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————
So why do you fill my sorrows
With the words you've borrowed
From the only place you've known?
And why do you sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to ya?
Why do you sing with me at all?
‘Delicate’ by Damian Rice
————
Julieta
————
It’s Pepa who takes Julieta’s hand as the evening draws down around them and Mirabel is still nowhere to be found.
Pepa who says ‘we can’t continue now, it’s too dangerous to go into the jungle at night, someone’s going to get hurt.’ Pepa who guides her to the church, settling her down on the soft blankets, insisting she eat.
Pepa’s hand, gentle on Julieta’s hair as she drifts to sleep.
Julieta hates her for a long awful moment. She feels sick with envy as she watches Pepa gather her children to her, one, two, three children, while Julieta can only see one, two.
(Just like her and Pepa, one, two, and no Bruno, three.)
And then it fades, as these things do, and she feels guilty when she sees the tears trickling down Pepa’s cheeks, wiped away by Félix’s careful hand.
Julieta feels like she’s in a bubble - present but detached, and even Agustín’s clammy hand in hers, or Isabela’s weight in her lap can’t quite draw her out of it. She doesn’t feel present, solid, until she lays eyes on Mirabel the following afternoon, wrapping up her wayward daughter in her arms tight and thinks oh. It’s okay.
(And when she lays eyes on Bruno, she feels whole in a way she hasn’t for ten years, like a click and crunch of a joint back in it’s socket, the absence of a pain she’d grown used to.)
She sleeps that night in Agustín’s parent’s house, tucked against his side in the tiny bed, the girls sleeping in the room next door (she’d checked them three times before going to bed) and Bruno sleeping on the sofa (she’d checked on him so many times, he’d had to tell her firmly ‘go to bed Julieta, I’ll be here in the morning. Promise’).
It’s fine. Everything’s fine.
Pepa runs interference over the next couple of days - taking charge in a way she never really has before; but Julieta can’t bring herself to do it, Alma is still pale and shaky, and it’s out of the question for Bruno to do it, so it falls on Pepa’s shoulders.
And she handles it with a poise that - perhaps unfairly - surprises Julieta.
Pepa speaks to the priest, and to the builders. She sources extra food, for both the Rojas and the Castillos, divvying out plates from kind neighbours. She sources extra blankets, and mattresses, whatever they need, and speaks to the men starting to clear the rubble, sorting whatever they can save.
She handles it, and Julieta is content to let her be.
‘Will you talk to Pepa?’ Félix murmurs to Julieta after dinner, three days after (after Casita, after Mirabel, after Bruno, just after), and Julieta looks up from the dishes she’s clearing with surprise.
‘Is she okay?’
Félix shakes his head, glancing over his shoulder. He leans closer, his breath warm on Julieta’s cheek.
‘She’s been crying for three days,’ he whispers. ‘She cries all night. I don’t think she’s slept at all, and I don’t know what to do.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Julieta says without thinking, putting away the plates and taking a glass from Félix’s hand. ‘She’s not crying. We would know,’ and she inclines her head to the window, where the sun is setting, but the sky is still bright and cloudless.
Félix just watches her for a moment, eyebrows raised, and then Julieta slaps a hand to her forehead. Stupid.
‘Mierda,’ she mutters, ‘sorry, sorry, of course. I’ll talk to her.’
‘Thank you,’ and Félix presses a kiss to her cheek, taking the rest of the dishes and shooing her away.
She finds Pepa sat on the outside step, watching Camilo and Antonio play football with a group of boys. Julieta joins her, watching with amusement as Antonio throws himself into a tackle, wiping out a boy far bigger than him, and Camilo doubles over with laughter.
Pepa scoffs and shakes her head, and Julieta looks at her sister properly, for the first time in three days.
She looks awful.
Her face is red and puffy, tears dripping from her eyes, and she wipes them away from her cheeks and chin impatiently with a handkerchief clutched in her hand.
Its -
Jarring.
No storm. No rain. No wind. Just nothing.
Julieta makes a soft hurt sound in the back of her throat, lifting a hand to wipe away the fresh tears, and Pepa gives a weak grin.
‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘I can’t stop.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s so strange isn’t it!’ Pepa says, and she’s almost laughing, wiping her nose again, red and sore. Julieta thinks she must have a terrible headache. ‘So weird. You know I’d forgotten that tears are salty? Rainwater isn’t.’
Julieta doesn’t know what to say to that.
She leans in, pressing a kiss to the side of Pepa’s head, helping wipe away Pepa’s tears the way she does for her little girls. She wraps her arms around Pepa as best she can, resting her head on Pepa’s shoulder. After some time Bruno joins them, hesitantly, tentatively taking a seat the other side of Pepa, who holds out her hand to him.
By the time they say goodnight, Pepa has stopped crying and she lets Félix wrap her up in his arms, as they walk back up to the farm.
When Julieta gets back to her in-laws, she lets Agustín gather her close. She sniffles into his shoulder, hurting for her sister who couldn’t remember what tears taste like.
————
But then it’s fine.
Pepa does stop crying eventually, though the puffy eyes last a few more days after that.
And Julieta doesn’t have a chance to dwell on it.
There’s a hesitancy in the family now, a sense of newness that has them all tiptoeing on eggshells around each other, but also wading into difficult conversations with a sense of urgency.
‘I feel like I’m not doing enough,’ Luisa announces, over dinner one night seemingly out of the blue. ‘That I’m never doing enough. But, also, that I’m always doing too much and there’s never time for anything else. It’s exhausting.’
