Turning Tables Chapter 29
Héctor tossed and turned, anxiety eating him up in every respect. He had read and reread the book that had been taken from him all those years ago for the entire evening and, so far it looked fairly intact. The book was back where it belonged, and now they had one more mission: find a way to get it to the living Rivera relatives.
A message created by Victoria and Julio was sent to the living family via Dante after Imelda and the twins returning from seeing their parents. Imelda had spent most of the evening alone whilst the twins tried to go about as normal, using work as a distraction. Not wanting to bother the matriarch, Rosita and Héctor told the rest of the family to let her be.
While Imelda was not normally an emotional person, it was safe to say she felt that her papá's actions had crossed the line and were absolutely despicable. After finishing up another meeting and sending a message out to Maria Quesada and Ceci to get over to the shop the next day (and debating whether or not to go and give Marco a piece of his mind), Héctor gave up on sleep as he wandered downstairs. At first, he was tempted to start tuning his guitar but quickly remembered that Victoria's room was downstairs and that she was a very light sleeper. Definitely not a good idea to wake her up.
Victoria had grown more distant from her mamá since her arrival, seemingly afraid to talk to her or even be near her. Héctor had tried to approach his granddaughter about it but quickly realized that this was a conversation that Coco had to have with her daughter on her own. And if Héctor remembered correctly, Julio had told him that Victoria had acted like this before she died.
Shaking his head a bit, Héctor decided to find another activity to do to keep his mind occupied. Quickly discarding the idea of going to Shantytown or turning on the radio, Héctor settled for looking over the wedding plans that Rosita had meticulously been going through.
The second wedding was less than a month away, having been planned for November 3, about a week after Imelda's birthday. Due to the heavy press attention recent events had brought on the Rivera family in the Land of the Dead and in the Land of the Living, Imelda had insisted that the guest list be kept as small as possible and the ceremony kept private.
Only Ceci, Maria, Vicente, Frida, some of the Forgotten family and the other Riveras were invited to the ceremony and the unusually small reception. Rosita had taken over most of the planning while the other Riveras were busy. She was putting together plans for the meals, arranging the flowers and helping Ceci create a beautiful wedding dress for Imelda that no one else in the family (with the exception of Coco and Victoria) saw. Héctor had been put in charge of finding a band. That had been pretty easy. Since none of the Riveras or their friends liked the idea of a DJ, Gustavo and the other musicians had volunteered their services as a band.
This is a lot of planning for a wedding, Héctor thought as he remembered his first wedding ceremony. It had been quick, taking place at City Hall in México City with only the twins and Ernesto as witnesses. Not the most romantic setting, but hey it was something.
"What are you doing up, Papá Héctor?" A soft voice said. Jumping a bit and nearly falling apart, Héctor turned around to see Rosita, clad in a white nightgown and slippers, wearing a look of concern on her face.
"Nothing!" Héctor claimed sheepishly. But Rosita gave him her famous 'look' and he knew she didn't believe him for a second.
"I couldn't sleep, Rosita," Héctor admitted sadly. "I just can't get what happened earlier out of my head. Why would Marco do something like that to Imelda? Why did one of de la Bastardo's bandmates have my songbook?"
Wincing a bit at Héctor's language, Rosita shrugged her shoulders "Lo descubriremos, Papá Héctor. No nos rendiremos. But we've done what we could. Our Miguelito is one tough boy and if anyone can find out anything, it's him."
Smiling softly, Héctor hugged Rosita and then looked towards the wedding plans. "Imelda is going to love this, Rosita."
Nodding with a big smile, Rosita went through the entire wedding plan with Héctor, showing him everything (except for Imelda's dress) with increasing excitement. By the time she was showing Héctor the flowers for the ceremony, his eyes began to droop from exhaustion, and it was slowly creeping towards 2 am.
"Papá Héctor, maybe we should go back to bed. We can always go over more plans tomorrow." Rosita said kindly, her eyes twinkling in excitement.
Nodding sleepily, Héctor made his way back up to the bedroom he shared with Imelda. Thankfully, she was still asleep, the earlier incident having worn her out. Héctor quietly reached into his nightstand table, pulling out his book and reading the contents feverishly as he flipped the pages. Next to him, Imelda stirred and woke up, putting her hand on his cheekbone.
