Chapter 7: Lingering Doubts

The clock on the wall slowly ticked the seconds away, and there was still no sign of Héctor. It was possible he wouldn't even show that day, and then what? He was not an easy man to find. Once again she forced herself to focus on the accounting book in front of her, her pencil tapping in the margin. Against her better judgment, her eyes again fell to the magazine that her family had accidentally brought to her attention that morning.

Héctor Y La Amante.

No. It couldn't be true.

Her eyes flashed back to the orderly numbers on the page. There were purchases of cowhide and rubber, more than last month which was promising, plus a new Oblong Punches that Julio had requested. There was a small fee for the mechanic to come in and fix the Singer sewing machine. Then there was… there was the...

But what if it was true?

She slumped over the counter and pinched the bridge of her nose. Why was she doing this again? Doubting him, just like before. But then, for so many years, that had been her main belief for why he never came home, thinking that he had run off with another woman. Some nights she lay awake wondering whose bed he was sleeping in, and had imagined him embracing a beautiful, shadowy woman, singing sweet words into her ear. Sometimes, on very lonely nights, she imagined much worse.

That had been wrong; she knew that finally. But those fears had wormed their way into her heart long ago, and there they had festered. That cruel article had only made them flare up, burning and writhing within her. It didn't help that the one time she had brought it up, they had been interrupted by his pretty friend, Maris. Thinking of the loving way they had looked at each other made her hand clench tighter around the pencil, her jaw tightening.

Héctor had said nothing had happened between him and Maris, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something had happened. Something Héctor wasn't saying. Maybe it had been just a small drunken affair, a small mistake many years past. That alone would have been painful but forgivable. But then to see him still so close to her... all the fears of when she was a young woman returned so fast, so easily. Back then, she had even questioned whether Héctor had ever truly loved her, or if she had been a foolish girl too enamored to see the truth. She didn't want to go back to that: to believing the worst of him, to not trusting him. Still, she was surprised just how much it could still hurt after so long. And after all, it had been a very, very long time apart...

A solitary figure walked past the shop window, and something leapt in her chest. But it wasn't him, and she sank back down, cursing herself for being so ridiculous. She wasn't a young girl anymore; she couldn't act like this. It was not the time for weakness, especially with her whole family watching her closer than ever. For perhaps the first time, they were looking at her with either worry or pity in their eyes, and she couldn't bear that. She had to be strong.

Her eyes fell again to the magazine, and she turned it over so she didn't have to see that awful cover. But it didn't stop the echoing whispers in her mind. Could he have fallen in love with another? Could she trust him to tell the truth?

If you loved him, you would have listened.

She bowed her head, closing her eyes and trying to ignore the pain in her heart. This was her chance to do it right. She owed it to him. To both of them.

"Buenos dias!" a familiar voice called out, and she was startled to see Héctor walking into the shop, cheerful as ever and apparently none the wiser to what everyone was reading about him.

"Afternoon, Héctor," Imelda said coolly, folding over the thin binder, her mind surprisingly calm at seeing him. Relief and wariness twisted inside her.

"Wow, long day at the shop?" he asked, his grin fading when Imelda didn't smile back. "Hey, something happen?"

"No, it's nothing, just…" She glanced back at the workshop, aware of the sudden quiet from beyond the open doorway. "Will you walk with me?"

"Sure, of course," he said, clearly confused.

She put away her accounting book, and her eyes lingered on the magazine for a moment before she tucked it into her apron, just before Rosita came and took her spot at the counter. Imelda noticed that she wouldn't look at either of them, and wondered if Héctor picked up on it as well. They went out the front door and walked down the little street and coming to the open space that passed for a park, neither speaking a word the whole way. The place was quiet and nearly empty, just what she had hoped for, yet Imelda didn't immediately speak. Her whole self bristled with anxiety and fear, and she realized she was afraid of whatever he might say. What if it was true? Or what if he denied it and she didn't believe him? No, she had promised herself she would trust him, she just had to remember that.

