La Última Tentación de Héctor
El Capítulo Uno

Imelda Margarita Rivera de Rivera was, by all appearances, an ordinary woman raising a young daughter. With no husband to help her. She was learning to make shoes, which she planned to sell to the residents of Santa Cecilia to secure a steady way of life for her daughter and any family that grew from her.

As a teenager, she had been the object of affection of every local man, allured by her beautiful singing voice. So it was no secret when she chose a suitable father to her future children. A songwriter and musician whose father had the same surname as her father. His name was Héctor Ricardo Rivera-Juárez. His songs were the envy of Santa Cecilia, especially when sung by his lifelong friend, Ernesto Fernández de la Cruz-Vasconcelos. With a handsome and muscular build and perfectly groomed mustache, he had boasted that no girl could ever resist his amazing charms. The only girl who hadn't swooned over him was Imelda, who opted to wed the gangly and disheveled songwriter as her husband.

Things were looking rosy for the young couple when they became parents to a beautiful baby girl. But just a week before the girl's fourth birthday, Héctor went out on a music tour with Ernesto. And although he wrote letters home to them consistently, as well as sending money collected from their venues, Imelda just couldn't stand having her husband so far away from home. If not for the letters, she didn't know what she'd think of him.

The morning of December 7, 1921 began like any other. Imelda was the first one to wake up, immediately upon which she began preparations for another day of making shoes. Business hadn't quite picked up at this point, and she was keen on making the most of the lack of attention by fine-tuning how her business would operate.

All the materials were in their proper places, as was the equipment that would be used for making the shoes. Today, she would be going around town asking the town's residents what kind of shoes they would buy from her. It would have her out of the house for almost the entire day, but she trusted her brothers would be able to cope on their own. For now.

Looking over the list she had made of all of her potential customers, she took a quick look at herself in the mirror before making her way to the front door.

She opened the door and stepped through, immediately getting a faceful of knuckles.

The surprisingly weak impact elicited no reaction from the shoemaker as she registered who had tried knocking on her door.

"Héctor?"

The man raised his head to meet his eyes with those of his wife.

Imelda recoiled as she took in the pained and sad expression on the musician's face.

"¿Estás bien, mi amor?"

"No." Héctor's voice came as a ghostly whisper. "No, I'm not."

"What happened?"

"I don't know if I'm ready to talk about it."

Imelda ushered him into the house and shut the door. "Let's get into our room, and we'll take things at your own pace."

Héctor staggered into his and Imelda's room, immediately collapsing onto the bed facefirst upon reaching it and crying into the pillow covering his face.

Imelda decided to let Héctor have some peace and quiet and left him in the room.

She waited for the others to wake up before updating them on the situation and running her errands for the day.

By the time Imelda returned home, it was almost nighttime. As soon as she entered the house, she went straight to her room to talk to Héctor.

He was still on the bed where she left him, but he was faceup on the bed instead of facedown.

Imelda shut the door behind her. "So, do you want to talk about what happened?"

Héctor got up from the bed, wedged a chair against the door, and sat down in it. "Ernesto is dead."

Imelda failed to register what she had just heard. "What?"

"Ernesto killed himself in our hotel room."

"He did what?!"

"And I think I may have driven him to do it."

"H-How?"

"It's a really long story, and I don't know if you would believe me if I told you."

Imelda struggled to digest what her husband was dumping on her. "How did it happen?"

"I'll tell you, but you must promise not to tell anyone. Not your brothers, not Coco, not anyone."

"Yo prometo."

Héctor took a few breaths to prepare himself for his story. "Bueno, it all started back on Día de los Muertos..."