#almost there...

The first thing Mirabel does is open all the windows and effectively shoo the evidence of his dormant life into the breeze. This makes the letters fly all over the apartment, even those that have been stifled beneath years of suppression; books, cabinets, and novela scripts.

“Close the windows! Close the windows!” Bruno razes around in a frenzy for fifteen minutes, trying to pick up every flitting envelope, backpain forgotten. “Damnit, don’t touch the letters! Don’t look!”

Then there’s the rats, which from Bruno’s talk about how they’re actually quite friendly makes it seem like they’re pets at first. One of them even lets Bruno stroke its head. But then Mirabel loses her mind again when it’s clear that they’re only here because he doesn’t take the trash out often enough and leaves uneaten arepas for them to nibble on everywhere, and she realizes they’re actually vermin. 

After a while, Bruno secedes from the cleaning storm to watch her from afar on the couch, tired and his back aching from half a day of housekeeping. Mirabel, on the other hand, has energy for two. There’s a constant stream of chatter that, after he answered a few of those ramblings, he realizes is more a conversation she has with herself than with him. 

She’s like a hurricane in a way that makes him think of Pepa. Bad weather always seemed to come whenever his sister felt bad, like the visions he gets before an epilepsy attack hits him. But Mirabel’s excitement is like a summer breeze. 

The only thing that would complete the picture is Agustín on the piano, playing a jazzy, jaunty tune.

He thinks of letters to write.

Linnen are billowing all over the apartment like clouds while they do a thorough wash. Books are sorted. The dishes are done because he doesn’t have a dishwasher and they always pile up bit by bit. Half-eaten arepas are thrown away reluctant but admissioningly.

There’s a milk crate full with magazines Mirabel wants to move that, as soon as Bruno notices she’s noticed, he throws himself over. “I’ll do this one!”

“Yup! Okay, Tío.” She throws her hands up and lets him carry it to his room looking like a dockworker hauling cargo. 

She’s already seen the scantily-clad man on the cover of the magazine on top, and it’s evocative enough without having read the saucy contents blurbs. She pointedly doesn’t say or ask what it or the other magazines under it could be, because that’s really none of her business. 

But it does make her curious, and answers a few questions.

She kind of trails behind him. After shoving the box under his bed, tío Bruno rubs his hands over himself like he’s swatting away evil. 

“Uhm, you know,” Mirabel says. “I don’t really care if that’s what you’re into.”

“You don’t?” His eyes are big and he stops swatting himself. “Well, anyway…Can’t have that in the open. You’re not quite old enough to see that,” he chortles embarrassedly and moves past her. She rolls her eyes.

“Does…” she hesitates. Tío Bruno has, so far, been very avoidant any time she’s mentioned the family and this more than anything else she’s tried to talk with him about seems a sensitive topic. “Is it a secret?” she settles for, avoiding any mention of her parents. 

“Oh, sure. I’m not that obvious, am I? Heh, I kinda used to be as a kid. At least, the bullies thought so. Always called me a ma- you know, names. Eeeh it’s always been kind of troublesome when anyone else but the family knew about it, so there’s not really a point…” 

There’s her answer.

--

“So…you don’t have a boyfriend?” she asks later.

“Oh, no. I’m kind of a still waters run deep type. Y’know, all quiet and alone.” He says this in a sing-song voice like it’s the most relatable and fun thing to be for a bachelor. “Waiting for that prince in my tower.” He grins abashedly and scratches the scruff on his jaw, then folds his fingers together dreamily. 

“Uhuh, and do these princes know you’re here and available?”

“Don’t you ruin my fantasy. Say, now that you know…” Bruno sighs and puts a hand on his back, staring off into the distance. “I have to tell you why I use the cane. It was a betrayal, you see. I had a lover, he was a jealous man and couldn’t take that I got the part he wanted to play. Mercutio, like his temper, but my voice carries better, and I am much more familiar with cursing others. He pushed me off the rafters and left me for dead on the stage. Thankfully the janitor found me or else...” He gives her a knowing look of death.

Her empathic surprise falls away almost immediately when she realizes he’s messing with her.

She stares at him, unimpressed.

“As fantastic as that sounds,” she says. “I don’t think I believe that.”

He slaps his knee and curses. “But it’s the truth, damn you!”