Julieta can only close her eyes so Luisa doesn’t see the tears welling, and she lets Agustín tackle it. He reaches over and wraps his arms around Luisa, letting her hide her face in his chest, and he murmurs to her gently.
When she glances over at her mother, Alma looks sick.
‘I feel guilty for not being special,’ Mirabel confesses over coffee the following morning to Isabela. Julieta can only watch as Isabela wraps her arms tight around Mirabel’s shoulders, and it’s the first time she’s seen the girls hug in years. She doesn’t hear Isabela’s response, whispered into Mirabel’s hair, but it makes Mirabel laugh, a wet snotty sound, which makes Isabela laugh in turn.
‘I don’t like invading people’s privacy,’ Dolores says quietly over lunch. ‘I have to always listen, because people ask me to do things, but if I’m listening I hear so much. I already hear too much when I’m not listening. I don’t like feeling like a snoop or a gossip.’
Dolores is a polite girl. She says ‘people’ when really she means ‘Abuela’, but from the looks around the table her meaning is understood.
‘I’m sorry,’ Alma whispers, and Dolores smiles.
(Pepa whispers to Julieta two days later, how Camilo confessed to them that sometimes he worries he’ll forget his own face. Or that sometimes it feels like people like him better when he’s being someone else. Despite being fifteen, Camilo had let Félix gather him up like a small child, tucked on Félix’s lap and Pepa had stroked his hair, whispering her love for him.
‘I told him I’d never forget his face,’ Pepa whispers, wiping away more tears. ‘And that I always know who he is, even when he looks like someone else. I think it helped.’)
The kicker though, of course, comes from Isabela.
Over dinner, the first one they’ve managed with all twelve of them and no in-laws, Isabela waits until they’ve just about finished eating, takes a deep breath and says:
‘I don’t want to marry Mariano.’
Dolores spits a mouthful of wine into the last of her dinner and Alma almost does the same.
‘I never did,’ Isabela says, staring resolutely at Mirabel. Mirabel gives her a thumbs up and an encouraging nod. ’I don’t even really like him. I thought that it was best for the family, and for the Encanto so I agreed, even though I hate the thought of marrying him, and the thought of having children with him makes me feel sick.’
Mirabel mimes retching and it makes Antonio laugh and Isabela smile.
Alma isn’t laughing. Neither is Agustín. Julieta can barely breathe.
Agustín gets up from the table, his face tight, mouth drawn down. He crosses to Isabela, leaning in to whisper in her ear. Whatever he says makes Isabela’s face scrunch up, and he presses a kiss to her temple and then leaves, closing the back door behind him.
Julieta thinks he’s angry.
(Isabela tells Julieta later: ‘I would never have let that happen,’ he’d whispered to her, ‘the only person giving you away is me, and I’d have asked if you were sure. All you’ve had to do was say no, and I’d have stoped it. I swear.’ Julieta thinks he might have stopped the wedding anyway, even if she hadn’t said no. He’s always been good at seeing behind the perfect facade.)
‘I’m so sorry,’ Alma whispers, and it sounds sincere. ‘You don’t - of course you don’t have to. It’s - it’s done. Over.’ Isabela nods.
Julieta look across the table, seeking out someone to give her strength, to help her process what she nearly let happen to her daughter when she sets eyes on Pepa.
Unlike Bruno, whose ten year absence has made him a stranger - a familiar one, but a stranger nonetheless, if such a thing is possible - Julieta has never known, in fifty years, a single day without Pepa.
But as she looks at Pepa now, gently tapping her right thumb against each finger of her right hand in turn, a self-soothing gesture she’s used for years, the absence of any kind of swirling cloud is stark.
And, most shockingly, Pepa’s face is impassive. Carefully controlled and composed in a way that Julieta has never seen before, except -
That’s not true, is it?
She sees that expression all the time. It’s just that it’s normally undermined by the clouds above Pepa’s head, giving away her true feelings no matter how much she tries to hide them.
Now though -
Without her gift the years of clear skies is plain to see. Pepa seems emotionless. Empty in a way that Julieta has never experienced, and she hates it.
She feels sick to see her beautiful, bright, messy sister carefully composed. She looks - Julieta realises with a sick pang - just like Isabela.
Julieta watches as Félix reaches out a gentle hand from where he’s sat next to Pepa. He catches Pepa’s in his, lifting her hand and kissing her wrist. When they catch eyes, Pepa smiles, her face full of the love and affection that’s typical when she looks at her husband.
Julieta can breathe again.
Though the smile fades as Pepa turns her attention back to the scene playing out in front of them, Luisa having swept Isabela up into her arms, the corners of Pepa’s mouth are turned up slightly, as Félix continues to play with her fingers.
Félix catches Julieta’s eye across the table, and Julieta doesn’t quite know what her face is doing, what kind of stricken expression he must see, but Félix inclines his head slightly.
‘I know,’ he mouths to her, and Julieta has to put a hand to her mouth, reaching out for Bruno sat next to her, who takes her other hand with a squeeze.
Oh Pepa, she thinks.
————
It’s not just over dinner, Julieta realises.
As the ripples of Casita’s fall spread out and the cracks in their family start to be unearthed and patched, more often than not, when Julieta looks at her sister Pepa is blank. Without the swirling clouds or sunny skies above her head, Pepa seems controlled in a way Julieta has never seen before.
She doesn’t like it.
————
Bruno
————
Ten years is a long time, Bruno is starting to realise.
A really long time.
It’s not like he thought it wasn’t, but there’s a shock, kind of, in how much life has changed.
