pretty pink leather.
Hector raps his knuckles on the door frame, to let her know he’s there.
She hums in acknowledgement, not lifting her eyes. Hector watches as she makes another stitch, pulling the thread tight. It’s very neat, he can see, looks fiddly and delicate.
Imelda looks up.
‘Rosita says dinner is nearly ready,’ he relays faithfully. ‘So if you want to clean up, you should now.’
Imelda’s face clears.
‘Ah,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’
There’s a pause.
‘What are you making?’ he says, pausing, leaning against the doorframe, trying to appear casual.
‘Oh. Shoes,’ she says, and then shakes her head. ‘Sorry, that was foolish. Shoes for the little girl who lives next door. Her mother commissioned them - she - she’s starting school next month.’
‘That’s nice,’ he says.
‘Hmm.’
Imelda’s looking at the desk again, fussing with some papers.
‘I’ll leave you, then,’ he says.
‘Okay.’
Hector closes the door, letting it click, and then he rests his forehead on the cool wood for a moment.
That’s fine, he says. That’s fine.
It’s fine that Imelda can hardly look at him. It’s fine that his daughter has grown up without him. It’s fine that he barely knows his granddaughter, his son-in-law, his brothers-in-law.
It’s fine.
Hector hears the scrape of the chair from inside the workshop, so he hurries back to the kitchen. Rosita smiles at him, handing out cutlery for him to set the table, and Victoria smiles at him, and actually it might be okay.
Mostly.
————
to be continued…
————