Part 2


I do not own Encanto. This story is not for profit.


Author's Note: I am calling this Part 2 because the POV will now be changing to other characters not Mirabel. This is because at some point Mirabel's family members talked about her to each other when she was not present, culminating in the door ceremony they organize for her at the end of the film. That would not be possible without them getting together without her knowledge and planning it out.


Chapter 27

November 7th

Morning

Bruno

Throughout breakfast, Bruno watched Mirabel, but she acted as if nothing was wrong. Last night's tears and anguish seemed like a different Mirabel. But Bruno knew all about masks and pretenses, and he knew that the Mirabel of last night was real, and this one was an illusion, if perhaps a half-conscious illusion at best. Her voice echoed in his mind: If it's like before, will you take me with you?

Bruno fed the rats in his sleeves and nestled against his neck under his collar, crumbs of arepa and tiny dices of tomato. Their tiny, warm bodies constantly against his wrists and neck comforted him and kept him grounded. No matter what anyone else said, if left to roam freely instead of trapped in small places, rats were sanitary creatures. And they loved him, could communicate with him, and were very loyal. His rats could sense if he were unhappy or unwell, and though they didn't understand his telenovelas, they didn't mind participating. He focused on their presence now to keep himself from panicking.

After breakfast, as everyone prepared to head out the door, Bruno reached out just shy of Julieta's arm. "Lo siento, Señora Guzmán, I know we are only guests here, but may my hermanas and I have this space to talk privately about something?"

"Of course you may," Señora Guzmán said. "Where else are you supposed to go? If you cannot find solace here, then you could, I suppose, ask for privacy in the church, but my home is more comfortable, and our families are friends. Please, take all the space and time you need."

"Yes," Mariano said quickly.

Pepa and Julieta looked at Bruno with open confusion.

Bruno's quickening heartbeat caused tension behind his eyes. "P-Please."

"Okay, we'll bow out," Félix said. "But we want to know what this is about later."

Pepa kissed him. "Of course I'll tell you, amor."

"We'll be at the building site," Agustín agreed. He and Julieta hugged.

After everyone else left, Pepa, Julieta, and Bruno were alone in the kitchen.

"It's about time," Pepa said. "I feel like you talked to everyone but us. Mamá, the kids, our husbands, you even talked to Padre Agudelo more than you talked to us."

"I did try to talk to you first, and you said not to dredge up the past," Bruno said.

Pepa left out a huff of exasperation. "Can't you talk to us without dredging up our old fights?" She paced, gesturing with both hands. "There are lots of other things to talk about."

"We need to talk about Mirabel."

"You've been avoiding us for weeks, and the first thing you want to talk about is Mirabel?" Pepa demanded.

Julieta held up a hand. "Please, don't fight. What about Mirabel?"

Bruno fidgeted, wringing his hands. "Mirabel is not o-"

"You left us, and you didn't leave us, and you still left, because you chose to live behind the wall instead of with us, and you want to talk about Mirabel?" Pepa shouted. If she had still had her Gift, she would have been standing in the eye of her own miniature tornado.

Bruno swallowed, and closed his eyes for a moment, shaking, conscious of the way all his strength suddenly fled through his feet into the ground. He opened his eyes, clenching his hands tighter, holding onto his own fingers for support, pressure building in his chest. "Mirabel is not okay." One of his rats tickled his neck with their whiskers, distracting and calming him.

"Not okay?" Julieta's body tightened up. "What's wrong?"

Pepa's eyes flashed. "How would you know?"

Anger suddenly snapped through him. "Because I was there." He accidentally raised his voice, but it had the effect of startling Pepa into silence. "And because I was with her last night. She was not okay, Pepa. She is not okay." He frowned at Julieta, who had gone silent. "Your daughter is not doing fine. She is definitely not fine."

Julieta pressed both hands against her sternum. "Is that why she got drunk last night?"