They’re all older - and it’s most shocking to see the children in the flesh stood in front of him, and not through the crack in the wall. Dolores is so tall! And Camilo has all his adult teeth now - a little gap in his front ones just like Pepa - and Isabela’s hair is so long and shiny, just as she’d wanted when she was little. Luisa is so grown up! Her beautiful brown eyes and long lashes so striking, and Mirabel is just as chaotic as she’s always been, a little dimple in her left cheek.
And Antonio.
The only one of his nieces and nephews he hasn’t met before. And though, of course, he’s seen Antonio before, seen him grow from a little babe in arms to a stocky toddler, to the small child he is today, there’s so much he hadn’t known.
Like the weight of him sat on Bruno’s lap. Like how the curls of his hair itch Bruno’s nose, or how gentle his hands are when they cradle Bruno’s rats - he can see Félix in the gesture - or even how Antonio smells, of the moisturiser Pepa cakes him in, the children’s shampoo that she uses on his hair, the sticky sweet smell of small children who steal sweeties and cakes and look their mother dead in the eye and say ‘no Mamá I didn’t take them honest’ with fingers crossed behind his back.
Bruno loves him. He loves his whole family - this new version of his family - with a fierceness that surprises him. And they love him too. They rant and rave and shower him with affection and though it’s daunting it’s healing too, and Bruno tries to soak it up.
Which is why it’s a shock when he clashes with Pepa.
Not that he clashes with her - Pepa is quick to anger and quick to forgive, and though Bruno runs the other way, they know each other well enough to know when when to stop, when to make space and when to go, when the other needs a shove just a bit further - but that -
He doesn’t know what she’s thinking any more.
At first he chalks it down to ten years apart.
Of course, things are different. Of course.
But, he realises, it’s not that.
It takes no time at all to click back in sync with Julieta. Within hours they’re sharing glances, no need for words to convey a thought or an idea or even a ‘what the fuck?’
It’s as easy as breathing, as instinctive and automatic as blinking.
But then he turns to Pepa and -
He has no idea.
How can that be he wonders, watching his sister intently over the breakfast table.
They’re having a late breakfast - work has already begun for the day, clearing Casita, and both Bruno’s cuñados are hard at work. Alma is supervising, and the children are scattered around the Encanto, helping when and where they can (for no longer than an hour and a half at a time, before a strictly enforced break and rest. For Luisa, it’s an hour).
Bruno has only just got up, still trying to get used to a normal sleeping pattern, after years of cat naps and very nearly becoming nocturnal, and Pepa -
Well. She’s overslept. She’s not a morning person.
And instead of making breakfast for herself, she’s wandered vaguely over to Agustín’s parent’s house, to see if there are any leftovers available. Julieta had just been leaving, when she takes pity on their sister’s tired face, and ushers her in to sit opposite Bruno.
‘Honestly,’ Julieta tuts from the stove, but it’s harmless and kind, and Pepa doesn’t even blink.
Bruno reaches over, carefully pouring a cup of coffee for Pepa, and topping up his own cup. Pepa hums taking a long sip, and settling back into the chair lazily, eyes half closed.
She’s -
Tired? Maybe?
(But that’s an easy guess - they’re all tired after all.)
‘What?’ Pepa snaps, after nearly twenty minutes of him watching her intently, once she’s eaten some food and is - apparently - waking up. ‘What Bruno?’ she says softer, catching herself when he flinches at her tone, ‘if you’ve got something to say, then -‘ she waves with her hand, ‘go ahead. Or if you just want to look.’ Pepa shrugs, flipping her loose hair over her shoulder, ‘I am very beautiful after all.’
That gets a laugh out of all three of them, as Julieta sits down at the table too, and Pepa grins to herself, pleased.
Bruno tilts his head up, expectantly, to feel the sun warm on his face. He’s always liked Pepa’s ‘pleased’ sun, not as hot as when she’s fully happy, it’s softer, warm like chocolate santafereño, or being curled up under a fluffy blanket in the morning.
It doesn’t come.
Bruno opens his eyes to look at Pepa - maybe she’s not as pleased as he thought? It wasn’t a particularly clever quip, but she’s not usually bothered by that - and she’s tilted her head up too, following his line of sight.
‘What are you looking at?’ she asks him, and he opens his mouth to say your cloud even though she hates it when people look at her cloud and not at her face, but then -
Oh.
He realises.
There’s no cloud. There’s no pleased sun, her tears will bring no rain; her love no rainbow.
Holy shit.
Bruno feels off balance, and he glances in half panic to Julieta - steadfast Julieta - and she smiles sadly, and inclines her chin ever so slightly and that makes him feel a bit better.
‘Nothing,’ he says eventually, when Pepa’s eyes fall back on him, and he looks at her expression closely. Her face is relaxed, mouth half smiling, under her tired sleepless eyes.
There’s a reason Félix didn’t wake her this morning, Bruno thinks, with a sorry pang in his chest.
‘Have I changed so much?’ she asks quietly, resting her chin on the palm of her hand, ‘you’re staring.’
Bruno watches her for a moment longer, before turning his gaze to Julieta, who’s watching him gently. He looks at her too - she looks a bit dishevelled this morning, her hair loose and her sleeves rolled up loosely. There’s something heavy at having both their gazes on him, but also there’s a comfort. Relief.
Bruno reaches out with both hands, and for a second his heart skips with the fear of rejection, but before the thought can even take root, they both reach out to him, taking his hands in theirs. He smiles as they reach out to each other, completing their little triangle.
Bruno shakes his head, ‘you’re the same,’ he says to Pepa, ‘it’s just that you’re so beautiful, I can’t look away.’
