Isabela frowned as she stared at the letter her prima was holding, "What do we do about this?" she asked.

"We… we… we should tell the others, except Mirabel and Antonio," Dolores said softly, "Mirabel might get mad that you were snooping, and Antonio's too young to understand."

"How do we keep them from finding out?" Isabela asked slowly, "Mirabel can take Camilo's place of entertaining the children and we can have a family meeting without her!"

Dolores nodded, "I'll get Camilo and tell Antonio to keep an eye on Mirabel for us," she offered, "You gather everyone else up."

Isabela nodded as she rushed off to find everyone and Dolores headed over to where Mirabel was still helping her father, "Hey, Mirabel, can I ask you a big favor?" she asked.

"Sure? What's up?"

"Well, Ummm," If there was one thing Dolores hated more than anything it was lying, she was terrible at it, "I need to talk to Camilo about something important, but I don't want to leave the kids unsupervised…"

"Do you really want to call Camilo supervision," Mirabel interrupted.

Dolores snorted and shook her head, "No, but I was wondering if you would mind watching the kids for like half an hour so that I can talk to him."

"What are you going to talk about?" Mirabel asked.

"It's kind of private," Dolores insisted.

"If you want dating advice, I would go somewhere other than Camilo," her prima insisted, "But if you really want to talk to him, sure I can watch the kids."

…
Alma glanced at her oldest daughter, "Do you know why Isabela asked us to come here?" she asked.

"All she did was tell me that it was important and that they needed everyone but Mirabel and Antonio to meet here," Julieta confessed as Dolores arrived with Camilo.

"Okay, whatever it is that you claim that I've done, it wasn't me," Camilo exclaimed.

"This isn't about you Milo," Dolores hissed.

"Then who is this about?"

"Mirabel," Isabela said, "While sorting through the things that we salvaged from the nursery, I sort of… discovered something that is kind of alarming."

"That's one way to put it," Dolores muttered.

"You were snooping weren't you?" Luisa asked, grinning down at her older sister.

"No! Well, maybe a little… it was addressed to the family…"

"What was addressed to the family," Julieta asked, nervously exchanging looks with her husband.

"A suicide note," Dolores said flately, "She nearly jumped about a week ago, but I changed her mind."

"Why didn't you tell us this then," Abuela demanded, a hand over her heart. Was this her fault?

"Look, Abuela, I heard her crying, and heard her on the roof, I went to check on her. I didn't know that she was planning on jumping until Isabela found the note," Dolores insisted dryly.

"Where is Mirabel?" Luisa asked in alarm, looking around for her younger sister.

"Getting distracted by Antonio and the village kids," Isabela said, "We didn't think Antonio was old enough to understand what was going on, and…"

"We thought it would be a good idea to tell you about what we learned before Mirabel learned that we know," Dolores added.

"So what do we do?" Isabela asked.

"What exactly did the note say?" Bruno asked, "That might give us some clue about what to do."

"To Paraphrase, that she felt like she was in the way all the time and that we wouldn't even notice if she left, or care, for that matter," Isabela insisted, shoulders slumping as she shook her head, "She thought that we didn't love her at all. We ignored her so much, when we missed her quince, it was just the final straw."

"You forgot her quince?" Bruno asked, his voice dark and dangerous as he turned to his oldest sister and mother, "The more I learn about how you treated her the more surprised I am that she actually wanted to save the miracle.

"We've all made mistakes," Alma agreed, "But the important part is to learn from them, Mirabel's birthday was only five days ago, it isn't that uncommon to have the quince on a different day. We'll just have to work hard to pull it off as soon as Casita is finished."

"We should give her a proper quince, and a proper room," Julieta agreed, "She really needs to get out of the nursery, and we really shouldn't leave her alone, in case she tries something."

Isabela sighed as the adults started to talk to each other, it sounded like they had this all under control.

"We should throw her a surprise party," Camilo said cheerfully, "Everybody likes a good surprise party."

"I really think that we should talk to Mirabel about this," Julieta insisted, "A lot of the problems we have as a family is that we don't communicate, especially with Mirabel.

…
Mirabel sighed as the last of the children hurried off with their parents. She wondered where Camilo had disappeared too. Dolores had told her that it would be only about half an hour, that had been at least three hours ago.

