#fabril

(Though he appreciated that she still sat in on the visions. They had been getting weirder and worse and she worried about them, so that’s why it didn’t make Bruno feel too guilty for indulging in her affection a little bit longer. Still, a guy had to have his private moments away from his mami. Albeit with his sisters.)

“Ugh, he doesn’t even know I exist!” Julieta exploded, burying her face into her hands. 

Félix had just walked past them, grinning and calling out a casual “hey, Bruno, ladies.” The air around them instantly heated up as Pepa stared with half-lidded eyes, cocking her head ponderously.

It was unanimous to anyone with eyes that Félix was a dreamboat, even if Pepa always feigned disinterest by complaining about how annoying he was. (In later years, this would only inflame her fixation on him.) He was two years older than them and way out of their league. He had stocky arms and a smile that could fight Pepa’s sunrays for attention, and as he carried a wheelbarrow packed with sandbags past them they could clearly see his muscles bulge from the effort. 

It took Bruno a belayed second to wiggle his fingers back at him, and then he realized he could totally have hammed it up and pulled out one of his Don Juan-type characters to charm him--

No, too much. Too much, Bruno. That’ll never work.

“What are you talking about?” he said to Julieta, dopey smile still on his face as he watched Félix go.

“Of course he knows who you are!” Pepa added. “Duh, we’re the Madrigals.” She gestured over the three of them because it was obvious. They were the bearers of the miracle. And although Félix rarely got into accidents, he wasn’t exactly a stranger to Julieta’s magic. 

Julieta stared abashedly in front of her. “I know that, but- ugh!” She threw her head down between her knees.

It was a bit surprising that she had such strong feelings for him. Bruno suspected she was just playing along, that she wasn’t really into Félix like he and Pepa were. That she just wanted to hang out with her siblings. He didn’t mind the dramatics, though. 

Bruno kicked his feet. “Well, if he doesn’t know who you are it’ll leave more chance for us.”

“Oh, I’m not interested.” Pepa flicked her long frizzy hair over her shoulder. “I’m going to ask José out.”

“Which one?”

“Martinez.”

“Wow, that’s a familiar last name. I wonder who you’re trying to make jealous with that.”

She pouted. A little cloud floated over her head for a moment, but it cleared up when her expression did, suddenly struck by a fantasy. “I could have them fight over me.” She clutched her chest. “Oh, wouldn’t that be the talk of the town?”

“Oh, oh, oh!” Bruno chimed in. “A battle of life and death between cousins. José wins your hand, which leaves Félix wounded and in the care of your handsome brother who’s always been more understanding of him and knows what he deserves and gives him twice the attention you would.”

Julieta piped up, “If anyone is going to nurse him back to health, it’s me!”

“Oh, right!” That was a good fantasy too. “Yes…Yes! And that’s the moment he truly notices you! I’m standing in the doorway — I see the two of you right as I’m about to confess my feelings to him, but I realize he’s not in love with me. He’s in love with you. So I nobly walk away and let you guys follow your hearts instead.” 

--

But in reality there was no jealousy. There was no battle. There was no kneeling next to a sickbed as either Julieta or Bruno dabbed blood or sweat away from Félix’s forehead and, in this intimacy, dared to kiss his lips with surprise bravery. 

A boy arrived in the Encanto like a mirage. The first people who spotted him and his parents had to squint to make sure they didn’t recognize them since everybody knew everybody in an isolated town like theirs, but when it was established that they really must be strangers, they were quickly taken in. 

They were refugees like anyone else, but unfamiliar as the trio was, the town didn’t quite trust them yet. Agustín, for example, hadn’t been invited to help out on the cathedral with the other boys until it was well near finished, and when the triplets’ quince came around, Mamá did not allow him to dance with Julieta, who’d asked Bruno — who had become fast friends with Agustín — to invite him as her chaperone. Mamá didn’t like, or rather, didn’t trust, how comically clumsy he was, the exact reason Julieta had become so well acquainted with him (and as a result completely lost eyes for Félix).

Agustín was also tall, slender and friendly, and Bruno wondered why he again liked the same boy his sister liked. It wasn’t like he’d even lost Félix out of his periphery yet. 

Wasn’t that greedy of him? That he’d like to maybe reach around their shoulders and hold hands with both boys too. Félix, Pepa, him in the middle, Julieta, Agustín. 

