People seemed to like our little visit to the Land of the Living to see how things are progressing. That's great to know. But I'm pretty sure you will all be pretty excited about this one.
Everything seemed jumbled, but he could feel his mind gradually settling down. His memories calmed and stilled. And as it straightened out, he could feel himself drifting towards consciousness.
The last thing he properly remembered, before everything became a confusing and chaotic mess, was a growing numbness, exhaustion, and the sensation of gentle hands holding onto his as everything faded away.
The first thing that Héctor felt as he slowly woke up was a gentle hand holding onto his.
Other sensations gradually crept in. A dull ache filled every bone in his body. Not that pain wasn't familiar to him by now, but this was a new form of it. Every joint felt completely stiff and immobile. He felt impossibly heavy and tired. And there was something tightly bound around his arm, his leg, and maybe one of his ribs.
But Héctor slowly felt other things, more pleasant things. Soft things that wrapped around him and supported him. It took him a few minutes to recognize the fact that he was in an actual bed under a blanket. It had been a very long time since he'd been on something so comfortable.
Questions started flickering through his tired mind. Where was he? It wasn't his ramshackle little house in Shantytown. Héctor could tell that much. Where was he that would have a soft and cozy bed? Why did everything hurt? What happened? Did he fall off a building or something bad enough to rattle his bones without breaking them? Héctor couldn't feel the sharper pain of a fresh fracture. Just a constant dull ache that made moving seem like a bad idea.
One of the questions that rattled around his skull had an answer, even if it didn't make sense. Héctor knew the hand holding onto his. It certainly wasn't Chicharrón or Tía Chelo or Tía Gabriela or Primo Juan or any of the others. This was someone else. Someone that made even less sense.
Héctor slowly managed to open his eyes. He didn't recognize the ceiling of the dimly-lit room. He also didn't immediately recognize the dresser or the wardrobe across the room, though his hat seemed to be hanging over there. A few photographs did catch his eyes, the occasional familiar face staring back at him from among the people in those captured moments. But it wasn't what he was looking for.
Turning his eyes slowly, Héctor noticed an open door that seemed to connect to a dark hallway, another door made of glass that lead out into the night, a vanity, and a bedside table with an oil lamp providing the dim light. But mostly he focused on the beautiful skeleton holding his hand, sleeping lightly in a chair next to the bed.
Imelda.
If it hadn't been gone for decades by that point, Héctor's heart would have stopped. His breath caught in his ribcage, tangled up by surprise and timid hope. This couldn't be real. It must be a dream. And yet…
"That's for murdering the love of my life."
Imelda was holding onto him. She was with him. He didn't know why or how, but she was. Even as his mind fought against exhaustion and tried to sort out everything, he remembered enough to hope that Imelda wouldn't immediately chase him out the door.
Not that Héctor would be able to go anywhere very quickly if she did try to chase him off. Everything still ached too much and even keeping his eyes opened was draining what little strength that he seemed to possess. Whatever happened, whatever strange and barely remembered circumstances brought him to this place, left him unimaginably weak. Hopefully she would take some pity on him. Her gentle hold suggested that she might.
Hope, even an impossible hope, was important. Hope kept him moving and struggling and striving over the years. Hope kept him from giving up in the face of countless failures. For so long, frail and impossible hope was all that Héctor had.
And the way that Imelda held onto him and his muddle memories of her acting warmer towards him gave Héctor a small spark of renewed hope for something that he'd believed to be long since gone.
An irresistible, overwhelming, and long-denied urge rose up. He shouldn't do it. He shouldn't try it. But even if he shouldn't risk it, Héctor couldn't stop himself.
Imelda was holding his hand. He desperately wanted to hold his wife's hand in return.
His hand didn't immediately respond, the stiff joints barely feeling capable of movement. And when his fingers finally tried to close around hers, the dull ache sharpened into real pain.
Moving: a very bad idea.
But while his hand hurt from the small movement, the pain radiating all the way up to his elbow before fading back to the dull ache, it did have one positive effect. Imelda stirred drowsily, her head raising slightly as her eyes blinked open. Her gaze drifted towards their clasped hands before her expression shifted, realizing what she was seeing. She then immediately focused on his face, stiffening when her eyes met his.
"Imelda?" he said, his voice impossibly weak and tired to the point where he barely recognized it as his own.
He also discovered that moving his jaw to speak also hurt. What exactly happened to him?
