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They, like their house, heal in pieces.
A beam of support raised up, a stronger foundation laid; plaster and spackle spread across their cracks and failures.
Her failures, Alma realizes, as she watches her familia carefully reconstruct what they’d lost. Her heartache that had almost allowed her love to disappear into the cracks of her fear.
She had almost lost them all. Physically, emotionally, they had begun to fade away and she had barely noticed. But they’re here now.
Her familia who are laughing and smiling and happy in a way she hadn’t realized they weren’t. How could she have not noticed? How could she have not seen the way they were struggling?
She swallows the thick something that threatens to rise out of her throat and scans the crowd. Unable to stop herself from counting each head. The thick, terrible, thing stays in her throat even as she takes note of Pepa’s warm sunshine smile and Julieta’s soft oven calloused hands. Of Luisa’s settled shoulders and Isabella’s dirtied dress. Of Camilo’s lazing frame and Dolores and Antonio’s secret whispers. Of Mirabel’s laughter. How had she never realized how rare these things were? How could she have realized how much they bent and strained to fit into the images she’d assigned them?
But they’re happy now. Safe. And she allows herself a moment of selfishness.
A moment to drink in their joy. To reassure herself that she’s a matriarch to be proud of, that she will make things okay. That, like their home, she can rebuild, make herself better, softer, kinder. She breathes in those thoughts, lets them nestle in her heart and mind before exhaling them away. There will be time later, but for now…
Her eyes slide to the figure standing on the outskirts. Watching as he stumbles along with a bucket on his head and chittering rats along his back and shoulders. She watches and realizes, with a pain like ice, that Bruno is someone she doesn’t know anymore.
Oh, she knows the shape of him, the pattern of him, as any mother would. She recognizes the nose of his father, the slouching of his doubts, the muttering of his stories, but it’s like the afterimage of the sun. A once bright light that’s slowly faded to something else entirely. Leaving a stranger stumbling about in her son's body.
She surveys him—the way he replaces the bucket with his hood in a flourish and starts patching cracks intensely—and she wonders how scared of her he must’ve been to leave his home. She wonders, also, what made him come back. Was it Mirabel? The magic? Or another miracle entirely? His door had been dark for so long, forbidden and banned like his name, but he’d still come back. Her prodigal son, lost, gone, nearly forgotten, only to have him burst through the forest like a lamb to the slaughter. Desperate to take on more sins that didn’t belong to him. Only to her.
“Oh Pedro,” she mutters, fingers twisting the locket, “what have I done?”
Her esposo doesn’t answer. He never does, but she can feel him sometimes. His soft words, his bravery. His kindness. She wraps herself in it—tries to push away the desire for his arms instead—and stands. Like her familia she too must help collect and fix these pieces.
“Bruno?” She says softly as she approaches. He jumps, twists off his hood, stumbles over the spackle at his feet and falls.
“Mama!” He shouts, fumbling against the half-a-house to pull himself up. His hand comes away white with plaster and he grimaces at the exposed crack. “I’ll fix that.” He promises, “Hernando’s great with cracks. He’s been fixing them for ages. You won’t even notice once he’s done and—“
She covers his hand, “Brunito esta bien,” she whispers. “The house it’s fine.”
He looks at her hand like a holy grail, his fingers tremble beneath hers, and she grasps at digits desperate for them to stop.
“Come,” she tells him. Control, that’s what she needs, some semblance of control. “You’re all dirty, Victor is letting us borrow his house while we fix ours. You can wash up there.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles, as she pulls him along, and it feels like a heartache in five letters.
“It’s okay,” she soothes and tries to remember if her Brunito, her little boy, had always been this anxious or—but no. She can see him in her mind's eye, small and scared and surrounded by sand while he predicts futures he can’t control. She squeezes tighter.
“Mama,” he winces, “not so tight.”
“Oh, perdóname,” she jumps out of her thoughts.