“Eh, stupid. Fantasies,” he’d dismiss himself, never quite shaking off that happy ending.

--

Félix danced with Pepa on their quinceañera and that was it for them. 

Bruno stood next to Mamá, clutching her black mourning shroud as green overtook his vision and his body went rigid with alarm. Seeing the slender arms of an older Pepa around Félix’s broad waist, moving him however she wanted because he yielded so easily for her; seeing Félix pull up a wide umbrella big enough to shield both of them from Pepa’s stormy cloud as she cried against his shoulder; seeing them kiss. 

Mamá quickly and effortlessly disappeared him from the crowd of attendants before anyone could notice his impromptu vision. Sand stirred precariously around his feet, his eyes wide and frightening. 

“Querido, sit down.” She placed him on the single chair at the food-bedecked table of the dining room, chairs placed elsewhere in Casita for the party. The music was dampened just enough to put the two of them in a little bubble. Mamá’s hand cupped his cheek. “Are you alright?”

The vision had gone. Bruno slumped, hands hanging between his knees, and he nodded. 

“What was it? Your expression- ay, Bruno, why now?” She said this last part more to herself than him, knuckle to her lip as she thought of its significance, or importance thereof, with a deep frown. 

“No, it was a good one, Mami,” he stopped her from worrying. He noticed he was still clutching her shroud like a lifeline and let go. 

“Are you sure?” Her voice was sharp.

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you about it yet, but you’ll like it. It’s not going to happen for a while.”

Relief washed over her in a full-body shudder. “Oh… Thank you, Brunito.”

“Go back to them, okay?” He waved at the party-goers. “I’m alright. Knock on wood.” He rapped his knuckles three times against the table.

“Gracias a dios, I will.” She knocked as well, then took his face in her hands and kissed his forehead. “Eat something, alright, mijo? Then come back. We’ll talk about your vision tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

She adjusted her shroud and rejoined the party, hands jubilantly up in the air as she cheered for her daughters. Like the upsetting diversion had never happened.

When she was out of sight, Bruno slid off the table, pushing his wrists against his stinging eyes, keeping the tears at bay. 

He wasn’t crying. He could never betray Pepa by being jealous of her. If he wanted Félix to come into the dining room, find him in a mess, and caress his tears away with soft sturdy words like he one day would for Pepa, that was just a separate feeling.

It wasn’t until Julieta descended from the courtyard — frantically looking around for her brother whom she knew wasn’t comfortable at big parties, especially when he had nothing to perform, a role to play, and who’d gotten more and more prone to strange meltdowns — that Bruno realized Casita had gently moved him to a more secluded space. Julieta found him tucked behind a flower pot between the corner and a cabinet, protected from stray guests spotting him. Casita moved the pot out of the way for Julieta, who squeezed herself in next to Bruno and asked what was the matter. 

Her brows were furrowed and he could tell she was trying to temper her anger that she had to take a break from her own party to comfort him. But she still looked for him. 

He laid his head on her shoulder.

“I’m always just going to have you,” he said softly, still kind of hoping it’d be Félix coming to get him. Or even his friend Agustín (who’d been invited, just not to act out the traditions).

“Obviously I’m missing something here or else you wouldn’t say something as mean as that,” Julieta said a tad offended, squeezing his shoulders. The annoyance she had so far kept in check came out sharp.

He slapped his face with his hands. “I always say it wrong…”

“Bruno, just calm down, okay? What happened?” She breathed in through her nose, calming herself. “Did you have a vision?”

She sounded like their mother, but unlike with Mamá he could actually share his feelings with his sister.

“Yeah,” he said. “Félix isn’t going to like me back.”

“Oh…”

He rubbed his eyes, then balled his fists around his knees. “I’m so stupid. Nobody in the Encanto is like me, I know that. I’m just weirdo freak Bruno. But I never even tried with him, you know? And now I’ve ruined it. I’m such a coward.”

“You’re not a coward, Bruno.” She bit her lip and frowned. “And you’re not a freak. You can try with other boys, maybe.”

Bruno thought of Agustín and the way Julieta sometimes looked at him, and decided he really couldn’t. “...I don’t want to make it awkward.”

“But you won’t know until you try-” The two triplets considered that for a second. “Sorry. You could know, of course.”