"Forget about her being drunk! Félix got drunk, too, but you didn't pick on him," Bruno said.

"Félix is not 15 years old. Félix is not my daughter. Luisa and Isabela respect my rule about not drinking," Julieta said. "Mirabel should do the same."

Bruno's panic tore free. "She's going to run away!"

Julieta and Pepa flinched.

Bruno took a deep breath. Calm. Calm breaths. Calm. "For real this time. Much farther than the river. If things don't change around here, and change for good, we're losing her. And I'm afraid she might not wait to see how the new house turns out."

"Why?" Julieta whispered. "But, we talked. She told me how much pain her 5th birthday has been causing her all this time. It isn't as if I haven't talked to my own daughter. She got that horrible memory off her chest. And why did she run away from us in the first place? I don't understand. I kept waiting for her to explain herself, but she hasn't."

Bruno was incredibly saddened at this reminder of who his sister was. "You never asked her directly?"

Julieta looked shocked. "No. If she wanted to tell me, she'd tell me. Wouldn't she?" She turned away as if unable to withstand Bruno's expression. "Besides, you don't know Mirabel. Ask her a direct question and she's…" She sighed. "Defensive. She always deflects. I don't know when she started that behavior. I can't remember. My baby used to be so open with me. So direct. And these days, it's like…she can't say a single word to me that isn't carefully rehearsed, and she doesn't speak about herself. Every time we're together, she wants to talk about me." She let out a small, sad laugh. "As if my life is particularly interesting. Poor child. I think she has the most boring mother in the world."

Julieta's brow furrowed. "But…everything Mirabel has been keeping inside, she confessed to me. About not having friends, and not being fine, in the past. In the past, Bruno. She talked about the pressure she felt to make sure everyone is happy all the time. I let her know that isn't necessary. She doesn't have anything to prove. Truly."

Bruno looked to Pepa. "Is that so? What do you think of Mirabel?"

Pepa tossed her hands up expressively. "I don't know what to think of Mirabel! I can hardly keep track of her. She's slipperier than Camilo. Besides, her job is to stay home and take care of the house with Agustín and Félix, and my job is to be out in the fields. I barely know Mirabel. Since she was 10 years old, she's tried to stay away from me – and she has been watching Antonio for me. I know that Antonio likes her, and she's good with children. She loves to sing and dance and play the accordion for them. She's very outgoing."

Julieta slowly turned to face Bruno. "Why? Why are you asking what she thinks of Mirabel? I don't know my own daughter?"

Bruno looked at his sisters, feeling heavy. And he knew how he felt was only a small fraction of how Dolores felt. One of his rats snuggled up right next to his ear and started grooming him. He hoped that his sisters didn't notice. "Have you ever asked Dolores about Mirabel?"

"No. Why?" Julieta clutched her hands to her sternum again. "Bruno, you're scaring me. What don't I know about Mirabel? What could Dolores tell me that I don't know about my own daughter? I'm telling you, we talked this out days ago. I'm sorry that I didn't pay more attention to my family, I regret it with all my heart, but Mirabel knows that I care about her – that we care about her. That her not having a Gift doesn't mean anything."

Bruno took a deep breath. "When Mirabel and I met, she asked me how to stop disappointing her family. Our family." He relived Mirabel sitting on the floor by his beaten up armchair and looking up at him with so much pain and confusion.

"What? Why would she say a thing like that? But she doesn't disappoint me," Julieta said, spreading her hands, lines appearing around her eyes. "She doesn't disappoint anyone. Mamá could stand to be nicer to her, but you know how Mamá is, and she's finally trying harder, so everything is fine now on that count. In fact, I think Mamá and Mirabel have grown very close over this. Mamá is trying harder with everybody. So it's going to be fine now. We're learning how to be closer and to let go of some of our old expectations that weren't realistic, and Mamá rethinking the Miracle has done nothing but good for everybody. And the town is wonderful."