Pepa throws her head back when she laughs, the same way she always has. She shakes her head as she smiles, don’t be silly she says with her eyes, and I love you she says with the fond half grin on her lips.
Ah, Bruno thinks. I think I remember now.
Julieta winks at him, when he catches her eye. It’ll be okay, she means, and Pepa huffs a breath out of her nose - loudly - stop ignoring me.
Bruno squeezes their hands, one, two, three times. And gets one, two, three squeezes back on each hand.
One, two, three.
Pepa, Bruno, and Julieta.
————
Agustín
————
Agustín knocks over a jug of juice, throws out at hand to catch it, and - surprisingly - manages to grab it just before it topples over completely. He lets out a noise of success and then proceeds to knock over the pot of coffee with his stray elbow instead, a much more devastating casualty, and it shatters as it hits the floor, coffee spilling everywhere.
Pepa lets out a low shriek of annoyance.
Agustín empathises - it’s two days after Casita and emotions are a bit fraught. No one has slept well, on the floor of the church, and Agustín knows the priority of the day is to sort out alternative arrangements, because he knows if he spends one more night sleeping on the floor his back might never recover.
Everyone is tired, and worn, and tentative - trying to navigate the new structure of their family. It feels new, in a way that Agustín had never really expected. Everyone trying.
He likes it.
(He thinks. To be honest he’s far too exhausted to manage much of an opinion on anything at the moment.)
Pepa turns her wide eyes on him, and Agustín chuckles at the sheer comedic betrayal in his cuñada’s tired eyes.
‘Ay Agustín,’ she sighs, throwing a hand to her forehead.
‘Lo siento,’ he says, stepping away from the mess. He somehow - how he’s not entirely sure - manages to knock over a stool, which sends a plate of pastries flying to the floor, and Pepa snorts out a laugh as Agustín throws himself down into a chair to avoid knocking over anything else.
‘Shit,’ he swears, ‘damn it.’
‘Honestly,’ Pepa sighs, ‘you’re getting worse.’
‘Ay.’
Agustín leans over to pick up shards of the coffee pot, as Pepa crouches to salvage the pastries, and starts to mop up the coffee with a tea towel.
Agustín glances up at her face, and she catches his eyes, raises her eyebrows, a slight turn up to the corners of her mouth and -
Is she annoyed? he wonders, frowning, feeling suddenly off balance. Or does she think it’s funny? Or something else?
He doesn’t know.
How can he not know?
Agustín has known Pepa for a long time now. Where Félix arrived in the Encanto with his family as a teenager, Agustín’s family was part of the group that arrived with Alma, when the Encanto was created.
He was born here, when the triplets were toddlers, and he has stark memories of playing with them as children, of trailing after then as a young teenager and - when he was a little older - getting tongue tied, not able to admit to Pepa and Bruno how much he liked their pretty sister.
He’s lived with Pepa from the moment he and Julieta married, over twenty years ago now.
And in all that time, he’s never, not for one single moment, not known what Pepa was feeling.
He’s known every single time she was amused by his clumsiness, even if she told him off, trying to hide it, the sun warm on the top of both their heads.
He’s known when she was actually annoyed, when the children were babies, and he’d wake up one or both Isabela and Dolores with a thud or a bang of the cupboard doors, and Pepa’s annoyance would send a cold wind biting through the room, swirling around them.
He’s known when she’s not in the mood - a low grey cloud, sometimes with thunder - and how he could persuade her into a better spirits with few corny jokes, and some - often inadvertent - impossible seeming accident, the cloud melting away, the temperature warming.
And more - a lifetime’s worth of feelings and emotions broadcast over her head.
And now they’re gone.
Just like that.
Agustín is speechless.
Pepa finishes picking up the shards of the pot - thankfully a cheap generic one - wrapping them up so no one hurts themselves on the sharp edges. She grabs a mop from the cupboard, and he watches as she wipes away the last of the coffee, leaving a vague brown stain on the stone floor.
‘I’d ask you to make another pot,’ Pepa says, ‘but I think that would be risking disaster,’ she sends him a quirk of her mouth, as she turns back to the stove to put the water on, and measures out more coffee. ‘Gus?’ she asks, glancing over her shoulder at him, when he fails to answer.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he says, hastily, adjusting his glasses, and trying to make his tongue work again. ‘You’re probably right,’ he says, with a grin that’s not entirely genuine, ‘better if you do it.’
Pepa makes a ‘hmm’ noise, one he’s heard a hundred - probably a thousand times - but Agustín suddenly feels deaf, and he doesn’t know how to interpret it.
‘Are you okay?’ Pepa says, pouring them both cups of coffee, and sitting opposite him. She pushes the cup to him, and he takes a gulp gratefully, and then she reaches out putting her hand on his. ‘Is everything alright?’ Pepa says, ‘You don’t seem yourself - although I know that’s a silly thing to say with everything going on -‘
Her eyebrows are low, her mouth pursed.
Worried, Agustín thinks. She’s worried about him.
‘I’m fine,’ he says, ‘just, not quite myself this morning. But I’m okay. And the coffee will help,’ and he takes another gulp.
Pepa nods, drinking her own coffee, and makes a low satisfied noise in the back of her throat at the taste.
‘I know what you mean,’ she says, withdrawing her hand, and sitting back comfortably against the back of the chair.
They sit in companionable silence for a long minute, until Agustín’s coffee is finished. He stands - he needs to go and speak to his parents - and puts the cup in the sink. He - carefully - picks up the pot, and tops up Pepa’s cup for her, and presses a kiss to the top of her head.
‘Gracias,’ she murmurs, and Agustín is relieved when a sunny smile spreads across her face.
Then he hurries out of there.
