Día de los Muertos is the only time Imelda sees Héctor anymore after their fight.
Sure, she still is able to lock eyes with him in the way of a brief skirmish or encounter with him on the street. Or when he makes the occasional and very rare unwanted appearances in the plaza where she glares holes into his skull and he gives her those stupid tearful looks that make her want to break some more of his bones rather than just the crack she'd invented on his arm (which he now makes a terrible attempt to cover up with the thinnest band of duct tape she has ever seen).
She still is able to see what she has done to him physically and emotionally. Physically because his posture is always wilted, his walk is always with a limp (though she doesn't know if that one is because of her), the music she hears in the streets is no longer from him. Emotionally because his mouth is always twisted in a frown, he always furtively looks away from her when she glowers at him, and his eyes, which usually hold so much emotion she finds herself swept away when he uses them on her, now hold an eternal blankness. Even if she looked at them super intently, even if she scoured them for even a hint of feeling, she wouldn't find any.
But Imelda doesn't really see Héctor in those times because all she is able to look at is his outward appearance. To see him is to experience his energy, his laughing and talking, his singing and his music. To be able to really experience what someone is like is seeing their personalities, not just their looks. Imelda doesn't really see Héctor when she looks at him, just an empty and hollow version of him.
And although she spent years convincing herself and her familia that he deserves to feel that way, he deserves to be alone, he derserves to be robbed of all happiness, left without anyone to comfort him (not that he would let him; he'd have to be feverish or more depressed than this for people to even have one attempt at giving him sympathy), whenever she sees Héctor like this her non-exsistent heart twists, the memories come, and she's had a few times where she's almost wrapped her arms around him before the stronger part of her kicks in.
Come the holidays, though, mainly Día de los Muertos, Imelda sees every part of him. His personality comes back, his energy seems to double, and there's a wide grin on his face that Imelda bets not even her attacks can wash away.
While waiting in line for entry to the Land of the Living, Imelda always witnesses how jumpy Héctor gets, how his eyes get a faraway look in them that shows anticipation and longing. It makes her wonder if he always gets this way around this time, if he's ever been able to cross over and see Coco and the rest of their family before Imelda arrived.
It also makes a very, very, very small part of her hope that Coco has dared to tell stories about him and show the family pictures of him, but that part of her is so small that it's barely noticeable. And the possibility of that happening is unlikely; Coco would never go against Imelda's rules now, would she?
Each year Imelda and her family wait in line, Héctor is always nine people in front of her. And each year Imelda finds herself peering over people's shoulders with an anxiety she hopes no one in her family notices, keeping her eyes trained on Héctor as the cameras in front scan his face to see if his picture is on any ofrendas in the living world.
She gets more satisfaction than she would ever reveal to anyone when she hears the loud buzzer blare and sees Héctor's joy diminish just as quickly as it had surfaced. When she watches security guards charge to the front of the line, lift him up by the shoulders, and drag him back to the Land of the Dead's gates, she finds herself letting out a laugh and a jeer like the other onlookers.
When she sees him try to resist being dragged away, twisting and shaking his fists, and, if their eyes meet, sending a brokenhearted but enraged look her way, she sneers at him. She glowers at him. She crosses her arms and narrows her eyes with a menacing grin like she's seen Ernesto's friends do to him sometimes.
It gives Imelda happiness to know that no one ever puts any pictures of Héctor on their ofrendas. It gives her more satisfaction to know that despite her fear, Coco doesn't dare to do so either, that Imelda's rules have become more important than Héctor's memory.
Imelda can see, though, that her family's neglectance toward him doesn't dissolve his determination. Héctor always tries to see if he can get past security, and sometimes he comes up with ways to force himself through that are more... creative than anything.
Once he tries shooting himself into the Land of the Living by tying himself to two fireworks and positioning himself right in front of the gates of the Land of the Dead, believing that he can easily fly himself over the veil that seperates the two worlds. Security grabs him before he gains too much air and ends up hurting himself for real.
Another time she and her family are waiting in line and Imelda hears the sound of someone's bones clattering against each other from somewhere next to her feet. It's louder than the fireworks exploding in the sky. Three people in front, there's someone pushing what must be a cart of assorted frozen treats, and when Imelda gets to her knees to look for the noise coming from it, she just barely makes out Héctor's skinny form-- huddled under the cart with his arms and legs tucked to his chest, shivering violently-- from behind the curtain of the cart. She gives him a roll of her eyes when the guards drag him past her.
The next year, when Héctor is in line directly in front of her, Imelda steals a glance at his bones and almost jumps back in surprise. Héctor had painted his bones with swirls of purple, yellow, red, green and orange to make himself look like an alebrije, the name for the majestic and quirky spirit animals that are part of the Land of the Dead. The guards catch him easily, for with each step he takes he leaves green footprints of still-wet paint in his path. That night, she even hears his screamed objections from behind the gates as the guards hose him down.
The year after that, Imelda doesn't notice anything strange about him at first: his clothes look a little bulkier than normal, but she waves it off with the assumption he must've picked out a larger-sized suit to look intimidating to the guards. But as they get closer to the front of the line, Imelda notices pieces of what look like stuffing falling out of the holes in his jacket and pants, and from the way security regards him, they notice it, too. A closer look at his hair under that frayed straw hat of his confirms he must've curled it or twisted it or something, trying to look like someone else.
When he gets dragged away that year, people are laughing hysterically. Imelda joins in, and when she does she mocks and jeers the loudest of every audience member put together. That year he's close enough to her that she can subtly punch him in the arm she'd cracked as he passes her. He gives her a tearful look, so hopeless, so pathetic, with his hunched posture and his eyes narrowed. She coldly turns away with a shake of her head, crossing her arms and never giving him a second thought that day. It's so easy to ignore him now that's it like breathing for her-- no matter how dramatic Héctor is, she always dismisses him, no matter what.
Years ago she would've laughed at these moments hysterically, would've shaken her head and smiled with a blush in her cheeks, would've joked with him about it and told him he was loco, then maybe she would've helped him get ready for his next scheme.
But she's older now. She knows better than to waste her thoughts on him when he never did the same with her, she knows better than to look into his antics any further because it's probably for nothing anyway.
Imelda never questions the oddity of this annual occurence, never looks into the desperation Héctor puts into these tricks. She both hates and loves to admit that now she's become like Ernesto and the other people in Santa Cecilia. She now looks down on him and ridicules him and hates him like they've done before, and just like them, she will never stop.