Hector : This is real.
Imelda : I know.
Hector : You’re my wife.
Imelda : You’re my husband.
Hector : You married me in front of people.
Imelda : I know. I was there.
I headcanon Hector as the proudest and most doting husband EVER. He’d go everywhere, kicking doors whilst carrying Imelda as he proudly announces that his pregnant wife is coming trough while she just dies inside because she’s so embarrassed but she secretly finds it very, VERY cute.
Not to mention how quickly he’d try to satisfy Imeldas’ pregnancy cravings. He’d carry her all the way to the counter with a big, goofy smile lol
– During the 1920’s there was a lot of money to be made in smuggling alcohol from Mexico to the United States, which was in the middle of the prohibition era.
– Hector was a young man that found easy work as a people pleaser, the man in a smuggling crew who maintained the underground network needed to get goods through border checkpoints undetected.
– Although not worth much in a fight, Hector was a smooth talker who could talk his way in or out of anything and worked the underground network to get whatever information his crew needed. A real charmer, he had all the buyable prohibition officers in his pocket, largely because of small things, like remembering when an officer mentioned their daughter had a piano recital last week and following up a week later to ask about how it went.
– Imelda was the daughter of the smuggling boss Hector worked for. Her family did not view themselves as criminals but as business people. Imelda kept rather aloof from the less than strictly legal actions of the family business by direction of her father, but one day she happened to answer the door when Hector was coming to give a report.
– Instantly smitten, Hector began courting her, using every bit of his practiced charm and musical prowess to woo her, patiently waiting out the months it took for her to return his affections.
– It took several months after that to convince Imelda’s father to agree to the marriage, and Hector had to agree to quit working on the smuggling route and get completely legal employment. As a musician on the side and a hard worker, Hector agreed immediately and he and Imelda were married soon after.
– Completely devoted to each other, Imelda and Hector were the envy of everyone around them, earning a reputation as star-crossed lovers and an unbeatable team, not to mention low-key dangerous to cross, mostly because of Imelda’s training as a sharpshooter. (She carried a small firearm wherever she went by direction of her father. Hector found this incredibly attractive.)
– When their daughter was born they cut off all ties with the smuggling world and with the help of Imelda’s father settled down in the small town of Santa Cecilia to raise their family in peace, overjoyed to have the chance to raise Coco and be happy together.
– This changed when Ernesto, an old childhood friend of Hector’s and a smuggling colleague, come calling one day. He asked if Hector wanted to join him on a music tour like they’d always dreamed of as kids, assuring Hector that it had nothing to do with smuggling this time.
– Although Imelda was unhappy with the plan, she and Hector decided to accept Ernesto’s offer, assuming that Hector would return safely in a few months time with some extra money to help support the family and some new inspiration to support his musical endeavors.
– Neither of them realized that Ernesto had secretly orchestrated his own smuggling deal (an incredibly dangerous one that if pulled off could launch him to great riches and power in the black market, even greater than Imelda’s father) and that Ernesto needed a smooth talker to pull it off.
– When Hector never returned from the trip and Ernesto abruptly rose to great fame and fortune (in the smuggling as well as the musical world) Imelda assumed that her husband had abandoned her and Coco for a life of crime with Ernesto.
– Devastated and heartbroken, Imelda erased Hector’s memory from her life as best she could, banning music from her home and taking a personal vendetta against the world of crime that had stolen away the love of her life.
Stories of Héctor and Imelda throughout their lives, and, for good measure, their deaths. All featuring some variation of an apology.
For whatever reason, they had to apologize a lot.
1910
“I expected this sort of thing from your brothers,” Sor María tied off the bandage wrap so it remained snug and trimmed the loose end with a deft pair of scissors. She had been saying that all morning.
Imelda tried to open and close her fists, relishing in the painful bruised sensation it caused. “I didn’t start—"
“It doesn’t matter who started what,” Sor María covered Imelda’s wet hair with another towel and began ruthlessly scrubbing it. “We all must take responsibility for our own sin. There’s no blaming other people for your actions.”
Imelda groaned under the towel. María yanked it off, leaving her hair standing up in all directions, arguably more of a black mess than how she came in. “I want you to apologize to that boy,” she continued, “both in person and in prayer. ¿Entiendes?“ Her long billowy sleeves covered Imelda’s face for a short minute while she tried to re-part the girl’s hair. She began to methodically brush it out while it was still damp.
Imelda seethed at every snag. She was more than old enough to wash and brush her own hair. If anything this incident proved she was capable of taking care of herself. She absently kicked her legs in the air, just centimeters from touching the floor. Two large, square bandages were bound over both kneecaps. The scrapes still stung. Her muddy, ruined dress hung in a shapeless mass over the lip of a small bucket next to the bathtub. Her mud caked shoes were in there too.
If she concentrated in her mind she could still hear the satisfying, twanging crack the guitar made when she had swung it down.
Yes, Imelda complains about her husband and says she’ll never forgive him, but look:
This is the face she makes when he says “This is my fault; I’m sorry”.
I think an apology is all she ever wanted from him, for all those lonely, tired years of hard work. She just didn’t realize that this was what she needed until he said it.
also she’s quite stubborn so she has to give herself time to figure it out
Stop talking and start doing: My Fallout Shelter for my Tumblr blog 