--

For all their initial anxiety, it’s easy to live with tío Bruno. They settle quickly and establish a routine wherein he lets he do mostly whatever she wants, granted she takes a lucky item for protection whenever she goes out, doesn’t rank up the phone bill too much every other day when she calls home, or doesn’t play the accordion past or during certain hours. 

He trusts her, and it feels nice to be trusted.

There’s so much to do in the city Mirabel almost doesn’t know where to start. She ends up joining a roller skating club that she finds fast friends in, the church choir, takes up art classes, and babysits for pocket money. And at the end of the first week, Bruno takes her to the theater he works at for an introduction. If asked, she won’t deny it makes her miss Camilo a little.

The teen drama group is led by a large dame with dull eyes that she paints in bright colors. “Oh!” she gasps when she sees Mirabel, and cups her cheeks. “You have such magic, I can see it. Just like your uncle.”

“Uhh, I don’t think so,” she mumbles as she’s being squished. She’s probably the only one in her family who is not magical in any way. Never performed a single miracle.

“You see it, don’t you?” she asks Bruno, turning Mirabel’s head to where he sits in the empty audience.

Bruno gives her two enthusiastic thumbs up from the front row and his brightest, toothiest grin.

--

“Ah, this is where it happened…” he remnisces when he’s standing on the stage with her.  

He’s been wielding his cane like a sword ever since they entered the building. He gestures dramatically, staring up at this grand temple of storytelling: a modest hall with limited budget. She’s got a feeling where he’s going with this; tío Bruno has been making up little stories about his bad back ranging from ‘annoying’ to ‘creative’. 

“A thespian ghost roams this theater, you know. Lit by a single light — a ghost light, they call it — she plays the dame each night for the other spirits in the center of the stage. Ever since I discovered her, she’s been my muse. It’s the closest thing to love I have… For ten years every Friday I’ve snuck into the theater to watch her perform, but someone turned off the ghost light that evening and I tripped and fell. I haven’t seen her since.”

Mirabel asks the señora, who can neither confirm or deny this.

--

Bruno buzzes her in when she comes home one day, having forgotten to bring her keys with her, from her hunt to join another club, and after she rings the doorbell he walks to the front door to open it for her. 

The ache in his back has gotten less and less each day despite the liveliness his niece brings to his life. He’s hardly used his cane the past few days.

He opens the door, but to his surprise it’s not Mirabel on the other side.

Her father stands there, tall and as square-shouldered as ever, carrying in his arms a heavy sewing machine box. His kind eyes are uncertain, like he’s not sure what he’s doing here either. But his mouth is curled up into a smile under his sharp mustache. 

“Agustín?” Bruno asks surprised, legs weak.

“Dad?” Mirabel’s voice sounds from slightly below the figure. “What’s with him? Did he call?”

“I have to write a letter,” Bruno doesn’t say, tongue locked with tension.

His muscles spasm and he feels himself fall to the floor.

--

Mirabel is in a panic when he comes to. 

He’s lying in the stable lateral position, hands tucked comfortably under his cheek as if he’s going to sleep in a soft bed. But it’s the hard floor in the hallway, uncomfortable, and his niece is breathing heavily over him, obviously trying to keep in tears. 

“It’s been one and a half minute,” she says, voice thick. 

Mirabel has done a first aid course back at home and knows to call an ambulance if he doesn’t wake up after five minutes have passed. She’s told him about this when he first mentioned his epilepsy. He had thanked her back then, but told her he had his medicine and that the attacks were usually small. He hadn’t wanted her to worry. 

“‘M sorry,” he mumbles from the floor. She shakes her head, eyes red from forcing down tears. Slowly, he moves to sit upright, her hands light over his shoulder and back. “S’okay, Mirabel. I’m okay.”

She lets his sagging body lean against her as she helps him to the couch. He’s not much taller than her, but heavy like this. On his request she burns sage to drive the bad luck away and she drapes his robe around him to keep him comfortable for good measure. She takes the needle off the bolero he was listening to, silencing the apartment. 

“This is exactly what I was worried about,” he says. His knobby fingers weave around the cup of tea he’s poured for himself. “I never wanted to scare you with this. And when your Mamá asked you to come here…”

“You were worried I’d see?” He nods. She puzzles over that, letting the silence hang between them. “When… Before we cleaned the house, you said I shouldn’t help you because you thought Mamá sent me to do that.”

