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Mirabel didn't understand why things had been so awkward with Mariano lately. Well, maybe it had something to do with the fact that he'd tried (and failed) to propose to her sister, or that Mirabel was arguably to blame for that failure. Or maybe it was the fact that she'd then had to set him up with her prima. But that should be a reason for him to make more effort to be friendly with her, not less! If he was going to be part of the household, he'd have to get along with everyone. And to be fair, he wasn't avoiding her, at least not actively, but - he always had this look in his eyes, like he was staring at some sort of alien. It wasn't that weird for her to not have a gift! He couldn't exactly make flowers bloom himself. And she swore it had started well before all of the mess with Isabela, probably just before Antonio's gift ceremony.
Regardless, she assumed the solution was just to interact with him as much as possible and pretend he wasn't looking at her like he wasn't quite sure what she was, like she wasn't the cousin-in-law he had ordered from the cousin-in-law factory. (Though apparently they weren't going to be cousins-in-law any time soon. Dolores was insisting she'd heard nothing about a proposal.) And that meant checking in on him before his, ahem, big night. "Heeeeey, Mariano! You're ready for the dinner, right?"
He blinked at her like he hadn't at all expected her to talk to him, or perhaps hadn't expected her to talk so normally. "Of course I'm ready. Are you?"
"Of course, of course!" Her grin was plastered on. She wondered if she would make things better or worse by trying to sling an arm around him like he was already her cousin. Before she could, however, she noticed her actual primo dashing toward them both. He saw Mariano, and stopped in his tracks, visibly out of breath. He had flowers in his hair.
Completely unprompted, he sung, "Look, see, it's Mariano, mister, hey it's cool with me if you wanna marry my sister but between you and me our Mami might cause a twister, yo I've said too much so thank you now I have to swiftly leave!" And then he ran back off before Mirabel could process the interaction or ask any questions.
As her cousin became a speck of yellow in the distance, she blinked at him. "...Huh." She cleared her throat. "That was ... weird."
"It really was," agreed Mariano.
"I mean, I guess I get it because I've had 'conversations' like that before, but normally I'm the one singing." She blinked. "Oh, that time I did that to you was probably super weird from your perspective, wasn't it?"
"It was." They made eye contact. He was finally looking at her like he knew who she was and what her role was in his life. "From my perspective, you just ran up to me, said I could marry your sister but that she was 'kind of a primadonna', and then ran off, with children following you the whole time."
"Oh, yeah, there was a whole musical number leading up to that. Anyway!" She cleared her throat. "All ready for tonight? No cold feet?"
"Of course I'm ready." He offered her a reassuring smile. "And Dolores has been telling us, that this dinner doesn't need to be perfect."
"Yeah, she told us that too." She tried to grin at him in a way that would make it clear neither of them believed it, but he didn't reciprocate the expression. "But it's gonna be perfect, okay? This time there aren't going to be any dark secrets about our Tio Bruno that make themselves known at the dinner table and Isabela is not gonna accidentally break your nose with a plant." She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. God, that was too much.
Mariano looked down at her in confusion. "Dolores actually told me not to ask about Bruno during the dinner."
Mirabel blinked. "Oh?"
"I can't deny that we've been confused and curious about what ... happened with him and your sister. But Dolores told me not to ask about him, and that she'll tell me when she's ready, and I respect her boundaries."
"...Oh." Relief flooded her veins. "Oh! That's actually good. Um, not that there is a dark secret involving our Tio Bruno. And your nose is definitely not getting broken." Her grin faltered. "Well, I'd better go make sure my sisters are both ready." Or rather, she had better leave this conversation before she said anything worse than what she already had.
Mariano probably saw right through her, and nodded her away. She broke into a run once she was out of his sight, needing something to do with the nervous energy. And she ran all the way back to Casita, stopping to lean on a wall and catch her breath, so exhausted she didn't notice Dolores until she tapped her shoulder. "Oh, hey, Lolo. Are you anxious about tonight?"
"Not as nervous as you are." She adjusted Mirabel's glasses. "This is a casual evening. I've told you, I don't want you to put yourself under pressure to prove yourself to the Guzmans."
