Héctor wasn't the only one that was having nightmares.

One evening, while the whole house slept, Imelda had a dream. It started out very lovely.
There was a huge wedding at the church. Imelda dressed in white and walked down the aisle toward Hector. Oh how she loved that man! As soon as she got up to the altar, she immediately whispered to his ear, "I do!" Then she kissed him on the lips. Rice and flowers swarmed around them. When they pulled away, Imelda found herself not in a wedding dress but in her usual purple dress with an apron and Héctor dressed up in a while blouse with a yellow jacket and brown pants. They were surrounded by four children inside the kitchen. The first child was Coco in pigtails. The second child was a little boy with glasses. A third youth was a boy with short hair. The last one was a girl donning a baby blue dress and a braid. Imelda smiled, feeling that her family is complete.

Suddenly, the scenery of the room changed from their kitchen to a hospital room. One of their daughters was lying in the hospital bed, looking very sick.

"Señor and Señora Rivera, I have bad news," said the doctor emotionlessly. "Your daughter has cancer and there is nothing we could do about it."

"Doctor, can't you do anything?" Héctor pleaded.

"Sorry, we have tried everything but nothing has worked on her. Not even chemotherapy. Perhaps you should take her home and let her live life to the fullest on her last days."

"No, doctor, do something!" Héctor pleaded. "Or else I'll find some other doctor!"

"Maybe we should," Imelda said sadly. "There is nothing else we can do,"

"What are you saying?" Héctor glared daggers at his wife. "That we should give up on her!? What kind of a mother are you?"

Imelda saw his face snarling in anger and lifting his hand up in the air. Imelda was beginning to feel frightened. Since when does her husband ever hit her? Before he could strike her, Imelda woke up.

She sat up and took deep breaths. She glanced beside her husband. He was sleeping and looked relaxed. It was only just a dream, Imelda thought, relieved. She laid back on her side of the bed and fell back asleep. She had no more dreams for the rest of the night.

The next evening or so, Imelda had another dream that was worse than the first one!

It started out peaceful. Héctor was onstage besides a mariachi band and playing the guitar to her. The song was dedicated to her only. At first, Imelda was enjoying the performance. Then she noticed that one of the stage props, a large church bell, hovered above the band. The rope held the church bell. The church bell was so heavy and the rope was so thin that the rope snapped into two. The bell began to fall!

"Watch out!" Imelda cried. But it was too late; one of the mariachi men got crushed to death by the giant prop. The music stopped. Everybody's jaws dropped. Héctor looked appalled. There was a moment of silence before the mariachi spoke. "That's it!" he cried, throwing his guitar to the ground. "No más música!" The audience gasped. No more music!?

Then, the dream switched from a stage to the living room of their household where her husband snatched musical instruments away from their crying children. Next, the dream switched to the kitchen where she sees her family celebrating one of their children's' birthday. Her son looked completely miserable.

"Why do I have to celebrate my birthday on Día dos Muertos?" the boy whined. "I wasn't even born on that day!"

"Because I said so!" Héctor barked. "Besides I am too busy thinking about my friend's death more than your birthday!"

He heard the doorbell ringing and ran to get it.

Imelda tried to cheer him up by singing "Feliz Cumpleaños a ti," to him. She quickly stopped when she saw her husband reappearing into the room with a short man with a briefcase.

"Feliz cumpleaños mijo!" said Héctor, smiling way too big. "I got a present for you!"

"Is it a guitar?" the boy asked hopefully.

"No, you are going to a stuffy boarding school and learn how to become a boring businessman!"

"Que!?"

"You will love it; it's a marvelous career for you!"

"Héctor," Imelda began. "That's not what our son wants-"

"Cállate woman!" Héctor barked at his wife.

Before the woman could tell him off, the dream changed again.

She found herself at the plaza, watching one of her boys perform onstage by playing a guitar.

Imelda and the audience were enjoying the performance, until they heard someone shouting offstage. Imelda wondered who was that person that was yelling like a donkey until a blur of someone dashed onstage and crashed into her son! In the process of the crash, the guitar got destroyed. When the tussle ended, Imelda was appalled to see who it was that attacked her son and broke his guitar into two: It was Héctor!

The dream changed from the plaza to the cemetery. Imelda saw Hector yelling at their frightened children for playing music. "How could you play music in the plaza?" The scary man yelled. "Don't you care that music killed my partner?"

"We wanted to play music!" the children cried.

"I ought to punish you all for playing music behind my back!" Héctor shouted.

"You señor, are the worst father-in-law I have ever met!" said the American wife of his eldest son. "You are not coming over for Thanksgiving or Christmas!"

"I don't want to be in this family!" The birthday boy cried.

"Me neither!" Coco and her sister shouted.

"Shut up!" Héctor shouted, his hair turning gray. "Don't you respect me? Don't you care about my feelings?"

"Héctor stop this nonsense!" Imelda shouted. "Trying to ruin everything, aren't we? Why are you doing this?"

Héctor turned to her with an angry snarl in his voice. His gray hair was now starting to turn white.

"And you!" he screamed at her. "How dare you let our children play music behind my back despite my wishes! Show me some respect, will you? Don't you care that I hate music?"