"Héctor," whispered Imelda. She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath, relief etched on her face as clear as her facial markings. As she opened them again, she continued, "How do you feel, Héctor?"
With how his body ached and unable to resist the most obvious response, he said, "Like death warmed over."
His makeshift family in Shantytown would have laughed. With mortality always so close in their thoughts, they ended up with a bit of a morbid sense of humor at times. But from how she flinched and her face twisted up at his words, Imelda clearly didn't appreciate it quite as much.
"Don't you dare joke about this," said Imelda sternly. "Not about this."
He hurt her. Again. Somehow he hurt her again. Guilt wrapped around his chest like talons, squeezing and crushing his long-absent heart. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he managed to do the last thing he wanted and hurt Imelda again with a few short words.
Would he ever stop hurting those he loved?
"Lo siento," he mumbled, his gaze dropping down to the quilt. "I feel… tired and sore… Like…"
He trailed off, unable to find the words to explain and downplay it. He didn't want to risk saying the wrong thing again and hurting her somehow. After a moment her hand reached over and cupped his jaw. He closed his eyes for just a moment, savoring the tender contact, before opening them again. When he still didn't look back at her, gentle pressure coaxed Héctor to raise his head. The small movement sent a sharp pain jolting down his vertebrae and caused him to look at her again. At least he managed to hide the wince from her.
"Do you even remember what happened?" asked Imelda softly.
"Not everything," he admitted. "My head's a bit muddled. I don't even know where I am."
The hand against his face pulled away slowly. Héctor immediately missed the contact. But at least she didn't let go of his hand. After so long with no contact from her, he would treasure whatever Imelda would offer him.
"What do you remember?" she asked quietly.
He closed his eyes, trying to sort through his jumbled memories. Even the effort made his exhaustion worse.
"I remember… trying to cross the bridge again. Chicharrón… disappearing." He allowed himself a small moment of grief for the loss, though they'd both known it was approaching. "I remember… seeing Ernesto and…"
Héctor's voice died off as he opened his eyes. A wave of anger, sorrow, and horror rolled over him. It couldn't be true. And yet…
"He murdered me," he said, almost inaudibly. A little louder, though still weak, Héctor said, "I tried to come home and he poisoned me."
She nodded, squeezing his hand a little, and said, "Sí. With arsenic. But don't worry about him right now, Héctor. Ernesto is facing the consequences for his crimes." Her expression briefly became something vicious before softening again. "What else do you remember?"
"You," said Héctor. "I… I apologized to you."
But not enough. He would never be able to apologize enough to her or Coco to make up for everything. He would never be able to express how sorry he was. It would never be enough.
"And I remember… you hitting Ernesto with your boot. And calling me 'the love of your life.' Then you were singing." He closed his eyes briefly, smiling at the memory of her beautiful voice on the stage and then the brief moment afterwards where he held her in his arms. "And… we were running out of time? Something was wrong. I… don't know. And… Miguel!" His eyes flew open. "What happened? Is he all right? Did he make it back?"
"Miguel is safe," Imelda said quickly. "It's all right. He's safe. We sent him home in time."
Héctor relaxed at her reassurances. Miguel was safe. He had a wonderful and amazing great-great-grandson, a tiny piece of family. Héctor had liked him from the moment they met, even before they realized the truth. And he made it home. He didn't fail Miguel. For once, he didn't ruin everything for his family.
But there was something else that prickled around the edges of his mind. There was something important. A reason for why he was lying in a strange bed, exhausted and his bones aching. A fuzzy memory of a sharp and cold pain washing over him, of increasing weakness, and of flashes of golden-orange light…
"Oh," said Héctor quietly. The realization left him numb and feeling detached from reality. "The Final Death… How did I…?"
"You came close," she said. Imelda turned her head, staring at the small collection of objects on the bedside table. "You were nearly forgotten, but Coco must have remembered at the last moment. Miguel found a way to remind her. It's the only explanation."
She wasn't looking at him anymore, but her grip on his hand felt tighter. It was a bit of a mixed message. But he couldn't seem to focus too much. He still felt a bit muddled and too tired to think very hard. There was relief. Relief that Coco remembered, relief that his family was safe after everything, and relief that he managed to survive the night. Héctor had come to terms with his approaching Final Death, that he would soon be gone. He'd accepted what was happening and just hoped to see his daughter before the end, but that didn't mean he was eager to disappear. But as much relief as he felt, there was also the feeling of being overwhelmed.
He had time again. He didn't know how long that it might be, but it was more than he expected. And Imelda was with him. She wasn't turning him away.