What was the point of trying if Bruno could toss his sand and burn incense like Mamá showed him and see for himself what he wasn’t brave enough to do? Julieta had a point, but he just wasn’t like that. He wanted to be certain first. 

“No, don’t be. I’m just…being difficult again.”

She had no reply to that. “Bruno, can I be honest?”

“Yes. Always.”

“I don’t know how to help you with this.”

“That’s okay,” he said lightly. As if she could pull out clear-cut advice for every situation hidden in her pockets. That’d be the real miracle.

“And…And I really just wanna go back to the party.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“With you.”

The thing about having feelings at the age of fourteen is that, in most cases, those feelings will pass when they aren’t nurtured. On Julieta’s signal — a slight nod towards him and Pepa as they rejoined the dance court — Bruno was reminded of their plan and pulled out his firecrackers, disrupting the careful traditional dancing of their friends and their dance partners until everyone, guests and hosts, was roped into la hora loca craziness. He hugged Félix, he hopped in circles with Agustín. Bruno cried out and danced with his sisters and even goaded Mamá into a wild dance as he shook every bad feeling about the prophecy away.

“No,” Camilo croaks dismissively. “No way. I’m the only changeling here.” He squints and presses his nose against the paper to inspect the woman to confirm that she is not, in fact, their tío Bruno. But it’s a little difficult because the photo is in black and white and her face is turned toward…she’s kissing Papi. And Camilo’s hands are shaking.

He can’t color-type the woman in order to determine if she’s wearing Bruno green or Abuela maroon. Her hair is dark and curly like tía Julieta’s, falling to her shoulders, and parted with a bow the way Mami does it. She wears a modest dress that covers her from wrist to neck, a lace shroud draped over her shoulders; Abuela’s signature look. In her ears hang large hoops that look like Mami’s and her nose is kind of big for a lady-

“Guess you got it from him, then,” Isabela says. “Two dads! Wow. Good for you, Milo.”

He twists around. “He’s not my dad. This is probably just one of his telenovela things, right?” That last word comes out a tad too desperate, so he tries to rectify it with a weaker “right?”.

Isabela shrugs her shoulders. “He’s probably just goofing around.” Camilo can only hope so. Their uncle does that a lot. “Are there more?

In fact, there are more photographs. The two cousins huddle behind the cabinet, hidden from view from the others working around the construction site. There’s a bunch more in the envelope Camilo found the first offending tintype in, but a lot of them are simply pictures of their parents from when they were younger: tía Julieta without her worry lines. Mami and Papi — these feel much more correct. Young Abuela with braids, so weird. Tío Bruno in more dresses. Tío Agustín- oh. 

“Well, would you look at this,” Camilo says, waving the picture in his cousin’s face, hoping the anxious beating in his chest will disappear if he taunts her. “Seems like tío Bruno’s been getting around.”

Isabela snatches the tintype out of his hand. Sure enough, it’s tío Bruno and her father. Bruno wears a different top Camilo thinks is one of tía Julieta’s, bare at the shoulders with a shawl draped over them. His face is clean-shaven, softened with make-up, and he’s looking up at Agustín with an arm around his waist. Tío Gus looks down equally smitten. It’s a damn near exact copy of how he and tía Julieta always stand together, at ease like the unit they are. Having each other for support.

“He’s…He’s probably copying my mother,” Isabela says coolly. But she adds an equally fragile “right?” after. “It’s a joke.”

The problem is that it looks genuine, their affection. And not in a way Camilo knows Bruno roleplays. It’s the face he makes when he dreams away with a romantic story.

Barring the contentious truth that Papi used to date other people before Mami, the pictures make him feel weird. Like they’re snapshots into relationships Camilo isn’t supposed to be privy to. Hidden in the back of his father’s cabinet. Not both his parents’. Who has ever heard of three men in love?

“They look pretty into it,” Camilo says, feigning casualness. “But that would mean that our dads are…and…they’re not like that…are they?”

“It’s hard to imagine.” 

“Not that I think anything is wrong with that,” Camilo says, just in case. It would be hypocritical of him, after all. It’s just…it’s a bit of a blow to consider that Papi could be like him. “It’s like you said. Hard to imagine.”

Isabela gives him a queer, scrutinizing look. “No. I wouldn’t mind either.”

For a second, the world stands still against Camilo’s wish that it should get on with it.