He’s not sleeping on the floor again tonight. Nope. No can do.
————
Alma
————
Alma is grateful the gifts are gone, that horrendous night they spend in the church without Mirabel.
Well, sort of.
She looks at Camilo’s bruised wrist with some distant despair, a vague panic swelling in her chest. It’s been forty-five years, forty-five years, since she’s seen an injury that can’t be immediately healed. Her grandchildren’s bruises have never lasted, and there’s something unreal about the way his wrist is swelling.
Alma mutters something about ice, and her grandchildren look at her confused.
But ultimately a sprained wrist will heal, and as Alma watches Pepa fuss over him, fretting and weeping, she’s grateful there’s no storm.
No storm. No rain, no clouds. No healing.
No Mirabel. No Bruno.
What have I done?
‘Sit down Abuela,’ Dolores whispers, reaching out with gentle hands, guiding Alma to sit in one of the pews. ‘Do you want something to drink? I’ll get you some water.’
She hurries off, into the kitchen at the back of the Church, bringing back a glass of water, and she hovers until Alma takes a sip.
The she fades - sort of - into the background noise of their family, and Alma watches as Félix gathers her up under his arm, Antonio balanced on his opposite hip.
‘Here,’ Isabela says, and Alma takes the blanket she offers, reaching out with her other hand to squeeze Isabela’s cold fingers - offering comfort, what little reassurance she can - but Isabela shrugs her off, her hands curling into fists.
Alma can only blink at Isabela’s retreating figure.
What have I done?
————
Mirabel forgives too easily, a kindness that Alma doesn’t feel like she deserves. She’s like Julieta, her warm gentle smile, and when Alma wraps Bruno - Bruno! - up into her arms for the first time in a decade, Alma feels somewhat at peace.
Like that little bit of her that’s always been broken, has been set, finally. Not healed, Alma doesn’t think it’ll ever be healed. But in place, at least.
And if she keeps Bruno close, well -
That’s just common sense. She doesn’t know when he’ll slip away again.
————
If Mirabel forgives too easily, Isabela and Dolores don’t.
Camilo doesn’t.
Luisa does. Antonio doesn’t understand what there is to forgive.
A divide, a split, clear as day between the children, and Alma -
Doesn’t know what to do.
‘Come and sit mi amor,’ she says to Isabela, when things start to settle, nearly a week after Casita. When they’ve finally slept, and rested. When they’ve waded through difficult conversations, and painfully put themselves on the same page. ‘Come and sit,’ and she pats the bench next to her, overlooking the main square.
Two weeks ago, Isabela would never have dreamed of saying no. Now, she gazes at Alma impassively, assessing and gently shakes her head.
‘No thank you Abuela,’ she says, ‘I have to go.’
The rebuke is kind, but clear, and Alma swallows hard. She turns her head to Dolores, loitering nearby, and as she watches the girls link arms - something that Alma hasn’t seen in months, years maybe, Dolores and Isabela shoulder to shoulder, a united front - and turn together, heading up to Casita and up, Alma suspects, to Félix’s family’s farm.
————
‘It’ll take time,’ Julieta says gently as she hands Alma a glass to dry, and Alma wipes it with a tea towel. ‘Things have - have been difficult.’
Difficult.
How polite. Alma is still realising, still coming to terms with the way she’s hurt her family.
Alma sighs, leaning back against the counter, to look at Pepa sat at the dining table. She’s alone - rare, for her - drawing her finger along the wooden tables, following the grain. It’s a habit she’s always had, tracing patterns in fabric, clothes, and when she was little, leaving grubby fingerprints on Casita’s windows.
It’s sweet, and Alma quirks half a smile, watching her.
And then -
Alma looks.
Alma looks.
Pepa’s slumped against the table, her chin resting on one hand, the other idly twirling on the table top. Her hair is falling out of it’s braid, wild curls tumbling over her forehead, and with the settling sun behind her, she’s almost angelic.
But -
She’s -
Pepa’s mouth is pursed slightly - Alma wonders what she’s thinking about - and her eyebrows level. She looks tired, eyes half lidded and -
Alma hates it.
She doesn’t understand why, until Pepa sits back in her chair, sighing. When Pepa looks up and catches Alma’s eye she gives a polite, small little smile that Alma’s more used to seeing on Julieta or Isabela.
It’s polite. Composed. Controlled. Everything Pepa isn’t.
‘What?’ Pepa snaps, throwing a hand out, and Alma realises she’s paused, gazing at her daughter, glass still clutched in her hand. ‘Everyone keeps staring,’ Pepa sighs, ‘I don’t understand.’
A glance at Julieta says she does, and Alma swallows hard.
‘You’re very beautiful,’ Alma croaks, and she feels vulnerable, exposed in some way. ‘That’s all.’
Julieta smiles, as she leans over to take the glass from Alma.
‘Oh,’ Pepa says, eyebrows narrowed. Suspicion, Alma thinks, but she’s not sure. ’I - oh. Thank you?’
‘I love you,’ Alma says, ‘both of you.’
There’s a pause.
‘All of you,’ Alma corrects gently, though Bruno is outside sat between Agustín and Félix. Alma can see him out the window.
‘Love you too,’ Julieta says, and Pepa smiles.
Alma feels a pang as the sun doesn’t shine above her head, but it fades quietly when Pepa stands, leaning over and pressing a light kiss to Alma’s cheek.
————
Félix
————
‘What’s a girl like you, doing in a place like this?’ Félix says, pitching his voice low, leaning over the table. He’s put himself in her personal space, demanding attention. He’s hot, sweating from a hard morning’s physical work.