"I know, I know!" She forced a grin. "But also I will never forgive myself if I make you look bad in front of -"
"Mirabel. Relax." She put her hands on Mirabel's shoulders. "Or, if you need something to do with the nervous energy, I actually came to ask a favour."
"Oh?"
"Luisa's still asleep. I was hoping you could wake her up. She had a ... bad night. I'm not as close to her as you are, and if she's anxious or sad, that'll rub off onto me and I'll get upset too."
"Right, right." Mirabel grimaced. "So, uh, when you say bad night, do you maybe mean you got up to get water and heard her eye twitching?"
"Sorry, but I didn't need my super hearing for this one. I got up and heard hyperventilating from her room, so I went to ask if she was okay, but she insisted she was 'fine' and snapped at me to leave her alone." Mirabel exhaled. Months ago, she had easily recognised Luisa's eagerness to help the people of the Encanto as an unhealthy coping mechanism, and with the help of a cousin who could hear and intervene every time she even tried to relapse back onto it, it had seemed easy to help her. But preventing Luisa from overworking hadn't prompted her to start opening up to the rest of the family. It had just pushed her into withdrawal, barely speaking to anyone and spending nights awake panicking until her sleep schedule was so destroyed she would often eat breakfast when the rest of the familia ate lunch or even dinner.
"Okay, I'll go talk to her." She turned to leave, then paused. "Do you know what Camilo's up to?"
"Honestly, not a clue. He's been secretive lately, but not in a concerning way. I'm assuming he's just planning a prank."
"Alright. I'm gonna go talk to Luisa." She headed to Luisa's door and knocked, but Luisa must have slept through it because there was no response. So, hesitantly, she turned the doorknob.
She was expecting a mess. She was expecting a room that was deteriorating like Luisa's mentality, she was expecting visible evidence of suffering. But that wasn't the scene she walked into. The room was so clean and polished it was almost eerie; if it wasn't for the untidy bed that had Luisa sleeping in it, there would be no reason for her to believe anyone lived in the room at all. She supposed Luisa must be doing something when she spent hours on end cooped up in the room, and cleaning was as good an option as any other.
"Luisa?" Luisa didn't stir. Mirabel stepped closer. "Lu?" When she didn't see a reaction, Mirabel walked over to the side of the bed, close enough to see that Luisa was tense even in sleep, tightly clutching the edge of her blanket. "Luisa!" Luisa's eyelids fluttered, and slowly opened. "Luisa, wake up?"
Luisa blinked at her. "Huh?"
"The Guzmans are coming over for dinner, Luisa. You've gotta wake up and get ready."
Luisa blinked at her again, like she wasn't quite able to process the news. "...Oh." And slowly she started to sit up.
Mirabel, grimacing, decided to attempt something more meaningful than a superficial wake-up. "How are you holding up, Lu?"
"...Okay, I guess." It didn't seem totally honest, but she wasn't insisting she was fine either. Mirabel decided she'd take the victory.
She was expecting several pairs of eyes to turn on her as soon as she made it downstairs. She was expecting whispers and murmurs as to where she had been all day and what was wrong with her to put her to sleep in on the day she was meeting her future cousin-in-law. Well, properly meeting him. But instead, she just got a casual nod of acknowledgement from Mirabel, who was occupied setting the table with Agustin and Dolores. Antonio was busy rounding up a group of capybaras, Julieta was presumably in the kitchen making dinner, and Pepa was frantically pacing and thundering, while Felix tried to calm her down.
"Where are they?" she hissed.
"On their way," answered Dolores, unphased.
"Abuela's on her way too, with the Guzmans, and at this rate-"
"They won't get here until we've started eating. I know." She finished setting the table. "We'll leave seats for them and they'll get here as soon as they can."
"What's keeping them?" asked Mirabel.
"They won't say out loud," answered Dolores. "but they both seem to be excited and having fun. I'm not worried."
"Camilo's probably planning a prank," Felix suggested.
"With Isa?" asked Agustin, frowning. Luisa had been thinking the same question, but stayed silent, not wanting to draw attention to herself. She glanced out the front door and saw Abuela approaching, accompanied by the Guzmans, and suddenly felt sick to her stomach.
