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The day started innocuous enough. Well, as innocuous as a day can be in the Madrigal household. Meaning that it consisted of a mad dash to get Isabela and Dolores to the bus to their middle school, Julieta dropping off the younger kids at elementary school for fourth grade and kindergarten, before getting to the hospital for her shift, Pepa leaving in the morning before anyone else to make it to the local high school by the ungodly hour of seven in the morning, and a variety of other shenanigans that lead them to where they were now.
It was around six in the evening when Julieta was about to start making dinner. Both Alma and Bruno were milling about, helping her where they could, and somehow an argument started. No one, not even the two involved, could tell you what started it. Probably some off-hand comment about Bruno’s insistence that Julieta’s youngest daughter and the youngest Madrigal grandchild, Mirabel, sees a doctor about her recent bout of sluggishness, which they all were putting down to just adapting to her first year of real school (still it was worrying, Mirabel was normally your typical energetic five year old). But it quickly went downhill, devolving into something that the whole family would regret for years.
“Mamá, I’m telling you, it’s not normal for a child to be so tired, to have so many headaches. Díos Mio, she can’t remember information you’ve told her an hour before. This isn’t our Mirabel,” His voice rose to a fever pitch, near shouting. Everyone in the room took a breath, Bruno almost never yelled. His sobrinos, especially Mirabel, the baby, were always his soft spot though. The photos in his wallet were proof.
“Brunito, Juli is a doctor. If something was wrong with her child, she would know. Isn’t that right?” Alma’s voice had a curious edge to it, one that said she expected Julieta to give her the answer she wanted. Julieta just nodded, not wanting to get involved in this fight. She had an appointment set up for Mirabel anyways, and she took her brother’s concerns seriously, but it wouldn’t do to egg her mother on right now. Besides, she knows her mother does care, in her own way. There has been worry in her eyes when Mirabel has complained of yet another headache. She’s been the recipient of many sleepy Mirabel snuggles, which could melt even the coldest of hearts.
“Enough! You will listen to me because I am right!” Here Bruno really did shout, harsh and loud and punctuated by a fist slamming onto the counter, making both Alma and Julieta jump. Yelling was one thing, even quiet Bruno could be brought to it with enough of an instigation. But slamming fists? Bruno couldn’t even kill spiders, let alone resort to any kind of violence.
The rest of the family had been hanging around in the kitchen, not waiting for food so much as just meeting in a common area. At the noise of slamming the adults’ heads snapped towards Bruno and Alma. Dolores, Pepa’s oldest, let out a startled squeak. Camilo, Dolores’ little brother, and normally one of the bravest little boys you could meet, looked fearful. Julieta waved them off frantically, hoping that she was getting her point across. She didn’t want her daughters or sobrinos to witness a fight like this.
Luckily she had, as Pepa, Félix, and Augustín started wrangling the children. Isabela and Dolores followed them dutifully, while Félix lifted his son and Augustín his other daughters, holding Luisa, the middle child, in one hand and Mirabel in the other. Mirabel lifted her head from his shoulder, half asleep, and blinked up at him groggily from behind her thick glasses.
“Papí, are they fighting about me? I heard my name,” her little voice shook, punctuated at the end with a wide yawn, showing all her wobbly baby teeth.
If Augustín’s heart could audibly break in half, it would’ve done so. “No Miraboo, they’re fighting about adult things. You can sleep if you want to,” Augustín lied, not wanting to stress his daughter out more. She shouldn’t blame herself for the behavior of adults (a worrying habit she’s recently begun. Hopefully it’s just a phase).
“Okay,” she yawned again, snuggling into him, “My head hurts, and my arms feel all funny.”
“I’m sorry. You should sleep, it will help. I’ll get you a wet cloth if your head still hurts when you wake up.” Worry panged in his chest. Bruno had a point, and for all he could be a hypochondriac, he was often right. Still, his youngest was dozing in a half-asleep state on his chest already. It was worrying how quickly she lost her energy.
