Chapter Text
Fernando takes to the news that he's going to be an abuelo with the same steadiness he has in every other part of his life. He nods. He congratulates the young couple who sit nervously on his couch. While his wife hugs their daughter, he looks Bruno square in the eyes.
“Your last chance to leave is gone.” he says, “You cannot leave this family now, understood?”
“Fernando!” cries Carolina. Inez pats her mother’s arm comfortingly. Bruno rubs his arms in discomfort.
“Understood.”
*
In a town a full week away, in a magical house, up a forgotten stair, two door-shaped outlines glow faintly outside the darkened door belonging to the man who ran away.
*
Fernando takes a week off from his studio and paints the nursery. It’s rather big, he thinks, but it could be that they plan on using the room for all of their children. He paints the walls green, with flowers and suns and small animals; anything that would make a child happy.
Bruno quietly requests that he paint a few rats. Only a few! And only if it won’t trouble Fernando. His hija’s choice in husband baffles him daily, but he paints a few tiny rats in the corner by the window.
*
Ginger is the only thing that allows Inez to hold down food for the first five months. She prefers it in candied cubes, but more often ends up drinking it as tea while her husband sends her looks, begging her to eat something wholesome.
Pamela, the lucky bitch, has no sickness at all. She prances around all day, as though she’s the very poster child of beauty in pregnancy. It’s annoying.
*
They hazard to tell people that there might be more than one baby in about the sixth month of Inez and Pamela’s pregnancies.
Bertilda makes four small summer quilts with worrying speed. Her own nieto, Matías, toddles around their living room when she pops over to deliver her gift. He lives with her still. What else can he do? His mother passed on. He’s all Señora Ortiz has left of her beloved daughter.
Bruno claims the blue and yellow blankets before Diego or Pamela have a chance to look. They remind him of his hermanas. He cannot give them up.
*
Two identical girls with Diego’s eyes and Pamela’s chin run on chubby legs in the living room. They have a new rug. They spin and dance and cry and grow.
A little boy with amber brown curls snuggles with his papá while he reads. The boy runs to his abuelito and shows him a picture he’s drawn. He grins at the glowing praise.
A little girl sits with an old woman. She wields a needle with astonishing grace for someone with such small hands. She laughs like a butterfly and smiles like the first breeze of spring.
*
Bruno proudly props that vision tablet up for all to see by the rat’s telenovela stage in the living room. Jorge does not appreciate his space being invaded, but Hernando pats his friend on the back with his tail and everything is alright. The show must go on.
*
Both women are bedbound in their eighth month. They’ve hired two midwives to assuage Bruno’s fear that they labor at the same time and attention has to split between the two.
“Wouldn’t that be something?” Fernando laughs. Bruno is going to strangle his suegro one of these days.
Bruno sleeps with a mask over his eyes. They burn every night and Inez needs her strength to grow their children safely.
*
The day the children are born is grey. Bruno feels a distant vindication that both midwives are needed.
His leg hurts too much to stand on his prosthesis. Both he and Diego have been banished from their wives’ presence and Bertilda stands guard at the hallway. Jorge and Hernando are nowhere to be seen. Bruno thinks they’re in his pockets, but is too nervous to check.
Bertilda sits with them, mending a stack of shirts. Between her muttering needle flashes, Diego’s foot tapping, and Bruno’s rocking, it’s hard to say who’s most worried. Bertilda will deny it’s her until the day she dies.
Hours pass in a muddy slow haze. Bruno’s rats try to put on a game show, but now isn’t the time. They crawl up his spine and curl up against his neck, their tiny heartbeats soothing against the silence of the room.
He does not look at the future. He doesn’t want to know.
*
Camilo’s hair is thick and he has a stripe of it running down his back. He cries. His mother holds him close to her breast and he latches on to nurse. Beside her, sitting cross legged, is her husband. Bruno rocks their Mirabel slightly and Inez isn’t sure he even knows he’s doing it.
“When one belly is full,” the midwife told them, “the other will be hungry.” She is right. As Camilo releases, sated for now, Mirabel begins to fuss.
“Baby swap.” she says to Bruno. Bruno swings his single leg out and hands her Mirabel as though the baby is made of the finest spun glass.
Bruno leans back on the bed. He holds his son. He has fine dreams for his boy. He will never feel as though he is less than his worth. He will never believe himself to be anything but loved. He will be happy.
Bruno’s mamá tried, he knows, but the weight of a whole village leaves little strength to shield your children from expectations too grand for their age.
Bruno holds his son and dreams and dreams and dreams.
He will be happy.
*
The house in the town a full week away is worried. The glow of the still-forming doors grows brighter by the day. The house in the town a full week away begins quietly creaking the stairs to a curve. The man who ran away is not yet ready to return.
*
Four children play on the rug. It matters little if it’s the Madrigal house or the Jiminez house. The two families are practically one. It’s the toss of a coin where the families eat, where the children play, and where any of them sleep.
Camilo sits, clapping chubby hands. Giggling, Olga and Lupe stack blocks in haphazard towers and knock them over. Mirabel toddles between her papá and Tía Pamela. Soon it will be difficult to confine the children to one place, but the rug in the living room works just fine for now.
‘Now’ is a place Bruno likes. The future, much as it desires otherwise, can wait.
*
It doesn’t wait forever. It never does.
*
He sees cracks. They are old. They are new. They are coming.
There is a hurricane brewing. It is not made of water and air and screams.
There is a mountain splitting under years of pressure. The shards spray over the valley below.
There is a jaguar screaming. A small boy cries.
There is his sweet sobrina, hands grasping at her ears, blood seeping down her face from the strength of what’s broken.
There is a candle. It is dying.
*
Bruno wakes with a choked shout. Inez, bless her, turns over with a sound of bleary confusion. The aching green glow fades from his eyes.
“What did you See?”
“Nothing,” he lies, “Bertilda will take the children tomorrow. You’ll be able to nap.” He’ll have to be up early to ask her, but the seamstress never minds.
Inez gives a pleased hum. Bruno lies on his back and stares at the ceiling while his wife goes back to sleep. His head hurts.
The future wants to be known.