“It’s fine, no se preocupes.” The formality stings, pressing against her heart as she yearns for the soft te quieros of their past. Then, as she loosens her grip, he slips his hand from hers and it feels like a finality.
He does not want her, but all she wants is to snatch the hand back. To squeeze it tight and close until Bruno, her Brunito, comes home. The one that still smiles. The one that doesn’t tremble. But she doesn’t reach for him. Instead she folds her hands together and fights to regain that steadfastness she felt moments ago. Fights to find the control she so desperately needs. She grasps for it, urging Bruno forward and into Victor’s small house.
“You remember Victor don’t you?” She begins as she urges him through the door. “He was a few years older than you when—“
“He asked me to see if his favorite gatito would be okay after it got sick,” Bruno interrupts tonelessly. He's staring at a photo of a cat and frowning. “I told him it wouldn’t and then it died.”
Alma falters, “Right yes, well...I’m sure he’s forgotten all about that.”
Bruno hums, straightens, knocks against a shelf, and turns. “But look! He’s gotten a new cat!” He reaches down to pet the graying thing like he’s barely heard her talk. “You won’t die an untimely death now will you?” He coos.
Alma shifts, fixes the sleeves of her dress, and clears her throat. Her son jumps like he’d forgotten she was there. “I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”
“Oh, right,” he stands, bones popping, and follows her. Stopping alongside her just outside the threshold.
“Go on,” she prompts, as he stands in the doorway. “I’ll find you something to wear when you step out.”
“That’s okay,” he’s pulling his poncho off his head, laying it reverently across the counter. “I can just put back on what I was wearing before. It’s what I usually do.”
She freezes at that, her...her son hadn’t had other clothes where he’d gone? And now that she sees him without his poncho he looks smaller, skinnier...had he had food? Water? The bags under his eyes suddenly seem more pronounced, the shake to his fingers more threatening. Had he slept?
“Did,” she brokers, “did you not have a change of clothes where you went?”
Bruno blinks at her, hands freezing against his shirt buttons, “Went?”
“When you went away,” she tells him, “did you not take anything with you? A change of clothes, food, water?” She catches his face in her hands and turns it, “You’re far too skinny, did you not have anything to eat? To drink?”
“Mama,” he wets his lips, his fingers trembling against the buttons. “I never went away. I stayed at the house.”
“No.”
The denial is harsh, and she regrets it when her son yanks away, taking two quick steps backwards. He trips over the side of the tub, pinwheeling until curtain, soap, and towels all join him inside it. He stays there on the floor and for a brief moment she’s worried she’s lost him as soon as she’s found him, but he sits up with a groan, hand going to the back of his head.
“I miss Jorge’s thick skull,” he bemoans and she doesn’t ask. She kneels down instead, gently picking away soap and towels to reveal the sad eyes underneath.
“Brunito,” she begs again, “where did you go?”
He stares at her, tired eyes searching, and takes a shuddering breath.
“‘When I saw the prophecy about Mirabel...I ran.” He knocks against the wooden counter, against the wooden floor, against his head and continues, “I shattered it and left it to be forgotten in the sand of my room, but...I couldn’t leave. This was my home, you all were my home and Mirabel...she needed me to stop the cracks. Er well, Hernando stopped the cracks but I helped him. So I just...never left.”
“You’ve been in your room this whole time?” She gasps, thinks of winding stairs and deep chasms and wonders how he remained unscathed.
“Uh no,” he winces. “I lived in the walls.”
“The walls…” her heart quickens, her knees shake.
“It wasn’t that bad!” He rushes forward, hands twitching before they settle on her shoulders. “I mean sure sometimes it was a bit dusty and lonely, but I wasn’t really alone. I had all my rats and I had a crack where I could see the family eat, so really I wasn’t even missing family meals. Not to mention the telenovelas and…”
He keeps going, but she feels like she’s been dunked underwater. His confessions weighing her down more and more even as he tries to reassure. She had done this, had driven him away, and all this time...he’d just been there waiting, watching, and she hadn’t even known? What kind of mother did that make her? What kind of monster?