Frowning, Isabela studies the picture for a moment longer. Then her face slackens a little as she gets used to the idea of her dad getting it on with their uncle. “If this is what we think it is, and that’s a big if, do you think they’re still…”

Camilo shrugs. 

Having tío Bruno back with the family is weird. Suddenly there’s this new guy messing up the dynamic between everyone. Mirabel has become an emotional support niece, like a crutch that Bruno uses to lean on whenever the family and the neighbors get to be too much. The triplets are a triad again, the unspoken gap filled with someone they have evidently missed between them. The stories that are coming out from the adults now don’t need to accord for one missing member. They no longer trip and fall over the guy they’re supposed to forget, or close the door on him like he’s a boogeyman to banish.

That last one is a very fun but problematic image Camilo helped perpetrate and hasn’t quite reconciled with. Really, Camilo kind of likes the guy. Bruno is shy but creative and outwardly odd. He’s nothing what he thought Bruno was.

No signs of a rekindling romance between Papi and los Tíos Ridículos though. Not that Camilo noticed, anyway. 

“Doesn’t look like it,” he says to Isabela.

“No?” she offers. “You don’t see tío Bruno looking all moony for no reason and wonder what he’s thinking about?”

“Sure I do. Just don’t think it’s about our dads. I mean, I kinda assumed that he did that because he’s Bruno.”

“Yeah,” Isabela agrees. “I’m not about to ask him, by the way.”

“You’re not?” Camilo asks disappointed. It’s been a while since he’s had an adventure — everyone else in the family seems to get one. “Then how are we supposed to find out-”

She places her hand on his shoulder. “Milo, maybe this is one of those things that’ll come out when it’s time.” 

Isabela’s secret weapon is congeniality. Camilo has always thought that poking and bullying that mask of perfection off of her is fun, knowing there’s a loser like him underneath the princess. But being on the receiving end of that generous face makes it hard to deny the resemblance between her and Abuela. Ergo, he crumples like a little boy under her gaze.

“If tío Bruno and our dads need to have a conversation,” she says sternly, “that’s between them. There’s no way I’m asking tío Bruno and freaking him out — if these photographs are what we think they are and he’s not just putting on a play.”

She has a point. There’s a chance he’ll flat out deny or skirt the issue, which Bruno has done before with less thrilling subjects than forbidden romance. It has been two months since the house fell down and their uncle got plastered back into their lives like a gob of spackle. He’s barely getting used to everyone seeing him. Literally.

“Or maybe it’s nothing and he just likes wearing lady’s dresses.” She shrugs with a smile.

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.

--

One day Julieta called him up out of the blue and asked him if it wouldn’t be a good idea if Mirabel came to live with him for a little while, at least for the summer. 

In her fashion she was polite, slightly accusatory like their mother, and thus easily refusable. 

“And what does Ma think of me taking care of Mirabel?” He asked her, knowing fully well his mother doesn’t speak of him and likely avoided the combined topic of “Bruno” and “responsibility” alltogether. The other end of the line stayed silent. “That’s what I thought.” 

“You’re both stubborn, you know? It’s the both of you.”

He left years ago for a good reason. The idea to ask him to…to take care of someone, of Mirabel, seems an absurd initiative. From his capricious mental health to living situation to sending Mirabel off to go live with her estranged uncle, there’s too much to take into consideration.

But Julieta’s, his, and his mother’s conviction didn’t matter.

One week after he hung up on Julieta, he received a long letter from Agustín. About how his daughter isn’t quite finding her way at home and how he wonders if maybe the city won’t treat her and her wild imagination better than the stifling reclusiveness of their village, just like it had for Bruno. That sending Mirabel away isn’t done out of any malice or foreboding. If Bruno would please reconsider having her, because there’s no one he trusts more to be kind and understanding than him.

The letter is two sides long. The words are gentle, but steadfast, and clearly written against the opinion of the family that Agustín usually follows to avoid conflict. Bruno smells the love he has for his daughter in every brave sentence, and all of them together form an elaborate composition. It’s like music in Casita’s courtyard. It’s familiar and his heart aches.

Bruno read it over and over before he finally sent him a letter of his own.

--

“How was your trip? Too long, right? It’s always way too long for me.” Though this wasn’t the only reason he rarely met up with his sisters.