"I… I can't forgive you... But I will help you."
Pity and sympathy wasn't enough to rebuild or fix what he broke decades ago. Pity and sympathy for a dying man might be enough to coax a little kindness and the shadow of affection from her though. Imelda wasn't a cruel woman. She would help him even if she could never forgive him for a lifetime of pain and loneliness.
But she wasn't letting go. Imelda was still holding his hand. Even the smallest sign of affection was more than he expected.
It was enough to give Héctor a little hope. Perhaps he would get to see her even after this. Perhaps her past hatred and pain was beginning to heal. Perhaps someday she would trust him again.
Even if he could have nothing else, he would like to have her trust again. That would be enough.
His eyes drifting briefly to the darkness on the other side of the glass door, Héctor said quietly, "That explains why I'm so tired, but still here. I guess I slept all day."
"It's more than that, Héctor," she said, a strange tone to her voice that sent him searching his memories to try and identify. "Día de Muertos was a little over two weeks ago."
"Two weeks?" said Héctor, unable to wrap his mind around it. "It couldn't be that long."
Still not looking at him, Imelda said, "It has. I don't think you realize how close that you came to the Final Death. We didn't think you would survive. And when you were remembered at the very last second, we still didn't know if you would recover. It took days for you to show any sign of improvement."
As unsettling as her description might be, the faint crack in Imelda's voice was more uncomfortable to him. His hand tightened a little more, the attempt to offer her minor comfort worth the brief spike of pain.
"You nearly died, Héctor. Only a miracle… Only Coco and Miguel kept it from happening. And you knew it was coming." She stared at the bedside table, but tension crept into Imelda's face and posture. "You knew that you were running out of time. You knew that the Final Death was close. But I didn't know."
Héctor knew Imelda. At least, he once knew her. Decades ago, when they were both young and together, he could recognize her thoughts by the smallest hint in her voice or her face. Once upon a time, he knew her moods better than he knew the streets of Santa Cecilia. Even with the calm exterior, he could see the cracks of worry and hurt. And darker emotions that didn't belong on his wife's face.
"Imelda…"
"I didn't know," she continued. "I suppose I should have expected that. After what I told you the last time that I saw you, that I wanted you to stay away and forbidding you to come near my family, it makes sense for you to keep your distance. But not a word… Not even a hint. You were dying and I had no idea. And I wouldn't have known if Miguel didn't come here. You would have died that night and I would have never known. Because you didn't even try to tell me what was happening."
Starting to realize where she was going with this discussion and not liking it even slightly, Héctor said, "Imelda, it's not—"
"On what could have been your final day, you didn't even try to say goodbye," she said.
She wasn't looking at him and he didn't know if she heard him. It seemed like she was talking more to the oil lamp and the bottle on the bedside table now than she was to him.
"Maybe I would have tried to turn you away, but you were always determined and creative when something was important to you. You could have even tried leaving a note. But you didn't try."
No, no, no. This was wrong. Héctor couldn't let her follow that trail of thought. She couldn't think what she seemed to be thinking. This wasn't right. He had to make her understand.
"I don't know if you thought I wouldn't listen."
"Imelda—"
"Or that I wouldn't care that you were so close to the Final Death. I am the one who caused it."
"I don't—"
"Or maybe after everything that I said or did, you no longer cared enough to make the effort. Why waste what little time that you had left? Especially on me? Why risk being hurt again?"
This was wrong. Frustration and guilt flickered past the exhaustion and aching pain. He couldn't let her think this. He had to fix this. He couldn't ignore her distant expression and her fragile voice, the one that he could hear slowly cracking. He had to convince her. He had to make Imelda understand.
"That's not—"
"Whatever the reason, I suppose it's my own doing. After everything I did and how much I hurt you, why would you want me to know? I drove you away. I didn't deserve a final word or closure. You had no reason to care or even think about the woman who couldn't even trust her husband and turned against him so easily." She was definitely not speaking to him anymore, her gaze too detached and her voice too dark. "Why else would you not even try to see me on what could have been your last day?"
"Because I was a coward!" Héctor snapped, his voice as loud as his exhaustion would allow.
His frustration and desperation caused him to react as he normally would, regardless of the stiffness in every joint, sitting up sharply and gesturing as he spoke. But—
Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea!
Pain raced across his entire body, the dull ache replaced by intense agony. His bones felt like they were tearing apart into broken splinters. The sensation consumed him, knocking the breath from his chest and ripping away all rational thought. His vision went white from the pain and sharp ringing filled his skull to a deafening volume, blocking out all other sights and sounds.