Back in the kitchen, the fight had devolved into more personal attacks, and Julieta had given up trying to cook. She backed off into the doorway, too afraid to leave but too out of it to speak. It was like she had just shut down. Why wouldn’t they just leave the kitchen? She just wanted to put her head down and cook and block the world out for a while. Both the Madrigal matriarch and her youngest child were now yelling.
“Why don’t you ever listen to me?”
“I do listen! I just can’t indulge every fancy you have!”
“Mamá! Please, I’m just worried for her! She’s my niece! She’s your granddaughter por el amor de Dios!”
“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain in my home!”
“Fuck your Lord!”
Julieta sucked in a sharp breath. Her mother’s faith, one that she and Pepa shared, was not something to be insulted in their home. Even if Bruno didn’t believe it, it was a low blow to insult it.
“Bruno-“ she began.
“Shut up Julieta! This isn’t about you!”
“It’s about my daughter!”
And now Julieta was yelling, something she hated doing. It always left her feeling disgusting. She and her siblings had long since grown out of the screaming matches of their teenage years.
Across the hall, the rest of the family crowded around in the living room. Augustín had the foresight to set up Mario Kart on the Wii, hoping to distract the kids from what was going on and the muffled yells from the kitchen. Isabela, Camilo, and Mirabel had jumped to play, but Luisa seemed too wrapped up in the stress of what was going on, koala hugging him and refusing to let go.
‘’Are you not going to play Lula? Your Tío Félix might take Yoshi if you don’t’’
The nine-year-old seemed uninterested in the green dinosaur, and Mario Kart all together, holding onto her father tighter. She’d always been tall for her age but in his arms, she looked frightened and tiny.
‘’Is Mamá okay? She looked funny’’
Another audible heartbreak. Luisa was always a worry bug, especially when it came to conflict. And it was true, Julieta did dissociate when her siblings fought with their mother. It was something she still needed to work on. A nine-year-old didn’t need to know about all of that though.
‘’She’ll be okay, she’s just upset Abuela and Tíó Bruno are fighting’’
A five-year-old-shaped weight curled into Augustín’s side. Mirabel had selected her character (Bowser, because he ‘’looks cool’’), and was waiting while Camilo and Isabela argued about what tracks to play (specifically if they were going to play Rainbow Road).
‘’They’re gonna be friends again Lula. Mamá and Isa had a fight and they’re friends again now.’’ Mirabel said with the kind of confidence only a kindergartener could muster.
Dolores sidled up to her dad and whispered into his ear, “I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” before skittering out of the room in that nervous way she did. And she did go to the bathroom, but she went to the one closest to the kitchen. It was close enough, she had learned in the many years of an overly curious mind, that if you pressed your ear to the vent you could hear people talking in the kitchen. She shouldn’t do this, she knew. Mamá had told her it was an invasion of privacy, that her eavesdropping would get her in trouble, but she needed to know what was going on.
“What would Papá think of you like this huh? Would he have wanted you to neglect your family?” Tío Bruno’s voice rang through the vents, tinny, but still audible. For a moment, Dolores reeled back. In all her 11 years, Abuelo Pedro’s name had only been brought up in a kind of soft reverence, like if it was pressed too hard it would shatter. Still, she pressed her ear back to the vent to hear more.
“Do not bring your father into this! He- he would know that I have done my best! I have only ever done my best!”
“Your best isn’t good enough! Maybe if you had died instead of him this family wouldn’t be a fucking wreck!”
“Bruno! Stop!” After Tía Julieta’s tearful protestation, all went silent for a while. Dolores slid to the other side of the room, not wanting to listen anymore. Tears slid down her face and she let out a small squeak of distress before devolving into full sobs. Her little body curled in on itself, hands pressed over her ears, as she shook violently.
The door creaked open, and for a moment, Dolores feared that it was her Tío or her Abuela. She had never been afraid of them before. But instead, it was her Mamá, eyes red and already frizzy hair a mess. Dolores ran up to her, hiding her teary face in her Mamí’s skirt like she hadn’t done since she was smaller than Camilo.