“Oh, yeah. I wish I could’ve brought my sewing machine, but, yeah…Too heavy. It was either that or my accordion.” She shrugs her shoulders which he now sees carry an instrument bag, not a backpack. 

He gives her his sympathy. Agustín not just mentioned she’s creative, he boasted it, and Bruno believes it immediately when he looks at her embroidered orange jacket and blue skirt filled with little sewing doodles.

It makes Mirabel a bright uncanny spot in Bruno’s humble home. As she walks through his apartment, she takes in every bit of clutter with worried eyes. Even with his bad back, Bruno didn’t think he had gotten that bad with the upkeep of his home, but he’s getting embarrassed now, thinking what she must’ve expected before the trip. Certainly not stacks of telenovela scripts and books covering unaddressed letters he’s never sent.

It’s a far cry from the colorful Casita she’s left behind, which is big enough to house a dozen family members and about as talkative. He always keeps the radio on to fill the silence and to keep his house full of romantic love songs. It helps him write.

Mirabel is still holding on to her duffle bag and keeps the bag over her shoulder as if her stuff will get swallowed up once she puts it down.

“Sorry for the mess,” he says as he gives her a little tour - his apartment, though decent, isn’t all that big, but he has space for her. He gestures to unload her stuff. “I tried cleaning out the office a little - that’s your room!”

“My own room?” She asks peculiarly as he opens the door for her. 

“Of course! What, did you think your cruel tío was gonna let you sleep on the couch?” he asks amusedly.

She shrugs abashedly. “No. I guess? I dunno. I share a room with Antonio, so…I’m not used to it.”

Inside sits the spare cot he’s prepared for her and a desk he’s mostly cleared of his writing and accounting. On the walls he’s hung up drawings to give the room a bit more life. Rats in period clothes, boats on voyages, little doodles he’s made while brainstorming ideas for his stories. He feels silly about them now, realizing she’s not that much of a kid anymore. 

“I hung these up for you. To lighten the place up a little-heh.” He rubs his elbow, unsure. “But you can make your own or take them down if you don’t like them.”

Mirabel smiles. 

“No, Tío. Thank you.”

--

“So, a couple of things,” tío Bruno begins.

They’re eating the sancocho de pollo Mirabel brought from home, which is apparently Bruno’s favorite. He started humming and whistling the moment she pulled out the container. His cane lies forgotten by the front door. He only needed it to breach the distance between his front door and the lobby to let her in. She hadn’t expected he needed one - neither Mamá or tío Bruno (they had a brief conversation on the phone) had mentioned it. 

“Curfew, of course. Ehh, be home before nine if you go out. The errand boy comes here on Mondays with groceries and/or medicine - ask for the receipt and don’t let him hustle you too much. Avoid talking to the handsome boy from the next block over: he’s a loverboy. Joselito I think his name is. I know the city can be very exciting and boys may seem very fun now that you’re at that age, but you’ll get in trouble if you go looking for danger of his kind, trust me!…Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned him at all. Ay, you’re probably thinking of running away with him now!” 

He throws his hands up and clutches his hair.

She stares at him, reeling a bit at his rambling. “Uhh.” 

“Anyway,” he perks up, dramatics forgotten, “there’s a lot of clubs and activities, so there’s always something fun for you to do while you’re here. And you could come to the theater with me! I’m sure you’d love it. It’s small but has a lot of heart.”

“That sounds great.” It was the reason she wanted to come to the city. She wanted to find her place.

He beams. “But don’t let me slow you down from whatcha wanna do, okay? I’m boring anyway and I can’t always go very far.”

This remark reminds her to ask; she thought he was an architect or construction worker or something in that vein, but he told her he quit that profession to take up writing, which landed him a job at one of the local theaters. She wonders if he had to quit that first job because of his injury. 

“So,” she says, stirring against the corn cob, “what actually happened to your back?”

“My back?” His expression turns sullen, his spoon resting in the sancocho. “Oh, something awful.”

He doesn’t elaborate and she immediately regrets asking. “Oh, I’m sorry.” 

He nods gravely.

There’s so much more she wants to ask him, but most of those questions are about the family, which require a kind of perilousness she doesn’t want to drag him into just yet.

“Uhm, so,” she tries. “What’s with all the letters?”

He looks surprised. “You saw those?”

“Yeah, they’re everywhere.” All tucked tight between other manuscripts and his books, but odd and noticeable enough.

