Imelda needs a distraction. Something to stop her from having those awful dreams every night. Something to stop her from thinking of Héctor and the way his music always made her heart lift, or the way he was the only person who could calm her down as quickly as he did whenever she was upset. Imelda needs a way to shove the thoughts out of her mind, thoughts of Héctor's weird outlook on the world that always inwardly drove her insane but now fills her heart with a longing most unbearable.
Imelda needs to forget him, and make everyone else forget him, too.
For a second, Imelda hesitates at the mere idea of banishing Héctor's memory from everyone's mind. Imelda thinks of her phantom memories of him, how some nights she thinks she can still hear him playing the strings of his guitar, or the feel of his hand over hers. The tingiling sensation she feels after he kisses her. Then she thinks of Coco, and her close bond with Héctor, watching her dance to Héctor's tunes and hearing her cheers whenever he finishes one of his performances.
To forget all of that and force Coco to forget about her father would be excruciating.
But Imelda has to try.
She has to try not to think of memories of her and Héctor as kids or memories of their wedding or the feeling he gives her, making her feel like she's the only person on his mind even though she knows that's most likely never going to be true.
None of that, from this moment on, is going to crawl into Imelda's mind, not even at night. She has to forget him.
No matter how hard it'll be. No matter how much her heart aches for Héctor's touch. The less she, or anyone else, lets Héctor into their minds, the better it'll be.
For her.
For Coco.
And for everone else.
It's the only way to stop the feelings of love, confusion, and anger from circling in Imelda's mind. And the only way to stop her tears from pooling in her eyes when she realizes that dreams can't shape reality.
The first and easiest way to forget Héctor is to get rid of all music. No more instruments. No more records from Héctor's favorite musicians. No more humming absentmindedly or watching Coco dance to the tunes that drift through the house windows.
Imelda finds herself looking over Héctor's collection of records, tracing them with the tip of her finger constantly. He only has two: one that Imelda gave him as a wedding present and another he'd convinced Ernesto to give him after a lot of asking and begging. After an intake of breath and a look over her shoulder to make sure Coco isn't looking, Imelda snaps the records in half and tosses them in the trash, feeling her heart sink without warning as she hears the sound of the ground connecting with the broken records. She stops herself from crying just as the first tears well in her eyes.
It's for the best, she tells herself. It's for my own good. For Coco's own good.
Imelda knows without a doubt that her mother would've done the same thing if her husband had left. So why couldn't she?
It's for the best. It's the only way.
Imelda tries to ignore the sinking feeling in her heart growing heavier as she stares at her own music collection, snaps each record, and throws them out the window with Héctor's.
Once sentence playes over and over in her mind as she tears through the house, grabbing any device that can make music and throwing out the window so it can shatter.
It's for the best.
Every time Imelda breaks another record or instrument, she tells herself this phrase to stop her lips from quivering.
The second way to rid herself of Héctor's memory is to keep busy. Imelda finds the perfect way to do it right away.
When Héctor stopped sending his letters, he stopped sending money as well. And that was a problem for Imelda, with trying to make sure she had enough food to make a meal for both herself and her daughter, or trying not to cringe when she has to tell Coco why she can't have a new dress when she spots one she wants in one of the shop windows or why her portion of food isn't as big as it used to be able to be.
But soon, Imelda finds a way to get payed on her own without Héctor's help.
She's never looked into people's complaints that much. Their complaints of their aching feet or battered clothes and shoes. Usually she bites her lip and pretends not hear or notice that some people in Santa Cecilia don't have as nice of a fashion or footwear choice as she does.
But after looking into it some more, Imelda realizes that she can help people and make money for herself and Coco at the same time.
She goes into one of the shops in town that she's never had a purpose to visit and asks the owner to teach her how to make shoes. And after sending a dirty look his way because he looks at her in that coy way again, he agrees to show her how to get her own business started. Imelda works alongside him for a few weeks, agreeing to pay him for each lesson, but after half a month she's working on her own and making money by herself without his help.
With her new job started, the ban on music, and with the need to always be moving and never be distracted, Imelda blocks out all thoughts of Héctor, all things that remind her of how useless he has been this whole time.