"All right, what happened?" Héctor said, stepping closer and putting a hand on her shoulder. "You definitely look upset about something. Are you ok? Is this because of Maris? My uh... the girl from a few days ago? I realize that that looked really bad, but—"

"No. It's not that," she said quickly, deciding not to mention how close he was to the heart of the matter, and felt a twinge of anger towards him for mentioning the name of that other woman.

"Then what?"

At first, she didn't answer, strangely restless. She moved to a little wooden bench, painted blue and silver, and sat down, trying to think how best to approach this. All that time spent thinking about when he would arrive, and she hadn't planned for any of it. Héctor sat down beside her, waiting patiently, and still she kept quiet. Absurdly she found that she afraid to bring it up at all, afraid that her worst fears would only be confirmed. But one way or another, she needed to know the truth. Otherwise, they might never be able to move forward.

"Héctor… does the name 'Aida' mean anything to you?"

He jumped at the name, before blinking at her in shock. "Eh? What, uh, what do you mean?"

"Aida. Do you know of… of anyone by that name?" She watched him closely, and felt something tighten around her heart.

"Well, uh… sure," he said, lowering his tensed shoulders and looking confused. "One of my friends was named Aida, actually. A good friend. Why, uh… why do you ask?"

Imelda took out the magazine and handed it to him. As soon as he saw it there was a strange flash across his face, a slight widening of his eyes. Then he frowned, squinting hard at it before finally looking over to her.

"What is this?" he asked, without a trace of humor.

"Read it."

She tried not to fidget while he opened it to the earmarked page, his eyes flitting over the words. As he read a deep frown settled on his face. Then he began to mutter, almost too soft to hear.

"Well, that's not quite… wait, what?... What? That's… Well, I suppose…" Then he gave a little laugh and began to smile. "Guess that's… eh, it's a stretch but… ha! Shameless indeed..."

Finally he sat up straight, his hands dropping to his lap.

"Huh. They really think Aida was my lover. That's… wow."

"So who was she?"

"My roommate," Héctor said as if it was obvious. "Or, well, I was her roommate, since I was the one who moved in with her."

"You mean to tell me that you really lived with this woman?"

"Yeah, it wasn't a secret or anything. And it wasn't just me, there were a few of us living there. Actually, it's strange. They don't mention, uh…" He looked down at the paper, glanced at her, then shook his head. "Ah, never mind. But yeah, we lived together."

"But you two weren't… together?"

Héctor laughed. "No, no, no! Oh, absolutely not. I was married, and she was, uh… not interested. In any case, she was in love with someone else, so it was a double no. Also just... no."

"So you didn't actually share a bed?" She pressed him, remembering her nightmarish visions of him lying in bed with another woman, their bodies pressed tight. "That wasn't true?"

"Oh, as for that... well, I mean, not... not too often. But uh, sometimes. It kinda just happened."

She stared at him, shocked not only by his words but at the casual way he said it, with only an embarrassed little shrug.

"What? You are not telling me you really shared a bed with another woman? And a whore?"

"Hey, hey, it wasn't like that. She wasn't, I mean, it depends how you define it but uh… really, we just slept together. Wait! No! That's not what I meant! I mean we really did just, you know… sleep. Near each other."

He ran a hand down his face, hunching forward. "Oh, I am not explaining this well. But I promise there was nothing between us. Not like that, anyway. We were friends."

She forced herself to take a deep breath, straightening her back. Friends, he said. It certainly sounded like more than that. That article had certainly made it sound like a lot more than that. And he had said the same thing about Maris…

"You… you must have been good friends, then," she said, trying to keep a level head about this, but he was not making it easy. "What about the rest of it? That's not true, right?"

"Uh…" Héctor glanced at the magazine in his lap. "I guess it's pretty true. Mostly. I mean, it's completely wrong and really rude but yeah, it's kinda right."

Imelda looked down at her clasped hands. That was far, far from comforting. But Héctor's mild attitude helped calm her. He didn't seem upset, or ashamed. Not overly so.

"So, how… how long were you…" She bit her lip and reconsidered. "How long did you live together?"

Héctor let out a long breath, squinting upwards.