He rubs his neck. “Ehh…I don’t wanna talk about it. They just kind of appear.”

“What? What does that mean?” she asks confused, but he again doesn’t elaborate. And after an awkward moment of silence, she gives up, “Okay.” They eat their stew in silence before she tries again. “Papi said that before he even met Mamá, you and he were friends?”

“Oh.” Surprisingly, even this catches him off-guard. He looks up at that, gaze distant for a moment, eyebrows pinched. It takes a second for him to reply, scratching the scruff of his neck. “Oh, sure,” he says and goes back to slurping his soup, not looking up.

“Got any funny stories from back in the day?”

He makes a strangled sound and shrugs, back to eating.

“Oookay. Good talk.”

--

Despite his evasiveness when it comes to family talk, tío Bruno loves to talk. About his interests, his hobbies - of which he has a lot.

It makes her fond somehow, to hear how he also thinks the random pitter-patter sounds that can sometimes be heard outside the building are pixies, just like Abuela and tía Pepa do. “Poor things,” he says, smiling. “The rats like to eat them.” Mirabel has never actually seen one before and doesn’t quite believe in them, but hearing that they persist even in the city makes her think the older generation is onto something. 

Tío Bruno has so many pecularities it’s hard to list them all, from nervous ticks to his superstitions. He burns sage and avoids stepping on cracks. Every morning he does a cleansing ritual alongside taking his anti-epilepsy pills. He keeps an upside-down broom in all the rooms to keep out bad spirits (also handy for sweeping up the salt and sugar he spills a prolific amount of) and he holds his breath when he walks through every doorway, not just the one that leads outside.

He also swoons at music and always seems to have romance on his mind. He does spontaneous dances when he listens to the radio or when he’s playing some cuban bolero on his gramophone, which is such a classic item it makes it seem as though he’s stuck in time, only adding to that romanticism. Bruno loves writing and reading and tells her he can waste days watching reruns of telenovela’s he’s already seen.

“Ah…so much can happen in a life. It’s easy to forget when you’ve got a bad back and never go anywhere. That’s why it’s important to throw in crazy stuff. You gotta remember the love exists between the cracks.”

She’s been curious about him for a long time. It is as though her own life falls into place now, Bruno the missing piece of the puzzle, a branch she was never allowed close to. It’s good to meet the person he really is instead of hearing half-finished stories from her cousins and sisters who knew him only a tiny bit better. A hard line of separation forced by a ten year old wall.

She has a vague understanding of why he left. He lost his way in the family, one way or another. Stir-crazy, tío Félix told her. Thought he was bad for the family, suicidal, and too cooped up in the village. Not to mention volatile. Made the whole house mad. 

“He was…sensitive,” Papá said with a far-off look in his eyes that seemed far too fraught on her dad’s face of all people. 

Selfish reasons, according to Abuela, but from what Mirabel gathers those ‘selfish reasons’ boil down to ‘leaving’, which seems a bit paradoxical. 

“Tío.”

It’s the end of the first night. She’s crawled up on the couch with him, leaning into his shoulder as if they’ve always done this together, drowsy from the telenovela they watched that she wasn’t all that into after a long day. “Why did you leave?”

His shoulders clench up. “Oh, that’s- I wasn’t really…that’s not important.”

“How can it not be important?”

“Okay, I guess it’s important.” 

Once again, as she’s coming to expect of him, he doesn’t elaborate. Or maybe he can’t answer because he’s always so nervous and not used to having his bothersome niece here, asking questions. 

He’s tense even as she leans against him, but he assured her that he’s just like that and that it’s okay to touch him and it doesn’t mean she’s imposing on him or anything. She did feel like she was imposing a little. She’s felt that way the moment her dad said she could go.

“But…I don’t get why you never really came back. I get leaving for a little while - I know Abuela and Isabela drive me crazy sometimes and always make me feel like I’m too awkward and that I’m only getting in their way, and now that I’m here I feel like I can”- She lets out a heavy puff of breath, heart straining -“breathe, finally. But I love them, and I already miss them.”

His mouth opens and closes, looking like he wants to answer, but keeps catching himself before words can spill. His chest heaves unevenly, like he’s getting worked up, and then puffing out his frustration again. But his face reads solemn, not angry at the thought of his family. 

Mirabel already hugs him by the time he finally says something.

“Kid, I miss you guys plenty.”