This was going to go exactly like the first dinner with Mariano. She just knew it. This dinner was going to start with Mirabel and Dolores staring at each other with wide eyes, visibly uncomfortable, just like last time. And then Dolores would lean over and whisper something into Camilo's ear, and he would shift repeatedly, not quite going back to his true form. And when his father told him off, he would lean over and whisper into Felix's ear, prompting him to spit out his food in shock. And then, Felix would whisper into Pepa's ear, and the house would turn to thunder, and the dinner would end prematurely with Dolores screeching, "Tio Bruno abused Luisa too!" and Luisa would run off crying that she was a loser.
But when Abuela came in and everyone sat down, Dolores wasn't next to Camilo. Camilo wasn't even home, nor was Isabela; Dolores was between Mirabel and Mariano. There was no way she could have leant over to one of the empty seats, where Camilo would sit, and whispered anything to him. Abuela took her seat at the end of the table and frowned. "Where are Camilo and Isabela?"
"On their way," answered Dolores.
Abuela's eyes widened. She quickly turned to Mariano. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't know what's gotten into those two. I'm sure they'll be here -"
"It's fine, it's fine," Senora Guzman insisted, waving her concerns away. "They'll be here when they can. Should we wait for them before we start eating?"
"No need, no need," Abuela was insisting, but she looked about as anxious as Luisa felt. Luisa wondered if she knew something. The dinner conversation began.
Isabela and Camilo ran through the front door a few minutes later, both out of breath, both covered in petals, Isabela still sprouting them from nerves. Camilo very quickly shifted into Isabela, then Mariano, then Dolores, and then back to himself, offering up something halfway between a polite smile and an apologetic grimace. "Sorry we're late!"
Abuela narrowed her eyes at them. "What was keeping you?"
Isabela, next to Camilo, couldn't even muster up a grimace. She was standing there, rigid, with wide eyes and flowers falling from her ears. The floor beneath her was becoming a pile of pink, blue, and white petals. Under Abuela's glare, she eventually unfroze, and, completely ignoring the question, sat down and said, "Wow, I love having dinner with the Guzmans without a huge secret lurking over us!" Camilo sat next to her. Luisa stared at them both. Hadn't Camilo been the one to figure out about Dolores's abuse without being told, just from a few context clues? Had he figured out Luisa's dirty secret too? Had he told Isabela, through some means Dolores couldn't hear, and then the two had had great fun laughing at Luisa's expense? More flowers sprouted from Isabela's head. Camilo rushed to remove them and toss them under the table before Abuela could see.
The dinner conversation continued. Luisa was trying to listen, but it all felt like a mesh of sound. She couldn't focus. The air felt thick and heavy, just like the tension in the atmosphere. Luisa couldn't just see the clear stress on Isabela's face, or even Mirabel and Camilo's uneasy smiles; she could feel that the secret she was keeping would tear this dinner apart. It was a miracle Casita hadn't started cracking. But it was only a matter of time before the tension became unbearable - before even those who weren't in the know could tell something terrible was underpinning the whole dinner, before it all fell apart and nobody could pretend to be okay and the dinner was ruined and Luisa was -
Luisa was snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of Casita's tiles. Isabela was sitting rigid in her seat, wide-eyed and holding her wine glass, as Casita pushed her seat, only stopping when she was next to Luisa. "Hey, sis," she muttered; Luisa wondered what she was going to say next, if it was I know your dirty secret and you'd better not tell, Mirabel ruined my dinner and you'll ruin Dolores's. "You want my wine? I'm too nervous to drink." She was sweating. Luisa frowned at her.
"You sure you don't want it?" she offered, though the wine did look appealing. "You know, liquid courage and all that?"
Isabela scoffed. "Maybe alcohol makes you more courageous, but for me, it just puts me at risk of punching Camilo." Camilo was smirking at them both as Isabela poured her wine into Luisa's glass. Luisa wondered if they did know something. And then, Casita moved Isabela's chair back next to Camilo.