‘Times are hard,’ she murmurs, demurely, ‘I don’t want no trouble from you señor, I know your type.’
‘Oh do you?’
She nods, glancing away from him, turning her head, fingers twirling her long hair. But he can see how she’s stealing looks at him, and it makes him grin.
‘You should go,’ she says, ‘my husband will be mad,’ and she wiggles her left hand to him, and Félix puffs out air from his cheeks.
‘What husband is this, leaving you alone here?’
‘He’s big, jealous type.’
Félix makes a low noise, deep in his chest.
‘I can take him,’ he says, moving around to her side of the table, posturing, grinning as she shies away, ‘you should come with me señorita, I’ll treat you right.’
She turns her head, back to him, a blazing hard look in her eyes, and Félix feels a little hot under the collar, the sun in the sky beating down on them. Another step forward until their noses are grazing, but he keeps his hands to himself, he’s not that kind of guy.
‘And how would you treat me?’
‘Come and find out.’
‘Oh. My. God. Can you - like - not?’ Camilo says, from where he’s sitting behind them, as he shovels his lunch into his mouth.
‘Shhh,’ Mirabel says, sat next to him, watching captivated, ‘I wanna see where this goes.’
‘We know where this goes, this is why we have Antonio, my god,’ and they watch as Camilo swings his legs over the bench, climbing off the other side, and stomps away.
The moment is broken, and Pepa laughs loudly as he pulls her into his arms, pressing a kiss to the side of her face, and then on her neck.
‘I think I’ll stick with my husband,’ Pepa says with a grin, winding her arms around him. ‘But thanks for the offer.’
Félix laughs. ‘Lucky for me,’ he says, and they kiss chastely, before he lets her go to continue dishing out lunch. When he glances over to the side, Bruno is stood with an unimpressed expression, and an empty plate.
‘You could have served yourself,’ Pepa says to him impatiently, waving the spoon.
‘Yeah but yesterday you got mad when I did that.’
‘I did not.’
‘You did.’
‘No.’
Félix does help himself - there’s no risk of Pepa being mad at him - and tunes out the bickering to his left.
He fans his shirt for a minute, it’s still unbearably hot, he notes with a smug grin - Pepa must be more affected than she let on, and -
Wait.
Félix blinks.
Wait.
That’s not right.
There’s a cold chill that slides down his back, despite the heat, and the back of his neck is prickling.
It’s hot because it’s hot, and not because of Pepa. Because she - like everyone else in the family - no longer has her gift. Félix knows this.
And yet, somehow -
Félix swallows, hard, watching Pepa intently as she plates up some lunch for Agustín. She feels his eyes on her, and she glances back over her shoulder once she’s done. He gives her a wink, on instinct, and there’s no mistaking the look she gives him from beneath her lashes, and that makes him feel a bit better for forgetting.
————
Félix wakes slowly. It’s late (or very early) and he blinks blearily in the half-darkness confused for a moment as to why he’s woken.
There’s no panic though. The bed is familiar - if small, his room in his parent’s house - and the weight pressed against his left side is familiar too. He leans over to press a kiss to Pepa’s curly hair. The soft snuffling and breathing from the side of the room is even more familiar - Camilo and Dolores curled up on the pull out, with Antonio wedged between them.
It’s comforting, lying in the still night, listening to his family breathing.
Félix sucks in a deep breath, almost drifting back to sleep when Pepa wiggles, shaking the bed lightly as she shifts, stretching out her shoulders.
(Pepa is, without a doubt, the worst person to share a bed with - a fact that is generally acknowledged in the Madrigal family. She storms in her sleep, and will sometimes wake them both up with rain or hail, depending on her dreams. And, worse, she fidgets. She can’t stay still, tossing, turning, wiggling all night, unable to get comfortable.
Félix has never minded. He can sleep pretty much anywhere, and, now, after thirty years he’s not bothered by her tossing. Sometimes she’ll give him a shove if he’s snoring, or wiggle close if she wants a cuddle, and he’ll hold her in his sleep.)
Though she fidgets softly by his side, it’s not her that’s woken him - if he woke every time Pepa rolled over, they’d have not made it very long in their marriage. Instead she’s resting soundly, her breathing slow and even, her hand tracing gentle shapes against his collar bone. She’s awake but dozing he thinks, and not in any distress.
Thinking, maybe.
But he doesn’t know.
Félix is wide awake suddenly, the worries of the afternoon flooding back, as he peers down at Pepa.
Sure enough her eyes are half open, pouty lips parted, her muscles lax. She blinks slowly, and sighs, rubbing her nose against his bare skin - and he narrows his eyes for a second to make sure it’s a show of affection, and she’s not actually wiping her nose on him - and he can feel her stretch her legs, roll her ankles before sighing again and settling back.
It’s nothing he hasn’t seen a hundred times before.
A thousand times, he thinks. Thirty years worth of nights like this, cuddled together.
But right now -
It reads differently. It’s passive, in a way that Pepa never is.
Félix doesn’t like it.
He really doesn’t like it.
‘What are you thinking?’ he whispers, impulsively, though Pepa doesn’t even blink.
‘We need to do washing tomorrow,’ she whispers back, ‘Antonio is almost out of underwear, and you must be close too.’
‘That’s fine, I can do some.’
Pepa nods into his shoulder.
‘What else?’ he whispers, tightening his arms around her.
Pepa hums, thoughtfully, ‘I don’t know,’ she whispers back. ‘I was thinking about Mirabel, and Bruno too. Sort of. Maybe I should speak to them tomorrow - I don’t know.’
‘What else?’