Make it stop. Please, make it stop.
It hurt. Too much pain. Everything hurt. Agony flooded his body, intense and inescapable. He instinctively wanted to curl into a ball to try and escape it, but he couldn't get any of his limbs to respond at the moment. His head swam as he barely clung to consciousness. Time grew a little fuzzy as pain overtook everything.
No more. Make it stop. Please.
Slowly the ringing in his head began to diminish. He could make out the sounds of strained gasps over the noise filling his skull. He didn't immediately recognize that they were coming from him. Unfortunately, the overwhelming agony was even slower to recede.
"—tor? Can you hear me?" Through the dull ringing roar, he could faintly make out Imelda's voice coming from a long distance away. "Héctor!"
His eyes were pressed shut and his teeth were clenched tight. When did he do that? He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. While initially blurry, the pain-induced whiteness gradually faded enough for him to make out a few things again.
Imelda was right in front of him, her face only a few inches from his. Her expression was twisted by intense worry and guilt. One of her arms had wrapped around to support him, a hand resting against his back and keeping him from collapsing backwards. Her other hand was against his cheekbone to keep his head steady.
Keeping still and steady sounded like a wonderful idea. He wanted to keep… not moving.
When she noticed him trying to meet her eyes, Imelda's face relaxed slightly and she said, "Can you hear me, Héctor? Look at me. I've got you." Her thumb moved slightly, brushing against one of his facial markings. "Does it still hurt?"
"S-sí," he hissed through his teeth.
His response calmed her a little more, her eyes closing briefly as she muttered "idiota" in a relieved voice. He could barely focus on her voice through the remaining noise in his skull and the agony in his bones. But he tried. He needed to tell her something, convince her of something.
What was he about to say before he tried moving?
"All right," said Imelda quietly. "Hold on a moment."
His eyes slipped shut as her hand left his face. He wobbled tiredly, but managed to hold onto consciousness and stay upright. The hand still on his back was probably mostly responsible for that, but it was still an accomplishment at the moment.
Héctor heard her pouring something over on the bedside table with her free hand. The bottle? And she was talking. Calm and reassuring, but she was facing away from him. He couldn't make out the words before she fell silent again. But at least the ringing was almost gone from his head. After a moment, he felt Imelda shift again.
"Héctor."
He slowly opened his eyes again. Imelda held a small glass of some reddish-brown liquid in front of him. She gave him a small encouraging nod.
"Drink this. It'll help with the pain," she said gently. "It's going to take time for you to recover. It's all right. Just take your time and drink this."
She brought it to his mouth and he obediently swallowed the bitter medicine, a sensation of coolness sliding down. It slowly started spreading and easing some of the sharp pain. Imelda set the glass back down again as the worst of the agony ebbed to something a little less all-consuming.
"Moving," he mumbled. "Bad idea."
"Clearly," said Imelda. "Let's get you settled back down again before you do something else dumb."
She leaned closer so that she could reach behind Héctor while still supporting him. He couldn't see what she was doing, but he did notice that it resulted in her holding him against her simple and comfortable dress to keep him steady. The embrace could almost be called a hug, one lasting longer than the spontaneous moment after her performance. He leaned against her, wishing that he had enough strength to wrap his arms around Imelda. Well, the strength and a lack of pain.
Distantly, Héctor wondered where his shirt vanished. Her dress, clearly chosen for comfort while she watched over him, didn't seem like much fabric between them.
As she finished her preparations, Imelda started laying him back down. The new sharp agony from moving again fought against the cooling sensation of the medicine trying to ease his pain. His eyes and teeth were clenched tight until Héctor felt his skull against the pillow again. She'd apparently rearranged it to prop him up slightly, somehow finding the perfect angle to be comfortable enough to sleep while still letting him look at her more easily.
Héctor remained perfectly still on the soft surface for a few moments, trying to let his shaky breathing to settle down and for the medicine to regain some ground. Surviving the Final Death didn't seem to be much easier than the lead up to it. He knew he wouldn't be able to cling to consciousness much longer. He was already pushing his meager energy to its limits.
But he had to tell Imelda. She needed to understand.
"I was a coward," he repeated tiredly. "I'm sorry."