“Oh Dolly, you were listening weren’t you?” It wasn’t an admonishment so much as a concerned plea. Dolores could only nod, clutching onto Mamá’s legs harder.
Pepa’s heart broke with the knowledge that her daughter had heard all of that. It was nothing that a child should know. Oh but her little girl was always so curious, that’s why she had followed her to the bathroom, knowing that she would be listening. She could have stopped her, but she wasn’t sure until she heard the squeak of Dolores’ distress.
Guiding her daughter, Pepa slid to the floor to hold her more completely. Dolores instantly curled around her, desperate for comfort. Pepa couldn’t stop her own tears from flowing as well, emotional as she was. She buried her face in her daughter's curls and rocked them both back and forth, whispering platitudes about how it would be over soon and they would all be okay. Not that she believed it.
Back in the kitchen, Julieta could see an all too familiar look in their mother’s eyes. A look that the triplets knew meant she had mentally gone somewhere else. One that she had even when they were all much younger, living in one tiny apartment, and their mother was getting paid pennies in jobs below her education level. Mamá had never really told them what happened to their father, only that he ‘’gave them a better life’’. However, as they got older, Julieta and her siblings had deduced through common sense it wasn’t exactly natural causes. Their father was only twenty-six when he died after all.
Julieta was snapped out of her thoughts by her mother yelling, though that look hadn’t truly left her eyes.
‘’All you have ever done is make my life difficult! Why can’t you just be normal like everyone else in this family?’’
Bruno visibly recoiled, pained. His dreamy dark eyes, ones from the father they never knew, were shiny. Another sharp inhale from Julieta. She knew her brother agonized, privately, about being a burden on the family, especially his mother, who he held near and dear to his heart, ever since he was a boy.
Worse still, she knows their mother doesn’t mean it. Mamá had always been Bruno’s biggest advocate, demanding consequences for other children when they picked on small, timid Bruno. None of the triplets would forget when a particularly miserable old bat of a teacher implied Bruno was simply stupid and faking anxiety to get out of schoolwork. Never had any of them ever seen their mother that angry, and she held Bruno that bit tighter that night, despite him being already fourteen. Putting it simply, Bruno was their mother’s baby (setting aside the fact he was the youngest of the three by fifteen minutes). She would rather die than see him hurt.
And yet here she was, being the one to hurt him. Of course, people say things they don’t mean in anger. And the look on Mamá’s face, one of instant regret, only confirms this.
Isabela could hear yelling but not what was being said. Her heart was beating fast in her chest, her hands were sweating. But outwardly she kept herself as calm as she could. Panicking was something that Luisa got to do, and Dolores and her Tía Pepa. Isabela didn’t get to panic. She straightened her spine with all the grace of the eldest grandchild and kicked Camilo’s butt at Mario Kart.
Her eyes slid over a few feet to her sisters, clinging to Papá for comfort. For just a moment, she slipped into second place in the game as longing gripped at her chest, too big for an 11-year-old. She wished she was little again. If she was she would be able to nap on her Papá’s shoulder like Mirabel, or hold on for dear life like Luisa. He could run his hands through her hair like he’s doing to Luisa, or press kisses onto the top of her head like he’s doing to sleepy Mirabel. And she would be able to cry. Instead, she quickly recovered and shot a bright grin at her Tío Félix. The smile pushed at the corner of her eyes, which burned with unshed tears.
“Our Angel,” Félix smiled back at her, appreciative. He knew what she was doing. How could he not when he was doing precisely the same thing? Isabela felt a swell of pride and accomplishment at her skill in hiding.
The next muffled yell from the kitchen though, might be the thing that makes those tears flow freely, rids Luisa of whatever grasp on her anxiety she has right now and send her spiraling and convinces the littlest Madrigal that despite what Papá says, her Abuela and Tío are fighting about her and that it's all her fault.
Bruno’s breathing had become shaky like it was when he was much younger and couldn’t find his Mamá. He was panicking, anyone could tell that. Julieta could see nothing but total regret on their mother’s face. Enough for her to swallow her stubborn nature and reach out a hand to her youngest son, her baby boy.