Bruno waited until Julieta ran out of steam. "Mirabel told me that I should tell her if she's hurting the family, so that she can leave forever. This was the same day that Casita fell down. I told her I didn't know anything about the vision I'd had, which is the truth, and you know how much it's true and how I wish it weren't, and she begged me to have another vision, which I did end up doing for her, but all that happened is that I gave her false hope."

"She was planning on leaving forever?" Julieta seemed stunned. "When Mamá found her…"

"I don't know why Mirabel stopped at the river, but if she hadn't, she would have been long gone," Bruno said. "Mamá finding her is a miracle in and of itself. She wanted to leave. Casita's death convinced her that everyone's doom and gloom reading of my vision was correct, that she was hurting the magic, hurting the miracle, hurting us, and she was going to leave."

His chest felt hollow at imagining living without Mirabel, and his whole body felt hollow when he imagined Mirabel out in the world alone, all by herself. She asked you to come with her, he reminded himself. She said she wanted to leave together. But he felt old, and tired, and didn't expect to survive very long if he left the Encanto. According to his Madre, the European Spanish ruling class was cruel, the labor back-breaking, and medicine was virtually nonexistent. Poverty, rape, and beatings were widespread. Lives were short and hard. He didn't want to go through that. And he didn't want Mirabel to have to face it either.

"But she knows now," Julieta said. "She knows now that she didn't cause this. Doesn't she?"

Bruno felt a headache building. He was determined not to let it get to him, not to let it stop him. When Madre was bullying people, he played up his headaches as a distraction, but actually he hated being fussed over. If he could, he would slip away and hide until the headaches passed. "That's no longer the point. I'm bringing this up so that you have some idea of the strain she was already under. This has been a period to stop and reflect for all of us. What do you think Mirabel has had time to reflect on?"

Pepa stared.

Julieta was now the one wringing her hands. "She has been thinking about her 5th birthday all this time, not just lately, and I know it's been causing her pain. She was humiliated in front of the entire village. Mamá has been cruel. I haven't been attentive. But – But, she knows that she is loved. And that I am going to be here for her from now on. And, other than that horrible day, Mirabel has nothing to be sad about. She has had an amazing life, a life growing up that Mamá and the elders could never dream of. She – and our other children – have had a life that is easier than ours even was, and she has had to work less and worry less than anyone in living memory. What could Mirabel be reflecting on besides her 5th birthday that is causing her pain? What could cause her to feel that running away from us is a solution?"

Bruno sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you. Mirabel has had time to reflect on not having a room, not having a Gift, not having a place in the family other than being a live-in servant, and constantly being told she is in the way. She has had time to reflect on how she always tries to understand all of us, but most of us don't bother to repay the respect. Juli, you complain that she wants to talk about you and not herself. But you didn't ask her anything about herself. And I know that the day Casita fell, what Mirabel was doing was trying to get to know her sisters even better than she already knows them. First, she talked to Luisa and got Luisa to confess her pain at being dumped on by everyone in the Encanto simply for being physically strong, and Isabela even opened up, even though it was initially against her will, that she didn't want to marry Mariano and that she had been asked to be perfect. And Mirabel, who has been fighting with Isabela for years, instantly forgive Isabela everything. But do you know what Isabela didn't do? Isabela didn't ask to understand who Mirabel is underneath surface appearances. And neither has Luisa. No one has asked Mirabel about herself. And for whatever reason, that day, the day Casita later fell, she confessed all of her deepest feelings to me. I think she thought that I was the most impartial, because I haven't been interacting with the rest of the family. That I must have less motivation to defend everyone, because I removed myself."

