"Do you think this is going to make it stop?" Julieta asked carefully, her eyes once again fixed on the scars vandalizing her daughters delicate arm.
"No." Mirabel shook her head. "It just puts everything on pause."
And she can feel it, Julieta - the world has stopped. Nothing outside that door could matter more than what is happening right in front of her. She doesn't want to ask, but she does anyway. "Could you stop? If you needed to." Julieta probes. She assumes that Mirabel doesn't want to stop, and she hates that this is an assumption she feels safe in making. This awfulness doubles down as Mirabel takes her time to ponder the question. Could she stop?
"I don't know." Mirabel says. "I don't think so." She hadn't ever really thought about stopping. Julieta's words fall over each other as she goes to answer. Something stirs in Mirabel, seeing her mother speechless.
"How did we get here?" Julieta says out loud. There's that solemn feeling again, where the world feels so small and so big at the same time. She's asking anyone who could be listening, whether they are far far away or in the next room, she wants answers. She hates to feel so lonely in this.
"Whatever gift awaits will be just as special as you"
The room is so gently quiet, a small heart full of hope is sitting next to her much wiser, older and smarter counterpart. A smile, full of pride and sunlight is shining down on the child's face. She can't help but swing her feet that are much too far from the floor. There is a rattle from the floorboards, and the house comes alive with her excitement. Her shoes skip towards her, and with a mighty jump Mirabel is ready to take on the world and meet her miracle. It feels as though the world is beaming alongside her.
This was where it started. When the miracle that gave them their beloved casita marched a little girl to her first failure. Crowds had rolled in, expectations had sky rocketed. Everything had gone so smoothly, the Encanto aided that. It had helped her every step of the way until that small outstretched hand clasped the doorknob. Put on a pedestal at the top of the stairs, the whole town got a clear view of a little girl's wish disappearing right before her. The miracle absentmindedly watched the lights disappear from her family members eyes, and disregarded the series of disappointed grumbles and questioning murmurs from onlookers. Through all the magic and wonder that had long followed Mirabel, not once did the Encanto that had adored her family shield her from the embarrassment. Not once had it stalled the ceremony in anticipation of what was to come.
This miracle exiled a child. Exiles. Mirabel, still had no door, she still had no gift.
"I just wanted to make the family proud." Mirabel mumbled wearily.
"You do." Julieta gasped. "You make me proud every single day."
Mirabel looked to the ground, unconvinced. She was saying it without really meaning it. Here was Mirabel, sitting on the floor in a dark room with her tear stained mother and a scarred arm. If any occasion warranted lying to make things better, this would be it. The disheartened looks in her Abeula's eyes when she so much as moved spoke volumes. How her relatives cringed as Mirabel tried to be helpful, due to the effort she had to put in to try and match up. The Encanto took a close look at her on the top of that staircase, it knew she wasn't good enough and retreated. How could anyone be proud of her? She wasn't moving mountains, she wasn't making flowers grow or healing people. Her gift? Well she had a knack for making peoples lives more difficult.
"I mean it, Mirabel. You are unbelievably special. This family is better for having you in it" Julieta warmly smiled, a smile she struggled to muster. She couldn't stop searching Mirabel's eyes for understanding. She wished to a higher power that her arepas might soon provide psychological healing. This was a miracle they worked hard to continue earning, now she too sat here secretly wondering how it could be that Mirabel hadn't got a gift yet. She was one the hardest working people she knew. Maternally, Mirabel was a miracle in herself. Her heart knew that to be true, and she wished her daughter saw herself the way that her mothers heart saw her. But her head, the part of her that kept her awake at night revaluating everything, had her questioning the very foundations their family had found solice on.
"Not true" Mirabel croaked. She drew a shaky breath, and staggered on "everyone keeps saying - and I've tried to tell myself too - I'm just as special as you guys" her voice pitched higher as Mirabel fought through tears once more. "but, the more I look at my life and where I am right now - where I'll always be. It's just not true." She shook her head more vigorously as though fighting off such thoughts, as though it was barbaric to even contemplate it. "I was in denial, I think I only told myself I was special like everyone else, because it was the only thing I had left" She glanced to the door, wondering if Dolores was listening, and what Isabela might make of all this. "My family is special, and well I'm in the family" She shrugged, remembering the collection of beady eyes that looked up to her so highly, and the myriad of questions that followed asking her how she fit into the Madrigal miracle. She never could answer them. "That I was somehow special by association, that relation was enough, we were more than our miracle." Her eyes fluttered again as tears rolled further down her cheeks. "But it's not enough, no.." With a large gulp of air, Mirabel hastily rubbed her eyes, the stark redness almost glowed in the contrast of her green glasses. "I won't ever be able to serve the community as readily as anyone else. I won't ever match up to you all." She said matter-of-factly. Her eyes glossed over as she continued "I try, I really do. But it doesn't work" With finality, Mirabel looked up at Julieta. "Encanto closed the door on me for a reason - and I think it's time I start listening to it. I need to stop trying."
Faults quickly erupted in Julieta's heart. Unbeknownst to Mirabel, the combined pain of hers and her mothers pain was being mirrored in the walls of their home. With a low and quiet grumbling, concrete dust ever so lightly scattered onto floor tiles, Casita would clear this up by morning light.
Scars come in many forms, the house was beginning to crumble under the tension. A drop in an ocean, the cracks in her bedroom wall that Mirabel would later find could only evoke further panic and upset. It wasn't the tidal wave that Mirabel had once wished for to take her far away from home, but it was as self destructive as she felt. Perhaps there was something in that.