The dinner conversation continued. Senora Guzman and Abuela were in an argument, but an old people argument, the type where they refused to admit they were arguing and instead tried to gently steer the conversation in their desired direction without really acknowledging that there was a disagreement. Senora Guzman, and Mariano, wanted five children. Abuela was insisting on three as a maximum, citing that Dolores had five total siblings and cousins who of course would all be providing children of their own in time, and if everyone had five children then she'd end up with thirty great-grandkids in the house at one time. At no point, Luisa thought bitterly, was Dolores asked how many children she wanted, or if she wanted children at all. None of the other grandkids were asked, either.
Luisa was certain, for a multitude of reasons, she wouldn't be able to have children. She didn't see how Dolores could. Five babies - Dolores wasn't protesting. Was she too uncomfortable to speak out, or was she actually okay with the idea of - of having sex with Mariano? Five times? Luisa didn't understand how anyone could think about being touched like that and not want to claw their own skin off. And then there was the children themselves, after they were born - wouldn't Dolores be terrified that someone would hurt them? That nobody could be trusted? But Dolores didn't look scared. Maybe Dolores had moved on, recovered, learned to trust uncles and not associate sex with abuse. Maybe she had moved on already and Luisa should have moved on too, maybe it was her fault she still couldn't sleep without seeing him leering over her and feeling his hands - she downed the wine. This train of thought was doing her no good, so she tried to focus back on the conversation.
"Best thing about Mariano dating Dolores instead of Isabela now?" Senora Guzman repeated, thinking to herself. Both Dolores and Isabela looked vaguely uncomfortable with the question. Luisa hadn't been paying much attention, but she thought it had been Mirabel's attempt at an icebreaker. "Hmm, I'd have to say her appreciation for music. Not that Isabela is unappreciative!" Isabela forced a smile. "She's just, ahem, more of a visual person. Looking back, I don't think she was a good fit." A flower began to sprout from Isabela's hair. Oblivious to the awkwardness she had created, Senora Guzman seemed to decide the best thing to say after that was, "The worst thing, I'd say, is that now my Mariano won't have any primos."
Camilo blinked. "Why does that matter?"
"Ah, it's just a family thing, you see," said Mariano, attempting to wave off the awkwardness and confusion. "We try to be good friends with our primos, it's tradition. But of course, all we have now are primas. Who we love and appreciate!" Pink, blue, and white flowers fell from Isabela's head. "It's just that, of course, none of them are men." Camilo tried to discreetly brush the petals off of Isabela's face.
Abuela just chuckled politely and assured the Guzmans that their cousins would marry men when they were ready. All three of Julieta's children seemed to uncomfortably laugh at that. Mirabel, thankfully, was able to change the subject with another icebreaker. Icebreaker. A term that probably came from ice-breaking ships built to explore polar regions. The ship doesn't swerve as it heard how big the iceberg is. While they'd both been too busy to even talk to each other about it, Luisa had seen Isabela's descent into some sort of depression through the course of her relationship with Mariano. Luisa knew that if she went along with Abuela's desires, allowed her to pick out a husband for her, she would be miserable. Yet she was doing nothing to avoid this fate, doing nothing to tell Abuela or even her own parents that she had no interest in men. It just didn't seem worth it - would Abuela then move on to trying to find Luisa a suitable wife? Even the women she liked, she didn't think she could ever handle being touched by, didn't think she could handle letting anyone get close enough to feel the grime on her skin and see how dirty she was.
She opened her mouth, wondering if it would be worth it to allude to the topic in conversation to gauge how Abuela might react, but before she could say anything, Isabela screeched.
Everyone turned to her, expecting to see some disaster, but there was no immediately visible explanation. She wasn't pointing at any possible threat, and she didn't look to be in pain, and she didn't even have soup on her dress that she might overreact to. She was just staring wildly at the familia, and at her own tense arms, as though she didn't understand why they were all staring at her. Plants sprouted out from under the floorboards, with one just barely missing Mariano's nose. "I can't handle this tension!"
"What tension?" asked Agustin.