Pepa laughs, quietly, into his shoulder. Her breath leaves his skin damp. ‘That our children are sleeping right there,’ she mouths, with hardly any noise, and that makes him laugh too. ‘Why so nosey?’
Félix shrugs, so she can feel it, pressing another kiss to the side of her head. He doesn’t quite have the words to explain it, and certainly not now in the middle of the night.
Pepa accepts the non-answer with a sigh, fidgeting again, turning and wiggling until her belly is pressed against his hip.
Camilo groans and rolls sideways out of bed. Félix can hear his quiet feet on the floor.
‘You okay?’ he whispers into the darkness, and watches with peering eyes as Camilo scoops up his little brother, Antonio making a grumbling noise. Camilo deposits Antonio on the bed, roughly between Félix and Pepa.
‘If he kicks me one more time I swear -‘ Camilo says.
Félix laughs, as Pepa shifts, tucking Antonio under the covers, squeezed between them.
Pepa coos lowly to him, stroking her hand over Antonio’s hair, until he’s settled back to sleep, and Félix feels a hard foot kick against his thigh.
‘This is your fault,’ he whispers to Pepa. ‘My family sleep like logs, none of this fidgeting.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Pepa says dismissively, and Félix half tilts his head to feel the breeze of her amusement, and when it doesn’t come he settles back.
It’ll just take some getting used to, he thinks, peering again in the darkness at Pepa’s dozing face.
————
‘Is it the gifts?’ Pepa says, taking a seat opposite him. He’s sat outside in his parent’s home, stealing a moment of quiet - he’s grateful, truly, for his family’s kindness, for housing him and his family while Casita is rebuilt. He’s grateful for the town who have stepped in, the help and support they’ve given.
But it’s nice to have a moment’s peace. The Castillo family are many things - but quiet isn’t usually one of them.
Félix looks over at her, as Pepa rests her elbow on the table, chin on the palm of her hand.
‘What do you mean?’ he says, not following.
‘Are you - is it the gifts?’ she says again, seemingly not able to think of a way to rephrase the question. ‘Or my gift, specifically. Maybe.’
‘Is what the gifts?’
Pepa sniffs.
‘Why you’re - not yourself. Or you’re not yourself with me, I think.’
Félix frowns.
‘What?’ he says, reaching out a hand across the table. Pepa takes it, and he squeezes her fingers, stroking his thumb over her knuckles. ‘I’m myself, I think.’
Pepa shake her head.
‘I don’t think you are,’ she says. ‘You’ve been - a bit distant. And I think it’s because of my gift.’ Her eyes are glassy, shiny with tears.
‘Baby,’ Félix breathes.
Pepa rolls her eyes in frustration, wiping away her tears with a sharp rough move of her hand, and she forces a smile.
‘It’s not your fault,’ she assures him, though Félix is starting to doubt that, ‘just - I don’t know - I can’t think of anything else - although that’s silly -‘
Pepa sighs, wiping her hand over her face again.
Félix reaches out with his free hand, and strokes a gentle finger over her cheek. He catches a tear drop, wiping it away, stroking the pad of his thumb under her eyes.
A small smile plays at the corner of her mouth, and Félix tilts his head on instinct, before righting it -
No sun, he reminds himself. No sun, no rainbow.
There’s a pang in his chest. He never realised how much he liked Pepa’s gift until it was gone. He’d always felt ambivalent but supportive towards it - it doesn’t define her, and she’s more than her gift.
But there’s something vaguely addictive about it, he realises now, and there’s a guilty churning feeling in his stomach. Something special and precious about being loved by someone who can’t hide it. He misses the rainbows that would spring into existence when he walks into the room, or brings her a cup of coffee.
Or wipes away her tears.
‘There,’ Pepa says, and it’s her turn to reach out. She drops his hand and leans over the table, to cup his cheek in her palm. She guides his eyes back to her face. ‘Right there, that, whatever that is, whatever you did just then or wherever you went - that - I don’t understand - ‘
But Félix does.
He closes his eyes in understanding.
‘I -‘ he sighs, and this feels vaguely like an admission of guilt, ‘I - you smiled, right? You smiled at me, and normally when you smile at me like that, there’s - there’s sun, right?’
Pepa nods.
‘So I -‘ Félix tilts his head again, and Pepa’s hands drop away from his face. He tilts his head how he would to feel the sun - her sun - on his face. ‘Not to look,’ he tries to explain, ‘just to feel - it’s nice, a nice feeling, right? Like warm, on my face. But then I remembered that there’s no sun, and no rainbows for me anymore and - you’re not your gift Pep, you’re more than that - but - I think this is harder than I expected.’
Pepa’s mouth pops open, her eyebrows rising.
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘I never - thought of that -‘
They sit in silence for long minutes, and Félix can see her brain working, and not only does he have no idea what she’s thinking, but he also has no idea how she’s feeling about it.
So he waits, quietly, until -
Pepa rises, crossing around the table until she stands in front of him. She makes him move his chair out from under the table, and sits, her skirt bunching around her hips as as she settles, her legs on either side of his.
She leans forward, until their faces touch, and she kisses him - his cheek, over his nose, down his chin - and Félix laughs at the sudden affection. He wraps his arms around her, pulling her in until they’re tucked, belly to belly.
‘I can’t control the sun anymore,’ she says, ‘but that doesn’t mean you have to have a cold face,’ and she kisses him again, up the bridge of his nose to his forehead.
‘Oh darling,’ Félix sighs, and he’s touched, emotional in a way he can’t quite describe. He settles back in the chair, tilting his face up to her, content to bask in her affection.