“Ehh,” Bruno begins with a shrug, considering and aware he overthinks and does a lot of prejudiced blaming, including that statement. Even so that he momentarily forgot about Agustín’s earnesty. But then nods at what Mirabel says, because he had run his mouth at her. “Everyone knows how much there is wrong with me. And your mom worries a lot, always has. I considered that she might’ve sent you here to be my caretaker in disguise. But that shouldn’t be your job. You’re just a kid. That’s why I refused. And just now…”

“You know, kid. I’m a bit of a triple threat. I was an epileptic in a small town that still thinks being left handed is a sign of the devil. I get depressed, really depressed. Kinda hard to handle having someone in your house who just can’t do anything. It was like I wasn’t really there — I could’ve been living in the walls for all anyone knew, heh. I should’ve tried that... And I don’t like girls, which…Abuela was actually kinda fine with. Until…well, until she wasn’t anymore, I guess. But you know, she tried. 

“But, uhh. So, the reason I left is…” He shakes his head, face contorting at the painful memories. “When you were little, the family and I were always fighting. I guess you don’t really remember that.”

The story is familiar to her. “The house got mad,” Mirabel says quietly. Then corrects herself, “Tío Félix told me that.”

“Yeah. The house got mad. Abuela got mad. I got mad. Pepa and Juli…I wasn’t good for them. I wasn’t good for you guys. Dolores always cried because of me. Camilo was scared. But I love my family, you know? I just don’t know how to…” He shakes his head and warms his lips on his tea. 

There’s always been cracks he doesn’t know how to fill. 

“So, that’s why I was on the fence about you coming here. Responsibility, pffft!” He blows a raspberry and does a thumbs down.

Mirabel huffs a laugh at that, but can’t quite find the humor in the other things he’s mentioned. “When Mamá called you and you said you didn’t want me here, I thought…” She averts her eyes. “You know, it’s stupid.”

“Nah, you’re never stupid to me.”

She breathes in and out and does a weird dramatic gesture with her hands, like she’s so over it. “I thought it meant you didn’t want me, period.” Before he has time to purse his lips and refute heavily against that, she continues: “With the way everyone always talks about you- or doesn’t, I guess. Ugh. I know you so much better now. You’d never say it like that. I’m sorry for freaking out. I know- I know this is sort of normal for you and I shouldn’t make this big of a deal out of it.”

He shakes his head. “Heh. Yeah, my little miracle.”

“Miracle? No- That’s…Not what I meant,” Mirabel struggles. “This isn’t like healing better after having Mom’s food, or waking up with roses in your hair.”

“Yeah, it is,” Bruno insists. “Just because I’ve gotten the short end of the stick doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen to me at all. I’m sorry, kid. You’ve gotta roll with the punches you’re dealt. I just wish you hadn’t seen that. I guess you’re right that it’s normal for me, in both ways.”

He can tell by the way she’s silent and folds her arms, sinking deeper into the couch against him, that her thoughts are getting all twisted up at that. “Geesh, goes to show I know nothing about miracles.”

His heart breaks a little for her, just like it had when he read Agustín’s version of it. Both of them; his own alienating experience as someone ‘unexceptional’ marrying into the Madrigal family, for whom science and explanations has not stuck around to make sense of their world wherein anything can happen, and Mirabel’s perception of her ‘unexceptional’ life that she’s been stuck with since she’s never had anything happen to her like the rest of those born into this family. 

Nothing bad ever happens to the Madrigals, not since Pedro’s sacrifice at the river. Because of that strange day, little miracles pile up by the dozen. It’s easy to forget how special you are when others are being told about their exceptional-ness on the daily.

“Hey,” Bruno reassures her. “Miracles are obvious. I think you have a subtler magic going on about you. And for what it’s worth, I like that better. That’s the kind of magic that smoothes out a story.”

That makes her smile fondly at him. “Thanks, Tío.” She hesitates before she says, “It wasn’t Mamá’s idea, by the way. I wanted to come here and meet you.” 

Considering Julieta’s hesitant phone call, this doesn’t come as a surprise at all. And now that he’s gotten to know Mirabel properly he knows how much it means to her that she knows the whole family now, including the man they’d all sort of shunned.

For the first time she’s here, he’s the one to pull her into a hug.