"This tension!" Isabela repeated, gesturing frantically. "It feels like there's - like there's this huge secret looming over us all, threatening to be revealed this evening, ruining the dinner!" She was nearly hyperventilating now. So was Luisa. This was it, this was proof that Isabela knew. She and Camilo had probably figured it out, probably spent so long having fun at Luisa's expense that it made them late to dinner, and now she was about to tell everyone. "Oh God, I can't take this." Isabela stood up like she was about to make a big announcement. Luisa held her breath and waited to be humiliated. "I'm transgender!"
...Wait, what?
Isabela frantically looked around the table, searching for any reaction. Camilo was snapping his fingers in excitement but everyone else was just shocked. "I'm transgender," Isabela repeated. "I'm a man." There was another moment of silence and his face fell, closing his eyes as though trying to shield himself from any negative reaction.
Agustin stood up dramatically, pointing a stern finger at Isabela. "We love and support you," he yelled. "and respect your identity!"
"Thank you!" Isabela yelled back. "I appreciate it!"
"Do you want to be called a different name?"
"I haven't chosen yet! Isabela is fine for now!" He paused, frowning. "Why are we yelling?"
"I don't know!" Agustin admitted.
They both sat back down. There was a long pause. "Well," Mirabel attempted, forcing a weak chuckle. "That came out of nowhere."
"It did," agreed Dolores, frowning. "How did you hide this from me?"
"We communicated exclusively through a complicated combination of floral code, sign language, and a Ouija board," explained Camilo.
Everyone turned to stare at him. "We?" choked Pepa.
Isabela just tossed his hair over his shoulder. "Hey, I had to tell someone."
Abuela cleared her throat loudly. "Isabela," she said sternly, and Luisa could see Isabela tense. "While I'm very proud of you for being yourself, is this really the time?" She gestured toward the Guzmans. "We're having dinner."
"It's fine, it's fine," insisted Dolores. "I've been telling everyone, for days - I don't want this dinner to be perfect. I don't care if it's awkward, or messy, or it doesn't go to plan - our family is awkward sometimes, we're messy sometimes, things don't always go to plan. And if Mariano isn't prepared for that, is he ready to join the family?" She grinned, relaxing in her seat. "Besides, this isn't a proposal dinner. It's just a casual, getting-to-know-each-other dinner. And -"
"Actually," interrupted Mariano. He was reaching into his pocket. "Your primo wasn't the only one to use sign language and a Ouija board to hide surprises from you." He stepped out of his seat, and then got down on one knee, holding out an open ring box. Dolores gasped, bringing her hands up to her mouth in shock. Mariano cleared his throat. "Dolores Madrigal, I am so glad to have the honour of seeing you and being seen by you. To any ordinary person, a gift like yours with be a burden, but you listen with an open heart, and you see people for who they really are. Will you marry me?"
Dolores just leapt out of her seat and wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace. Camilo pretended to be grossed out at the show of affection, but he was snapping his fingers excitedly.
Luisa looked around, at her elated cousin and her new hermano who was still growing flowers from the nervousness and Mariano who was grinning with pride, and started to feel like this evening wasn't about her. That was silly - she'd known from the start that this dinner was for Mariano and Dolores first and foremost. But she begun to think that all of the tension in the atmosphere had simply had nothing to do with her at all. She begun to think that the secret that had been haunting them all evening had been Isabela's, and that Luisa's secret ... was just that. Just a secret. Not a hidden truth, not a crucial piece of information desperate to be revealed, just ... a thing she knew that nobody else did.
Despite the inherent terror of thinking she would have to tell her family about what Bruno had done to her, Luisa found that she wasn't relieved that she didn't have to. She wasn't relieved to realise that the tension wasn't caused by her secret, and wouldn't be resolved by revealing it. She just felt a sort of emptiness, a feeling of being hollowed out. A feeling of having spent a whole evening terrified of being found out, only to realise she was in no danger of being found out, that all of the tension had been either unrelated to her or entirely imagined. A feeling of having spent a whole evening anxious for nothing. And perhaps a tinge of bitterness that her suffering was so unimportant that it failed to create any tension at all.
Regardless, she understood that this evening had not been about her. This dinner had not been begging her to reveal anything. And now, now that was able to realise she didn't want to keep Bruno's secret any longer, the atmosphere was all wrong. Everyone was happy and she had no right to ruin that. Tonight was not the time to tell.