‘’Bruno, I-’’
And then, suddenly, sharply, and louder than Bruno had been throughout this fight, throughout even his forty years of life, with what can only be described as heartbroken rage
‘’I wish I was dead!’’
Silence. An audible gasp from their mother, whose hand fell, shaking.
Bruno turned sharply, choking on his own tears. He was done. If they didn’t want to listen to him, if they wanted to call him a curse and burden, they could. Bad Luck Bruno. He couldn’t escape it even at forty. His jaw ached with the force of his gritted teeth and he hunched over with a grunt. He shoved past Julieta, feeling only a small pang of regret as his sister stumbled with a yelp. He didn’t look back as he stormed up to his attic bedroom, slamming the trap door. Frankly, he felt rather like a child having a tantrum, but he was too upset to care.
Julieta recovered herself quickly. The buzz came back over her mind, the kind that kept her from breaking down during all of this.
“Mamá why don’t you go sit?” She suggested, getting back to work on dinner. Alma could only nod, eyes wide and horrified. She was still somewhere else.
Dolores and Pepa, meanwhile, had just returned to the living room. Both were still teary eyed and clearly worn out, but they had calmed down significantly. Isabela once again felt jealous, why did Dolores get to cry and she didn’t?
Félix, ever the attentive husband, swooped in to take his oldest from his wife. However, before Pepa could even register her empty arms, her younger son had rushed over and placed himself into her arms, worried.
"Mamí why are you crying?"
Pepa quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand not holding her son.
"I'm fine hijo. I was just upset."
Camilo seemed unsatisfied with this answer, nose scrunching in thought before an idea struck.
"I'll kiss it better. So you won't be upset anymore."
If Pepa had thought she was all cried out, that was clearly not true. That simple statement from her sweet little son just started the tears all over again, burying her face in his curls and holding him close, as if he would fight and yell like her brother if she let him go.
It was only after the younger Madrigals hesitantly completed their game of Mario Kart, that the oldest Madrigal triplet joined the rest of the family, her presence announced by a sleepy, shaky but cheerful ‘’Hi Mamá!’’ from Mirabel (who awoke, sore, to watch Isabela beat Camilo’s butt at Rainbow Road). Still, even cheerful Mirabel was put off by the blank look on her mother’s face. A tense silence filled the room. Everyone had heard Bruno’s last yelled statement. Dolores was still shaking in her father’s arms.
Surprisingly, it was Isabela who broke the tension. She couldn’t take it anymore, rushing to hug her mother for some kind of comfort. It was for both herself and Julieta really. Her Mamá’s absent-minded return of the embrace only encouraged her to burrow herself deeper.
Mirabel, still sleepy and aching horribly, blinked up at her Papá through her big round glasses.
“Papá, what did Tío Bruno mean when he said that he wishes he was dead?” She whispered. Augustín held her tighter, letting in a short gasp.
“It means your uncle is very sad mija,” The answer was not complete, but how else do you explain that sort of thing to someone so little?
“Oh,” Mirabel nodded, her curls bouncing as she did, “Tío and Abuela fighting makes me wish I was dead,”
“No, don’t say that. Trust me, it is a different kind of sadness,” Still the sentence sent a horrible shock up his spine at even the idea that his little girl could mean that. She didn’t, she didn’t even know what it meant, but it didn’t make the words any less nauseating.
Little did anyone know that this night would change their family for the next decade.
Days later, Mirabel’s appointment finally came. And after that came the testing and the specialists and the different pills and diagnoses. And finally, ten months later, the final verdict. Fibromyalgia. Some injury that had gone unchecked when she was a toddler had led to a chronic condition developing that put the little girl in constant low-level pain.
Bruno, in the meanwhile, was doing very poorly himself. He had left his job in statistical analysis, finding the high-pressure environment to be overwhelming and impossible at the moment. Instead, he picked up a regional manager position at a local convenience store chain. The work was still satisfying and the pay was decent, but the real benefit was that his hours were more flexible. He could leave before anyone woke up and come back when they were all still at work or school. No one saw him for days at a time, despite their best efforts. Alma knocked on his door constantly, trying to apologize, his sisters tried to talk to him, his sobrinos begged him to come down for meals. All of this he ignored. He just couldn’t bring himself to be with them right now.