"Let's see, I moved to Shantytown in… '25? Somewhere around there. Then we met soon after, and then uh... and then some things happened, and soon after that we decided to live together. Although, frankly we only lived in that house for a few months until it burned down. Which was, uh… kinda my fault. After that, we were homeless for a while. That was fun."

"And how exactly was that your fault?" she said, rolling her eyes with a faint smile. Even when they were young he had always been rather leggy and coltish, swinging his arms and legs about as if unsure what to do with them. It wouldn't have been a huge shock if he had accidentally set something on fire. Maybe knocked over a candle, or flicked away a glowing match and didn't pay attention, or forgot a candle late at night.

"Eh, there was this guy- actually someone I used to live with- and he and I got in a fight and so he retaliated by burning her house down. The jerk," Héctor pouted, crossing his arms.

"Wait, what?" she said sharply, bolting upright and staring hard. "You… how… you got into another fight?"

"Ok, but this guy deserved it! Really, he, this guy was…" He was suddenly almost speechless with anger. Then he took a deep breath and lowered his hands with a deep exhale. "He was better off Forgotten, I'll leave it at that."

Imelda was stunned at the sudden change, and the cold, furious look on his face. For him to actually wish for someone to be Forgotten, and especially when he had been so close to the Final Death himself, was disturbing. The man she had married, the man she thought she knew, would never wish that on anyone.

"What on earth did you get in a fight about?"

"Uh… that's… so it started because, um…" He frowned, looking away and apparently thinking hard. "Honestly, that's, uh, that's really complicated. The short of it was that this guy didn't like any of us. Oh, and he was also mad because I stole something from him. Except… hang on, no!" he said, sitting up straight and holding up a finger. "That shouldn't have counted because it wasn't his to begin with! He stole it first, and I just stole it back."

"What!" Imelda said, growing more alarmed. "What did you steal?"

"A rib."

"What? He stole your rib?"

"No, no, it wasn't mine," Héctor said as if that should have been obvious.

"Then… whose rib was it?"

"Uhhhh… let's not worry about that," he said, pointedly looking away.

She was only barely aware of her mouth hanging open as Héctor tapped his fingers on the bench nervously. There was so much wrong with what he was saying, she didn't know where to even begin. He stole a rib? And got into a fight? And he stole a rib?

"Yeah," he said mildly at her lack of response. "There was a lot of stuff happening back then."

She glanced at the magazine still in his hand. They were getting off topic. Was Héctor deliberately distracting her in order to not talk about his 'friend?' His supposed non-lover. Who he was living with. For years. Sharing a home.

"All right, that aside, what's this part about, then?" Imelda said, leaning closer and jabbing a finger at the paper, while Héctor squinted at the type. "How you two walked around without clothes?"

"Ohhh… that. Yeah, uh, ok, about that. We didn't want to get them dirty, so we just… sometimes didn't wear them. Although we usually kept our pants on, to be honest. Or skirt, in her case. Also sometimes we had to, uh, share… clothes." He grimaced a little, then went on before Imelda could ask why the hell were they sharing clothes. "It wasn't often! And usually for a… decent reason. It just wasn't that weird for us. I mean, the second day we met we ended up taking all our clothes off anyway. After that we just got really… ehh, comfortable, you could say."

"Wait… what?" Imelda looked at him, shocked. "What reason could you possibly have for, for…"

She couldn't even bring herself to say the words and grew flustered at the sudden mental image of Héctor and a beautiful woman, side by side and grinning at each other in bare skin. Then she remembered they'd be in bare bones, which somehow made it worse.

Héctor bit his lip. "Uh, you see... we had to go fishing—"

"You stripped to go fishing?"

"Swimming! I meant swimming, heh..." He gave a nervous laugh as she glared at him. "I'm serious! It was pretty funny in hindsight. Terrifying, but, funny. Ok, mostly terrifying. We were complete strangers and already half-naked, and Aida kept yelling at me to jump in, so I did. That's, uh, actually what they meant about me almost drowning. To be fair though, that was my fault for not knowing how to swim."