Imelda couldn't understand. What happened to that sweet man she fell in love with? Why was he abusing her and the children? How did she get stuck being married to this monster? This was not what she planned when she divorced Ernesto! Did she just jump from one frying pan into another? The more her second husband yelled, the whiter his hair became. Imelda couldn't take it anymore! She covered her ears to block out all the noise and gave a blood curling scream.

She woke up in a cold sweat, panting. She knew it was a dream but she was still shaken by it. Hector groaned and moved a bit but Imelda flinched. Instead of cuddling next to him for comfort, Imelda arose and ran out of the bedroom. She couldn't bear to sleep next to him! Sleeping with her daughter in the nursery sounded like a safe option.

At the sound of the door closing, Héctor opened his eyes. "Imelda?" She was no longer next to him. His eyes widened and his heart sank. What happened? The bed no longer felt warm but cold.

Héctor had noticed that Imelda had been avoiding him for some time and it left him feeling disappointed and sad. He didn't understand why. Did he do something wrong?

He found Imelda in the nursery room, rocking Coco to sleep. He stood in the doorway, observing her being so warm and nurturing toward their infant, which warmed his heart.

"Imelda," Héctor began. "There is something I like to talk to you about."

"Sure," Imelda said, cautiously. She still had been getting bad dreams. She put their daughter in a cradle. She walked up to the doorway and closed the door. "What is it?" They began walking toward their bedroom. When they reached their bedroom, the couple sat on the bed.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"You've been avoiding me."

"What made you think that?"

"Well, I just noticed that you would not sit next to me at mealtimes," Héctor pointed out. "And you were always excusing yourself from the table."

"Nothing to worry about," Imelda lied. "Just felt like sitting next to others because I am still getting to know them or haven't seen them in ages. Besides, someone's got to check on Coco."

Héctor wondered if he misread the signals or if Imelda was lying.

"Is that all you wanted to talk me about it?" Imelda asked, hoping to leave the room. She began to stand up.

"Actually , no," Héctor answered. "There is another matter I want to talk to you about."

Imelda inwardly groaned but sat down back on the bed. "Qué pasa?"

"We've been together now for a long time," said Héctor. "Now that Coco is born, I think it is time that we should get married."

Imelda's eyes widened at this.

"But we are married!" She frowned.

"I mean, for real," Héctor explained.

"What do you mean by that?" Imelda folded her arms.

"I want to legally call you my 'wife', and give Coco a normal home."

"Héctor, she does have a normal home. A mother, father, grandparents, and uncles. That's a normal home, isn't it?"

"Yes, but we agreed that we would marry after Coco was born, right?"

Imelda sighed, mentally cursing herself. Of course she almost forgot that she did promise him. "Right."

"So why not get a marriage license?"

"It is not possible!"

"Imelda, poor favor! I really want us to settle down for real. I wished our union to be legal and not just be seen as such because no one actually knows we are not married except our families. I don't want us to be living in shame…,"

Imelda had only listened the first half of Héctor's speech. All she could think was that there's no chance. Her father said she would never be married again, because she is a divorced woman.

Ernesto was nice to her before her very first baby died, and she knew how he turned out. Héctor used to be friends with Ernesto, what are the chances that they would act similar? All she could think of was those terrible images of Héctor yelling at her and the children nonstop. Threatening to slap her. Destroying one of the children's guitar…

"Imelda, are you listening?"

"No!"

"Imelda-"

"No, no, no, NO!" She snapped. "I don't want to do this!"

"Imelda, calmse!" Héctor said in a shocked voice. "What's gotten into you?"

"I will tell you what's gotten into me," the woman growled darkly at him. Her fears are underneath her angry words, scared he will turn on her. "I don't want to get married!"

"Qué!?"

Imelda stood up abruptly, towering over him."I don't want to get married at all, okay? I don't want a wedding! I don't want a dress! I don't want a marriage license! I don't want this union or any union because-because-"

"Imelda por favor, calm down!" Héctor pleaded. "You are going to wake our daughter!" the tall man stood up. "Everyone will hear you!" He reached out for her hands but she pulled her hands away, much to his dismay.

"They won't hear us! They didn't hear me when I cried in my first marriage!"

"Imelda, please be reasonable!" Héctor pleaded. "I'm tired of playing house!" He put his hand in her hand again and was disappointed when she pulled hers away from him. "I'm tired of living this pretend life! Don't you want our union to be real?"

"No, I don't want our union to be real!" She shouted at him. "I don't want marriage or any kind of union with you! Ever! I never planned on getting stuck with you!"

That struck a chord in the man's heart. "I don't understand Imelda," he said quietly, blinking his eyes. "Don't you love me?"

Imelda's angered face quickly melted into a face of sorrow. Before he could recant what she said, she heard the baby wailing from the nursery.

"Qué pasa?" The couple turned to see Juanita bursting into the door immediately. "Who was shouting? On no, the baby is crying!"

"I'll calm her down, Tía," her nephew mumbled. He glared at his wife, fighting tears in his eyes for a brief second and quickly walked out of the room.

Imelda held her arm and blinked her eyes so tears wouldn't fall. She wished that she could take back all the hurtful things she said.

Author's notes: The dreams that Imelda had are a parody of certain famous Coco fanfic, Somos Familia. Just the chapters in which Hector almost slapped Imelda because of their daughter who had leukemia, and the latter chapters in which Héctor banned music and destroyed Miguel's guitar all because of Ernesto.