Work Text:
A flash of something told him to go to the front door, which got him there in time to see three of his nieces there too early. “What happened to school?” Bruno asked.
“There was a fire!” Isabela answered. “They told us we could go home. None of us got hurt! Nobody got hurt.”
With some children, you’d be suspicious of that story, but his nieces were angels so.
Somebody would blame him for not foreseeing that fire, wouldn’t they? Yeah, no need to even look, they would. To the people who said that him seeing things made bad things happen, he could say that he didn’t see this and thus it couldn’t be blamed on him, but people never supported their nonsense all the way to its logical end if it didn’t give them what they wanted.
“Did you check in with Julieta at her table?” Mirabel and Camilo, too young yet for school, were there with her for the day, helping out.
“We’re not hurt, so we don’t need her food. Besides, we wanted to go home, so we’re here.”
“Come in, come in. I have a client coming by in 15 minutes,” that sounded kind of... sordid, but his angelic nieces would never think that, “but after that’s over, I could hang.”
“Dolores and I are too old to need a babysitter! We can look after Luisa ourselves too.”
“I’m old enough too,” Luisa said.
“Hey, hey, I know you’re responsible,” Bruno replied, “but your mothers would feel better if they knew an adult was, uh, adjacent. That’s all I’d be, just nearby so you can say I was.” It’d be nice to have company, but the girls were also old enough to hear all the stories about him and not want to be around him either most of the time. “There’s some fresh-made, cold lulada in the kitchen for you if you want it.”
“Tío,” Dolores said, “when your client is here, keep your door open.”
“There’s no need for you to hear any of that.”
“If the door is closed and I can’t hear anything, I’ll worry even worse. Please keep the door open.”
She would too, but she heard way too much she shouldn’t already. “Dolores--”
“Really! Please.”
“Okay.”
“If you say you will, but you don’t, I’ll come after you!”
“Okay, okay, Lolo.” Hopefully, things wouldn’t go totally south during and after his vision. For his niece’s sake, please.
They were having a great time in the kitchen, enjoying their drinks and having fun talking while not being in school, when suddenly Dolores got up out her chair and ran off, murmuring, “Tío.” Isabela and Luisa followed her out in the courtyard, up the stairs, and to the open door to Tío Bruno’s room, where Dolores banged on it hard enough to make a loud noise and yelled, “Tío, we’re home! Where are you?” Isabela couldn’t hear if he said something back, but Dolores obviously did.
A somewhat nervous looking man walked down all the stairs to get back to the room’s main level and looked even more nervous as he glanced at the three of them. “Hi,” Dolores said to him, “we’re everything he said we were.” He walked away and sped out of Casita even faster after that.
“Is Tío okay?” Luisa asked.
“Yes,” Dolores replied.
Isabela vaguely heard him shout, “I’m okay! I’m coming down!”
“What did he say we were?” Isabela asked Dolores.
Dolores answered right next to Isabela’s ear, where Luisa wouldn’t be able to hear, “He said that I’m the Madrigal who hears everything and has a great memory for faces, you’re the one who can grow flowers anywhere, Luisa is super strong, and that the man would have to walk past us on his way out.”
Anywhere, huh? She hadn’t thought of that as a threat before.
Tío Bruno had looked tired when he met them at the front door earlier but looked even more so now as he walked up to them. He took a deep breath, let it out, then said, “That’s done for the day.”
“Tío,” Luisa said, “Dolores seemed to be so worried for you! What was happening?”
“If you guys hadn’t come for me, he would have yelled at me a lot and for much longer.”
“I hate when people yell.”
“Yeah, me too, but we’re Madrigals. We can take it! When they go low, we go high, right?”
“...right.”
“There’s nothing to worry about, Luisa, since I could’ve taken it, but I’m glad you guys are here right now. I’d much rather spend time with you than him.” When Dolores took a long look at him, he said, “I’m okay! Now let’s get out of here, since my room isn’t any fun.” On their way out, he firmly closed the door to his room behind them. None of them said anything else about what did and didn’t happen in Tío Bruno’s room.
Until a few hours later, after dinner, when Isabela approached him privately and said, “You lied to Luisa. Dolores wouldn’t have run like that if he was only going to yell at you.”
“He didn’t do anything,” Tío Bruno replied.
“I think that was because we didn’t give him a chance.’
“Your abuela would say we can’t judge someone over something bad he didn’t do.”
“Tío, I’m old enough to know some things. You don’t have to lie to me like I’m a really little kid.” She’d heard things about Tío Bruno and his Gift in the village, but she’d never seen this at this angle before. Never thought people would....
There was no way Abuela didn’t know about this.
“Isabela, I don’t want Luisa to feel like she needs to stay home to protect me. She doesn’t and she shouldn’t. Besides, most of the time when things go bad it’s just yelling and name-calling, and I can handle that, no problem. You won’t have to deal with that kind of thing yourself since people love flowers and love you.”
People said some bad things about Dolores too, because she didn’t have a popular Gift that made people happy. People used it, but they didn’t like it. Was this a kind of popularity contest, and the prize was being safe? As far as Isabela knew, they only said bad things about Dolores--who could hear everything--but hadn’t done anything... else. But Dolores was also still a child, so might that change later? But Dolores could also pass for normal and keep her mouth shut better than Tío Bruno did. Isabela thought about how he looked tired and somewhat haunted all the time, how he tried to make himself seem even smaller around people, and how he rarely left Casita these days.
Maybe Isabela should make sure people didn’t hear that she could grow flowers anywhere. She’d have to make sure Tío Bruno didn’t say that to anyone else.