"Mi amor? What's wrong?" Imelda asked groggily as she sat up.
"Nothing, Imelda. I'm alright. It's just, I haven't seen this book in so long. I'd thought it'd be destroyed or Forgotten or—"
With those words, Imelda pulled her husband in for a kiss. As she pulled away and snuggled closer, she murmured, "But it wasn't. And neither were you, Héctor. You must never think that."
Nodding, Héctor smiled softly as he pulled Imelda closely to him as he softly hummed the song, he wrote her, feeling her breathing becoming slow and deep. Eventually Héctor fell asleep too, holding on to his diosa.
The next morning Héctor got up before Imelda did and helped Rosita cook a big breakfast for everyone, allowing Imelda three more hours of sleep. Coco had gotten up early too, wanting to speak to Victoria before she went out on a supply run. Victoria had been putting up an emotional wall for two weeks now. It was time to figure out what was going on.
Imelda came downstairs a few hours later, emotionally drained; but upon seeing her family, she instantly put on her "everything-is-fine" mask. When Maria and Ceci arrived to take her out for lunch, the mask didn't drop, even though the two women knew what was going on thanks to Héctor's note.
After breakfast was cleared away and everyone went on their various errands, Rosita and Coco stood up and asked Victoria to come and help them make lunch. The men knew that meant that the women wanted to speak to Victoria alone and knew from experience that it was best to let them be. Héctor had been told earlier by the twins why Victoria was being so distant, so he left along with the other men.
Meanwhile, Rosita and Coco had pulled Victoria into the kitchen to prepare lunch (or rather Rosita prepared lunch as Coco spoke to her daughter). Gently touching her daughter's cheek, Coco asked, "What's wrong, Vicita?" as her daughter fidgeted anxiously with her leather apron.
"I'm so sorry, Mamá," Victoria said in an uncharacteristically soft voice as tears leaked out of her eyes. "Lo siento mucho."
Without having to add on any more words, Coco knew instantly what her daughter was talking about. In one terrible year, Victoria had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer shortly after Imelda had died, leaving Victoria in charge of the shop since Elena was heavily pregnant at the time.
Feeling the need to take care of her family, Victoria ran the shoe shop in place of her grieving mother and hid the doctor's appointments as excuses to go to the market. It wasn't until two months before she died that Victoria finally revealed what had really been going on to the rest of the family. But by then the cancer had spread and there was nothing anyone could do for 43-year old Victoria.
Holding back tears of her own, Rosita made her way over to Victoria and sat her down in a chair. Even though Rosita knew her niece was not a hugger, Victoria unexpectedly latched on to her tía, tears coming down in droves and no sounds escaping from her mouth.
"Victoria, please look at me, mija," Coco said as her daughter guiltily rose her head from Rosita's embrace. "I grieved for you terribly, as did the rest of the family, but I've never ever once stopped loving you." Gently hugging her daughter to her, Victoria gradually calmed down and eventually her tears stopped all together.
By that point, other members of the family heard the commotion and, with a nod from Rosita, came in. Julio went over to his daughter and gently kissed the top of her forehead as Victoria had migrated from the chair to the floor. Héctor and the twins stayed back, not wanting to ruin the touching moment or crowd the upset Victoria.
"Está bien, Vicita." Julio murmured as his daughter leaned into his embrace.
As Victoria shakily got to her feet, Imelda, Maria and Ceci walked in, their arms laden with shopping bags. Upon seeing what was going on, Mari looked towards Coco in confusion, but Coco shook her head. I'll tell you later. Imelda looked groggy but otherwise happy as she let Maria and Ceci describe their shopping spree.
One of those bags was handed directly to Rosita, who smiled softly and along with Coco, went off towards the workshop. When Héctor attempted to peek in one of the other bags, Ceci slapped his hand away gently.
"Ah-ah-ah! Not until the wedding! It's bad luck for the groom to see the dress!" Ceci chided as everyone else laughed. Even Victoria, whose tears had dried, managed a tiny smile.
But the happy moment was soon interrupted when Héctor suddenly collapsed to the ground, holding his head in pain. Gasping in horror, Imelda ran to his side as he looked up in terror at the rest of the family.
"Mi amor? What's wrong? Is it the Final Death?"
"No, it's Miguel," Héctor answered, his hands clutching his head. "Something's wrong with Miguel!"