‘I love you,’ Pepa says, ‘I do, and just because you can’t see it anymore doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.’
‘I know,’ he says, and of course he does, ‘I know, it’ll just take some getting used to.’
‘For both of us.’
Félix nods, pressing his lips against her cheek in return. His face feels damp from her breath, from her lips, and he likes it - it makes him think of the swirling fog that fills their room in the mornings when Pepa is is sleepy.
Filled.
Filled their room.
‘The important things are still here,’ Félix murmurs into her cheek. ‘That’s the only thing that matters. Everything else is redundant.’
‘Like what?’
‘You,’ he says and quirks a smile when Pepa laughs. ‘The children. Your snoring.’
‘I don’t snore,’ Pepa snaps, ‘don’t lie.’
And Félix tucks his nose into her jaw, her neck, squeezing her tight, until she drops the scowl and laughs.
————
Pepa
————
‘I miss my gift,’ Pepa whispers to Félix, as they get ready for bed. ‘Isn’t that odd?’
‘No,’ he says equally quietly, ‘I don’t think it’s odd at all.’
Pepa disagrees, privately, as she settles under the covers.
Félix lays back heavily, sighing deeply as he rests his head on the pillow, folding his arms across his chest. Pepa pulls the blanket up, tucking him in. She wraps him up as best she can, the blanket gently tucked under his chin, up over his shoulder so he doesn’t get cold.
He watches her with soft, warm eyes.
‘What would the weather be now?’ she whispers, resting her own head on the pillow, wriggling forward so their faces are close together. ‘Do you think?’
Félix hums thoughtfully, his eyes half-lidded.
‘Warm,’ he says, ‘light breeze.’
‘No.’
‘Oh,’ he says, ‘fog then, sleepy.’
Pepa stifles a smile.
‘No,’ she says, leaning in until their noses barely brush.
Félix hums, blinking slowly.
He’s tired, Pepa knows, stroking her hand over his hair, smoothing over his forehead. It’s hard work up at Casita, clearing away rubble, starting to stack bricks and pack the foundation.
Still -
‘Is it my lucky day?’ he says, with a gentle lear, wiggling eyebrows. Pepa laughs, too loud for their quiet intimate moment.
‘Depends what you mean by lucky,’ Pepa giggles.
‘Do I have a lovely rainbow above me?’ he says, ‘Why, what did you think I meant?’
Pepa can only shake her head, leaning in and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
‘I miss my rainbow,’ she says, ‘I miss my rainbow and I miss my sun, and I even miss my rain. Do you know how disconcerting it is, to cry in sunny weather?’
That makes him laugh, and it’s his turn to shake his head.
‘For most of us, that’s just normal, you know?’
‘It’s horrible.’
Félix unfolds his arms, reaching out for her and Pepa laughs as he heaves her forward, not stopping until she’s tucked against him and he presses his face into her shoulder.
‘I love you,’ he says, pushing her hair back away from her face. ‘You know that? I love you, gift or no gift.’
Pepa’s eyes prick, and she sinks into him.
‘I love you,’ she whispers back. ‘You’ll have to imagine the rainbow.’
‘I’ll dream of it,’ he sighs, settling into the blankets, and Pepa strokes his head and runs her palm over his shoulders, until his breathing slows and he drifts to sleep.
I miss my rainbow, she thinks, I miss -
She even misses her storm, sort of. Not so much the lightning, or the volatile winds, but she understands now more than ever that she can’t pick and choose.
It’ll just take some getting used to, she thinks.
————
Time passes and they do get used to life without the gifts.
Well, mostly.
Dolores fluctuates between whispering and shouting - it takes her months to find a normal volume to speak at, and sometimes she still gets it wrong. Mariano watches her fondly, each time she yells, warmth in his eyes and it’s that, above all that makes Pepa approve of him.
Camilo stops checking mirrors eventually, though Pepa catches him gazing off into space occasionally. At first she thing it’s indigestion - he has a strange contemplative expression on his face - but eventually she realises he’s trying to change shape, and when he can’t he blushes, and lets Pepa stroke his hair and press a kiss to his forehead.
Antonio grieves his gift as a small child would - with great despair and weeping, but Félix and Pepa comfort him as best they can. Bruno ends up being the best help, and he gains a little shadow as Antonio follows him around, clutching the rats so gently that even Bruno doesn’t object.
‘He’s sweet,’ Bruno says one evening, ‘he’s really gentle with the babies.’
Pepa preens, basking for a moment, until -
‘Are we sure he’s yours?’ Bruno says deadpan, but the twitch of his lip gives him away.
‘He is,’ Pepa says, ‘I have the scars to prove it,’ and Bruno blanches as she mimes undoing the front of her dress. Julieta laughs into her hands.
‘Stop,’ Alma chides, but she’s laughing.
————
Pepa tears up, weeks later, as Antonio walks Mirabel to their door. It’s only Félix’s arm around her that keeps her composed, and when the handle turns she feels the warm rush of magic over her skin.
That evening Pepa dances with her cloud and her hail, spinning under Félix’s arm, clutching Dolores close. She swings Antonio around, wrapping an arm around Mirabel’s waist, until they’re both breathless. Her cloud swirls above her head as Agustín wraps his arms around her. Pepa can only laugh as he tucks his face against hers.
Her feet ache by the time she draws Camilo to her, and there’s a rainbow lighting up the night sky. He wraps his arms around her gently, as they sway to the music, resting his head against her collar bone. She catches Bruno’s eye over his shoulder.
Every time Pepa looks up, her family’s eyes are on her.
She doesn’t understand what they’re smiling at.
————
The end.
————