Bruno knew that he was in all probability plunging even further into his sisters' bad graces, but he plowed onward. "And last night, she asked me if I would leave if I got back the Gift of prophecy I don't want, and that if I was leaving, would I take her with me. She asked me that. Nothing has gotten better. Not for Mirabel. Oh, I grant you, things have gotten better for the rest of us. Even Mamá, though she was determined not to see it that way at first. But taking a break from our Gifts has been nothing but a boon to us. This forced respite has finally allowed us to rest." Bruno felt sick to his stomach. "But Mirabel can't be feeling the same way we feel. She never had a Gift. There was nothing for her to put down. Instead, she's spent these past weeks trying to take care of us, because we're burnt out and exhausted, and she knows that, and her job has always been to take care of us. But what do we know about her? What do we know about her hopes and dreams? What does she want for herself? For her life? Do any of us really know?"

Bruno took a deep breath. "And the things Dolores has heard between various people and Mirabel, particularly exchanges between Mirabel and Mamá and Mirabel and Isabela, would and should disturb you." He turned to Pepa. "You spent years being the loudest proponent of not talking about me. And I got used to it. And I don't care about talking about myself anymore. You want to talk to me? I want to talk about Mirabel."

"How do you know what Dolores has heard?" Pepa asked.

Bruno looked at her steadily. "I want to make it clear that if you decide to punish Dolores for this, I am going to be right there, physically standing between you two. Dolores talked to me all the time. She always knew I was still in the home. No one can hide from Dolores. I didn't even try. She has been helping me and talking to me and keeping me from going insane. If I had been isolated from absolutely everything and everyone, I couldn't have remained myself. I owe my life to Dolores…and I think I was the only one trying to help Dolores with the mountain of traumatic things she's heard every single day since her 5th birthday. And I told Dolores that if anyone ever found my vision about Mirabel, it would hurt Mirabel, so she has been sitting on my secret for me. Just like she sits on so many people's secrets for them. The difference is that I have tried to pay her back in my own, small way. Dolores needs all of our love, too. More than you know, Pepa. Dolores can't not hear something, and she can't un-hear what she hears. She has a photographic memory, except for sounds. It's not possible for her to forget. It's part of her Gift."

Pepa shuddered and started stroking her braid. "My baby…remembers everything?"

"Absolutely everything she's ever heard," Bruno said.

He had too many memories to count of Dolores sneaking in between the walls to come to his secret room and be held by him. And the saddest part was that she was never missed by the others. She had stopped coming to him as frequently since turning 18, but they still had visits at least twice a week just so that she could update him on the situation with their family. And she had asked him what to do the night of Antonio's birthday party. Panicking. You heard Mirabel. She saw the cracks, Dolores had whispered. What do we do? And he had begged Dolores for more time. Poor, sweet Dolores, wanting to tell Mirabel about him and not being able to, instead sending Mirabel on a circuitous quest in hopes that he would change his mind about speaking to Mirabel.

Bruno felt so upset that he drew a rat from his sleeve and gently petted it, no longer caring what Julieta and Pepa would say. "She knows all the things we have the luxury of forgetting, or never knowing."

"Does Mamá know this?" Pepa asked.

Bruno shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Why don't you ask her? She might know exactly what's been going on with Dolores. It's difficult to figure out how culpable Mamá really is in how our family turned out. How much does she know about how our Gifts work and how much has she been shielded from?"

Julieta took Bruno's upper arms and squeezed. "Bruno, what did Dolores hear about Mirabel?"

Bruno cringed and hunched his shoulders. "Ask Dolores. She will remember more clearly than I do. I'm afraid of misquoting people. For all I know, my anxiety made it worse than it already is. But I do know that you haven't been aware of what goes on around here. Remember, I've had nothing to do for ten years except patch the walls and listen, and comfort Dolores."

"We need to catch up to the others," Julieta said. She brushed past Pepa, and Pepa turned and followed.

Bruno sighed. He trudged along last, still cuddling a rat. That went as well as I expected. Maybe they'll go back to not talking to me again. Why did I come out of the walls again? Someone remind me. It's always the same with Juli and Pepi. They love me, they hate me, they love me, they hate me. I'm tired.