It had been three years.
Three years of 'denied entry' and disguises and the ache in his chest that refused to go away, that only deepened whenever he thought of home and Imelda. And Coco...
How many times had he cursed himself for the fool that he was? Though he was sure Ernesto had brought news of his death to Imelda, he could not blame her for failing to put his photo on the ofrenda. He had been a selfish jerk, interested only in what he could take from the world, not what he could give to his family.
"Ay..." He shook off the gloomy thoughts, though they were always somewhere at the back of his mind.
It was the day following Día de los Muertos and, as usual, he had not made it to the bridge.
Perhaps next year, if he-
There! That tune! What was that tune? Where was that tune? It called to him from across the crowded square, a handful of melancholy notes that he knew as well as his own name.
He shoved through the crowds of well-dressed, fast-talking people with their baskets of food and bottles of wine and tequila, searching, listening for that song. The musician continued to play – a guitar, he recognized now, just like the one he used to strum – and he startled the man when he burst through the crowd and right in front of the guy.
"That-that song?" he gasped. "How do you know it?"
The guitar gave up a few more notes before the musician, a middle-aged man with a thinning patch of brown hair attached to his skull, laid his hand across the strings to stop the vibrations.
"My sister, she is obsessed with this song," the musician said. "I thought others might be too." He shrugged. "Well, take a look for yourself, muchacho." He nodded toward his open guitar case, the bottom of which was thickly layered with coins.
"I wrote that song," Héctor said. "For my-"
The musician bolted to his feet. "You wrote it?" he demanded, his face delighted.
"Of course," said Héctor, giving a little bow. He had just never thought that anyone except his family would ever hear it. And how had it come to be so famous in the first place?
Ernesto! Ernesto must have performed and immortalized the song as a tribute to his old friend. Then perhaps he had also told Imelda that he, Héctor, had been headed for home when the food poisoning struck? Maybe next year's Día de los Muertos would not be so bleak for him.
The musician was still speaking. "I cannot believe this. The great Ernesto de la Cruz heard my playing! How did you enjoy it, Señor de la Cruz?" The man held out his hand. "My name is Alberto, by the way."
"I'm not Ernesto de la Cruz." Héctor raised his hands in denial. "I didn't say I sang the song. I just wrote it, amigo."
Alberto frowned. "But de la Cruz writes all his own songs." He pocketed the change in his guitar case and then slid the guitar inside. "I think you must be confused, muchacho. Come with me. I want to show you something." He motioned in the direction of an apartment complex a few hundred metres away.
Héctor followed, a little wary now. Surely this musician was the confused one.
He followed the man into the apartment complex and up several flights of stairs. The building was old, smelling of wet dogs and someone's burnt supper and that musty smell that seemed to cling to faded buildings in the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead.
Alberto paused in front of apartment 113 and unlocked the door. He flicked on the light as he entered and Héctor followed, a little more slowly.
"Here, muchacho." The musician handed him a record album, shiny and new. "My sister left this for me last night." He shrugged. "Eh...I am not so fond of de la Cruz's music as some, but she means well."
He barely heard Alberto chatter on. He was too intent on the glossy album, at Ernesto's grinning – no, smirking – face. Tracing the words 'Remember Me' – Written and Performed by Ernesto de la Cruz, Héctor remembered what it was like to be truly angry. The way his breath tightened in his ribs, the urge he felt to smash the record.
So Ernesto had not credited him, had not even made an attempt to remember Héctor.
"I would move heaven and earth for you, my friend..."
Lies. All lies.
"If you'd care to see, I have a few more records," Alberto said, not bothering to hear what Héctor's response but instead pulling out the rest of his collection. Héctor almost grabbed them out of the man's hands. There was a single of 'Un Poco Loco' and a couple of full albums – albums where he recognized most of the track titles as his own songs. Ernesto had not only stolen 'Remember Me' from him. He had stolen all of Héctor's work.
He could barely bring himself to say 'gracias' and stumble out of the apartment, down the stairs, back into the plaza. His mind spun in a hundred different directions, trying to make sense of this new problem. He would never have thought it of Ernesto. True, his friend had been always hungry for the next scrap of fame, of applause, of acknowledgement. But to steal all of Héctor's songs? It was unthinkable.
And yet Ernesto had not only thought it but done it.
Wait. Wait, wait, wait. He stopped in his tracks. This-this could still be a good thing.
If Ernesto was as famous as all those records made it seem, Imelda and Coco would surely hear his songs – somewhere – and recognize them as his own. Especially 'Remember Me'. After all, he had sung it to Coco every night, even before she could understand the words.
So yes, yes, they would hear his songs and they would recognize them and he knew that Imelda would truly move heaven and earth to track down Ernesto and demand justice for her husband.
Héctor grinned. He almost pitied Ernesto, thinking of that.
Maybe this wasn't so bad. But it still hurt to think that Ernesto had so easily forgotten their friendship, had so easily forgotten him. When his old friend reached the Land of the Dead, he would track Ernesto down and give him a piece of his mind. Until then, however, he would wait and watch for the day when crossing the border would not be an impossibility, but a yearly triumph.