She just gaped at him, while he only looked mildly embarrassed. She had no idea what he was talking about and was growing increasingly frustrated. It wasn't even possible to drown- they were already dead! But, more importantly, he was saying it was all true. She looked away, trying not to jump to conclusions, but he was saying that most of it was true. Perhaps worse… she had a terrible feeling he was hiding something. Again.

"Imelda, I know this sounds crazy, and I'm doing a terrible, terrible job explaining it, but Aida was only a friend. A good friend, but—"

"You were living with her for years. You shared a bed." She wished her voice wouldn't tremble so much.

"Yes, that's... true. But just for sleeping, and it was better than the alternative. When I first met her, I was living with a bunch of criminals. I mean some really terrible people."

She shot him a withering look. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Uh, well, yeah?" he said defensively. "I wasn't living there long. Just... Just a few months. Believe me, I was desperate to get out of there."

So desperate you jumped into another woman's bed, Imelda thought with a sickening fury.

"Imelda?"

"I... I need to think. I know you were alone for years but this..."

He stood suddenly, surprising her before he knelt down and took her hands in his. "Imelda, in all my life, and death, I have never loved another woman but you. I swear it. Please… believe me."

She looked into his eyes, and they were true and earnest. A variety of emotions swarmed within her, familiar lingering doubts and fears she had carried throughout her life, and well into her death. That he had stopped loving her. That he had abandoned their family for another. That she would get hurt again.

Except she had promised herself, promised both of them, that they would give this a second chance. With a deep breath, she forced those worries down.

"You swear it?" she asked, and something flickered in his soft, brown eyes.

I swear it," he said, gripping her hands tight.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, keenly aware of the solid presence of him, something she had missed for so many years.

"All right. I trust you."

She owed him that much. And perhaps one day she might even believe the words she had just spoken without being weighed down by those fears.

"Thank you," he said with a grateful sigh, and looked especially old and worn as he pushed himself off one knee and slowly sat beside her again, glancing at the magazine on her lap. "You know, someday I'd like to tell you the real story, not that garbage they wrote. It's… it's actually pretty funny. Sort of. Ok, not really but—"

"No, that's all right." She didn't think she could handle him talking so much about this woman, about their time together, especially with the pain still so sharp in her heart. In truth, she hoped he would forget her, and focus on his life, and remember that he was speaking to his wife.

"It's getting late," she said, standing up and smoothing back her hair. "I need to get back to the shop." Frankly, she also needed some time away from him. Just a little time to wrap her mind around everything.

"Shall I walk you back?" he asked, also standing, with a cautious, overly-polite look that annoyed her for some reason.

"No, I'll be fine." She could walk back just fine on her own. Besides, she wasn't keen to have her family also find out that the article was true and have it confirmed by him.

He only nodded, not pushing the subject. "If it's all right, I'd like to come visit in the next day or so. Maybe in the evening?"

"That'd be fine," she said quickly before she could second-guess herself, and became aware of the growing chill between them. Had she been too harsh? Subtly she glanced at him, his head bowed and a somber look on his face. Then he met her eyes, and she saw again the gentle smile she had so missed for all those years.

"Then, good night Imelda." He leaned forward and gave her a tender kiss on her cheek.

Her lips twitched up a little, her heart softening a fraction more. "Good night."

As he walked away, still with a noticeable limp, there was a pang of regret for seeing him leave. She noticed the low bend of his head, and something about it was hauntingly familiar. But he would be back soon, and next time she would be in a better frame of mind, and they would move forward. No matter what, he was still the man she had married.

Yet… those old doubts lingered.

There had been so much time apart, and there was so much unknown between them. He had lived for years with another woman, compared to their five years of marriage. It reminded her yet again that she still knew so little about his afterlife, and every new thing she learned made her afraid of what else he was hiding, and she suspected that despite his assurances, he was hiding something.

Walking back alone, her mind filled with thoughts of him, she wished, desperately, that she could simply open her heart again, and trust him.

Author Notes:

So hope that cleared some things up! Haha... ha...

Yeah, these two need to work on their communication skills, But Hector isn't ready to start spilling, and Imelda has good reason to be nervous, but they'll figure it out eventually.

Thanks for reading! Reviews highly appreciated!