The stress of all of this, though she didn’t fully understand the situation, seemed to make Mirabel’s symptoms worsen marginally. She slept from when she got home from school all the way up to dinner time, and had a near-constant headache. The medication helped with this, but still, she constantly agonized over her Tío.
Finally, one day she climbed the little ladder to his attic room and knocked on the trapdoor insistently.
“Tío? I know you’re in there, your car is in the driveway. I’m not going away until you come out,” Her arms began to shake on the ladder, and her grip was slipping. Finally, her muscles gave out and she let out a shriek as she began to fall backward.
At the last second, a hand gripped her arm and pulled her back up. She scrambled as best she could into the attic and threw herself into her uncle’s arms, heart beating so fast that he could hear it as he pressed her to his chest.
“Oh Mira, it’s okay, you’re okay now,”
Slowly but surely she calmed down, regaining the memory of what she was here to ask him. ‘’Tío Bruno, are we still friends?’’
‘’Of course nena! Why would you think otherwise?’’
‘’Well you and Abuela were fighting and everyone was sad ‘cause la médica said I have fibo-fibr-fibro,” the word was big and heavy on her tongue so she opted to shorten it, hoping that Bruno still understood.
‘’Oh, Mira. That fight had nothing to do with you. Mamá and I just had… una caída. We’re both stubborn people, which can be a problem.’’
‘’Are you gonna be friends again?’’
‘’I… don’t honestly know’’
‘’I think you will. She’s your Mamá. She loves you.’’ A brief pause. Bruno thought on the five-year-old’s words.
“I know she does, but sometimes people love each other and still hurt each other. Abuela was very upset with me because she didn’t want to think you could be hurt. She loves you too much to want to believe you’re hurt. And I was very upset because I knew you were. But anything after that was just us hurting each other for no reason,” His words were fumbling and awkward in the way he always spoke, though Mirabel listened like he was giving her the secret to life.
“Mamá and Isa fight sometimes, but they always make up. I think that’ll happen for you too,” Mirabel was certain. It made Bruno feel a bit more certain too.
“I hope so,” And then they lapsed into silence. Minutes stretched on with nothing said between them.
‘’Tío?’’
‘’Sí’’
‘’I don’t wish you were dead. You’re my friend. And you help me win Mario Kart.’’
The lump in his throat was hard to swallow but Bruno somehow managed it.
‘’Thank you hija.’’
But things wouldn’t get better. Not for a long time. This would be one of the last times Bruno spoke to any of his family members directly for ten years.
The closest he would come to speaking with his family was, unsurprisingly, from stubborn little Mirabel. She slipped little drawings with messages to her Tío on a near daily basis, leaving them on the highest step she could reach and knocking on the trap door. Some were harmless; flowers, cats, butterflies. Standard little kid drawings. And cute little messages about the family (‘’Camilo pretends to be you sometimes. He thinks it's really funny’’). Others were children’s interpretations of things like pills, hospitals, and doctors, with accompanying notes (‘’I’m sorry I didn’t give you a picture yesterday or the day before, my arms and legs hurt’’).
They got less frequent as Mirabel got into her preteen years and the messages got more bitter (‘’Isabela’s so annoying! She treats me like a little kid, I’m nine and a half! That’s almost ten!’’). When her position as youngest grandchild got usurped by Antonio at ten years old, Bruno was the first one to hear about it (‘’He’s so little Tío, he fits in my hand. Was I ever that small?’’).
Eventually, though, when Mirabel was about thirteen, the messages stopped altogether. There was little fanfare about the whole thing. Maybe she just got frustrated with the lack of response. Maybe her life just got too busy as she entered middle and high school.
Her last message was very simple, but somehow the simplicity of it added to the heart-shattering feeling it caused Bruno.
Short and simple
‘’I miss you’’