"Easy now. It's all right. Get some rest," said Imelda, pulling the quilt around him carefully. Her voice stirred memories of her comforting Coco when a high fever left the girl tired and miserable while leaving her parents desperately worried and trying to hide it from her. "It's… been a long two weeks. I shouldn't have said anything when you've barely woken up. I didn't mean to upset you and I'm sorry. Forget about that nonsense. I was mostly talking to myself anyway."
"I was a coward. That's why I didn't want to tell you what was happening," he said, his voice as steady as he could manage with the circumstances. "I was scared to try and tell you. I knew that if I could get a glimpse of Coco across the bridge, I would only get to see her. I wouldn't get to apologize or hug her or tell her how much her papá loved her, but… I could pretend. I could pretend that I didn't fail her or break her heart or break my promise. And since she wouldn't see or hear me, I… I wouldn't hear Coco tell me how much she hates me for leaving."
"She doesn't hate you, Héctor," said Imelda firmly. "Coco never hated you."
While her reassurances warmed him slightly, Héctor continued, "But most importantly, seeing her one last time wouldn't hurt her. She wouldn't know that I finally came home to her, but she also wouldn't be hurt again." His eyes dropped towards the quilt. "I didn't want to hurt her. Or you. That's why I didn't try to tell you how close to the Final Death I was."
Maybe it was the medicine, the easing of the pain in his body, or the simple exhaustion, but Héctor felt himself starting to drift back towards sleep. His eyes tried to slip closed again. But he kept talking. She needed to understand.
"If I told you… I don't blame you. It wasn't your fault. You didn't know," Héctor said, trying to find the words in his increasingly-groggy mind. "And you wouldn't be happy about it. I know better than that, Imelda. If you listened, you'd blame yourself. You tried to. I couldn't… I couldn't hurt you again like that. Telling you that I was fading would hurt you. And I was too much of a coward to face you with that news. I couldn't bear it."
She was silent for a moment. Héctor forced himself to open his eyes again. He managed to catch a glimpse of her face, but was too tired to focus on her expression.
"It's all right," said Imelda quietly. "I can understand why you would want to spend your last night trying to see our daughter. And if you were afraid of hurting me, I suppose I can understand why you didn't want to see me."
He hesitated a moment. Then he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
"You closed the workshop about midday, just as you do every year to give your family time to prepare for Día de Muertos. You were wearing a black dress, a more practical one than the purple outfit you wore that night. But still breathtaking."
Héctor heard a soft gasp, but he needed to focus on forcing out the tired words and wavering thoughts. It was getting harder. Even the dull ache that the medicine hadn't completely banished yet couldn't keep him aware much longer.
"You told me that you didn't want anything to do with me, but… Sometimes you would pass by the front window and there's an alleyway across the street where… Even if I couldn't bring myself to try and tell you, I wanted to at least see you. Even if it was from a distance. And I could pretend…"
He smiled weakly. He could pretend that it was like when he was barely more than a child, watching her from across the plaza. Before Imelda started talking back to him. Before he earned her softer smile, her trust, and her affection. Before they built a life together. And before he broke everything and hurt her so deeply, doing exactly what her papá always claimed he would.
Watching from a distance was his only choice. That way, he wouldn't cause her any more grief. And he... wouldn't have to face the damage that he did to those he loved again. He was too much of a coward to face another heart-breaking confrontation with Imelda in his final hours.
And yet it happened anyway, with Miguel pleading his case when he couldn't bring himself to speak more than a long-overdue apology.
"I shouldn't have… You wanted me to stay away… But if you didn't see me… I thought it'd be all right… And not telling you that I was… It was easier... It didn't hurt you or…"
Héctor's voice trailed off as his thoughts seemed to dissolve away. He thought he felt a hand ghosting across his face, brushing back his hair. The sensation stirred memories, but it was also light enough that it could be his imagination. The last of his fragile strength seemed to slip through his fingers. He couldn't hold onto consciousness any longer.
Before he completely slipped under again, Héctor thought he heard soft humming. He let it lull him deeper into the approaching sleep.
And so Héctor finally wakes up! And then falls back to sleep. But he's improving. Healing takes time.
"Rubato" indicates that the section is flexible in tempo. Rubato tempo would translate literally as "stolen time" (which is something that Héctor and Imelda are certainly familiar with). It allows a song to have expressive and rhythmic freedom by a slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor.
But more importantly, we actually see the word "rubato" in the film. In the flashback, when Ernesto is flipping through the songbook to "Remember Me," the sheet music states that it is to be played "rubato, simply, tenderly." I had to use it as a chapter title eventually.