Pedro , she thinks. I don’t know how to salvage this. I don’t know how to save him.
“Mama? Mama!” Something shakes her and she jumps, meets brown eyes, warm and soft like her first love, and oh so worried.
“I’m here, I’m okay,” she tells him. He watches her like he doesn’t believe her. “Shower,” she commands, before he can talk again. She needs a moment to breathe, to think. “I’ll be outside.” She untangles herself from his grip and shuts the door behind her. Leaving Bruno alone to wash. His haunted eyes follow her anyway.
She sits there in Victor’s nearly empty house and wonders how she could have let this happen. How she could’ve allowed her miracle to shatter so beautifully without her noticing. How Bruno could’ve lived all those years alone in the walls, watching, waiting, and wondering when things would collapse. And she hadn’t even known he’d been in there...what if he hadn’t gotten out? What if he’d been crushed with their casita?
The thought haunts her and though she tries to dispel it it stays. Rubble pushed away, dead eyes discovered, another perfect example of her failures but this time unrepairable. Unsalvageable. With no encanto to whisk her away to safety. Her heart quickens and she takes a breath, like she’d taught Pepe all those years ago, and tries to calm herself. Bruno is alive. Bruno is showering a room over and not buried beneath the rubble of their casita. It’ll be okay. They’ll be okay.
The bathroom door creaks open and she looks up, wiping stray tears from her eyes. Bruno steps out soaking wet, like he’d stepped under the water then stepped out as quickly as possible. When she peaks around him the towels are still dry and unused on the counter, his poncho and clothes serving in their place.
“That was fast,” she ventures.
“Have to be,” he tells her. “Can’t be too long or things will get worse.”
He rubs his poncho against his hair, before sliding it effortlessly over his head. He knocks against the wooden door frame as he passes, giving it a nod.
“We can go back now,” he tells her matter of factly. She doesn’t reply. He twitches, knocks against the wooden table to his left, asks, “Mama?”
She stands. Pedro, help me , she begs and sweeps her son into her arms. He freezes.
“I missed you,” she whispers, “and I am so sorry I made you feel like you had to run away.”
He stands rigid against her. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. Just stands waiting like the whole ordeal is painful. Finally he mumbles, “I’m getting you all wet.”
“Está bien, no te preocupes, I can handle a little water.”
He doesn’t move for a long time, then slowly, like he’s forgotten how, she feels his arms come up and around her. Feels him grasp her clothes and bury his face against her shoulder.
“Mama,” he chokes, “I’m sorry.”
“No, no,” and she strokes his hair, running her fingers through years of tangles in order to smooth them out. “You did nothing wrong, mijo. It was me. I never should’ve let you worry alone, I never should’ve let you feel like we couldn’t talk. I’m so sorry that I made you scared.”
She doesn’t cry and she doesn’t think he does either, but they stand there for a long time like they’re waiting to. Like something will happen if they move, so they don’t.
She can hear him, muttering random reassurances and stuttering sorry’s, and she lets them be accepted, lets them be said, before gently reminding him that he has nothing to be sorry for. She pulls back at last, looks up at her beautiful boy and cups his cheek.
“Mijo, I am so proud of you.”
And he glows , his smile splitting across his face and oh she had forgotten—that smile was Pedro’s too. Bright and brilliant and beautiful in the face of uncertainty.
“Come,” she threads her arm through his, “ our familia is waiting for us.”
He twitches a little at that, but that smile—rare and perfect—stays solidly in place. It’s enough for now, this small little part of them they’ve started to heal.
Tomorrow, she knows, will bring new trials, but also new hopes and dreams and milagros. Tomorrow will help them piece their small little home and familia back together and what greater miracle is there? Then this miracle of forgiveness, of healing. She squeezes Bruno’s arm tight and smiles. Of family.