"Where did your siblings go," she asked Antonio as she scooped him up into her arms and scanned the area, not only was there no sign of Dolores and Camilo, there was no sign of any member of their family, "Typical," Mirabel muttered to herself, rolling her eyes, stuck taking care of the baby while the family is off doing something else, "Come on Tonito, let's get back to the church. Apparently the family has decided that we aren't needed for whatever emergency popped up."

…
The family was still talking about what to do with Mirabel when the door to the church opened and Mirabel herself walked in with Antonio on her hip, "Where did you go?" Mirabel asked, arching an eyebrow, "Dolores just told me that she needed to talk to Camilo for a couple of minutes, three hours ago?"

"Sorry, Mira," Dolores said, "Isabela and I found something in the rubble that we wanted to talk to the family about."

"Oh, I guess I'm not a member of this family then," Mira said, "What did you even find?"

Isabela glanced at Antonio, before saying slowly, "I found a letter addressed to the family, one that you wrote a few days ago."

Mirabel paled as she looked at her sister, then looked at the rest of her family, she wasn't sure what the identical looks on their faces meant, as her mouth opened and closed, "I'm fine," she insisted, "I wrote that in the heat of the moment," she added, "I wasn't planning on actually doing anything."

"Then why were you on the roof?" Dolores asked, "And don't give me the stargazing crap, I know that you were lying when you told me that."

"What are you talking about," Antonio asked confused. What was MIrabel not planning to do, and why was Dolores worried about her being on the roof. Mirabel was on the roof all the time. It was her happy place.

"It's nothing Tonito," Mirabel insisted, "Just Isabela invading my privacy."

"No I didn't," Isabela insisted, "The letter was addressed to the family."

"It was inside my journal!" Mirabel snapped back, "The only way you could have found it if you had gone through it."

"It fell out."

"You would have read the journal if I hadn't stopped you," Dolores pointed out.

"You aren't helping Dolores."

"I think we're suppose to be focusing on Mirabel here," Bruno called out, "She's the one that wrote the letter."

"Why is everyone getting all worked up about a letter?" Antonio demanded.

"I'm fine, I'm right here," Mirabel insisted, "So what. I thought about it, I've never succeeded."

"Your choice of words concern me."

"I said I'm fine," Mirabel snapped, turning on her heels, "I'm done with this conversation."

The church door slammed shut behind her, and Julieta immediately stood up, "I don't trust her to be on her own," she announced following after her youngest.

"What's going on with Mirabel?" Antonio asked.

"It's nothing Antonio," Abuela insisted, "I just, I worry that I messed up so much with Mirabel that the damage is too great to undo. I convinced her that the family doesn't want or need her, and would be better off without her. I didn't mean to. I didn't realize, This is all my fault."
"It's all of our faults," Isabela insisted, "If I was a better Hermana, if I hadn't teased…"

"That wasn't teasing that was bullying," Dolores interupted, "A harmless tease wouldn't leave her in tears."

Isabela winced, "I'll do better I promise," she insisted.

"We all will," Abuela added, "Now all we need to do is get things ready for her party. It will be a little difficult to get everything done while rebuilding Casita and keeping it a secret from Mirabel, but I am sure that we can do it."

"What do we do about her dress, it's ruined?"

"I'll ask Senora Guzman and see if she can salvage it," Abuela insisted, "We'll get her shoes and jewelry, and order a cake. We'll also need a court for her and an escort. Do any of you know who her friends are?"

"I'm her friend," Antonio announced, "And so are Alejandra and Cecilia, and Jauncho," he finished, ticking a finger with each name mentioned.

"What about Marcel?" Isabela asked, "They use to be inseparable."

"No!" Antonio snapped, "She hurt Mira badly! She is a bad person!"

"What do you mean Tonito?" Pepa asked.

"She hurt Mira!" he insisted, eyes a flame, "She made her cry, and she was bleeding, and she laughed at it! She told her bad things, it made her cry, and Marcel laughed," Antonio was crying now, "She hurt Mirabel and laughed!" he sobbed, as Pepa launched forward, gathering her son in her arms.

"Marcel is not allowed anywhere near Mirabel," she insisted, "Don't worry Antonio, she won't hurt Mirabel ever again. Let's change the topic," Pepa ordered, "What about a birthday present, we need a big one."

"That's easy," Luisa insisted, "The one thing she's been asking for for years but we've never done for her, her own room. She's fifteen, she needs her own space."

"Do you think this will make up for everything we've done wrong?" Isabela asked.

"Not even close," Bruno announced, "But it's a good start."

"And it's a surprise, so no telling Mirabel about the party or her room."