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Agustín sighed as he set up the pieces of the Constantino's borrowed chess set. It had been...well over a decade since he'd played with his cuñado. Bruno sat across from him, wan and quiet, trying to hide in his ruana even in the late Mayo heat. The bags under his eyes, a permanent feature of his face since Agustín had met him over twenty-five years before, were darker than he ever remembered seeing them.
Bruno, never a healthy weight to begin with, had lost even more of it...where he'd been. Inside Casita's walls.
Agustín shuddered at the though. Bruno was still silent about it, hunching into his shadow and actively avoiding talking about it. Mirabel and Antonio hadn't meant to let it slip, and both had apologized profusely, but Bruno still refused to clarify. It had only been a couple days since the revelation, and Bruno had long since fallen back into the shivering silences and slight, ghosting presence he had been before his disappearance. Agustín wasn't about to let his cuñado fade away again, so their old pass-time it was.
He'd wondered briefly about the situation, of course. He wouldn't let himself think about it long term. It was too fresh a wound to be poking when he was still doing his best to keep his daughters and wife from falling apart. Luisa was torn between mourning and trying to finally, finally go easy on herself. Isabela missed her gift but walked so much more lightly now, free of an engagement she'd never wanted. The thought of it still made him sick. Mirabel was an indomitable ball of energy and enthusiasm, but he knew it was only a matter of time before it all came crashing down and she broke. Picking herself up and carrying on had been her go to way to deal with things for a decade, but nearly dying--twice!--in two days would scar anyone. He and Julieta themselves were barely keeping it together, the thought that they'd come so close to losing sight of all their girls, nearly lost their youngest making them sick. Family dinners were tense now. Agustín still couldn't quite bear the thought of what could have happened. To any of them. Had the house not come down and the Miracle faded to free them.
The thought of his brother-in-law living alone but so close, no human contact for a decade, was a final stitch in a wound he hadn't been able to pick out. He was afraid if he did, the poison and vitriol and fear would spill out at the wrong target, and he'd chase him away forever. Better to give him the opportunity to explain himself. Bruno was many things, including a consummate actor, but he'd never been able to truly lie to his family. As it stood the man looked like a stiff wind would break him, and wasn't even able to try.
Agustín set the board and turned the white side to Bruno. Awkwardness at having to go first and not would eventually overweigh his hesitance. It had worked when he had begun to fade, and hopefully would still work. It had taken everything just to get him to come out again that day. He'd locked himself in the small room the Constantino's had provided, silent save for the sound of panicked breathing and muffled tears for hours until he'd finally had to come out for the baño. Julieta and Pepa had been gentle, but he'd only shaken his head and remained silent until they'd all agreed to let him talk about it on his own.
Bruno sat watching as Agustín got settled, sipping his coffee and doing his best to hide behind the borrowed mug, eyes huge and green and above all afraid. It hurt, that expression. Agustín was not an imposing man. Larger than Bruno to be sure, but his natural clumsiness made him one of the few people that had never intimidated Bruno, and to see the unease in his expression now worried him more.
"A..Ajedrez? Uhh...Why?" He whispered finally, looking at the board like it might bite him. Agustín shrugged.
"I missed playing with you. It's been...too long."
Bruno's lips pursed into a thin line, but he nodded, looking away and moving his fourth pawn with a shaking hand. Agustín countered after a moment by blocking it with his fifth. He watched as Bruno scanned the board, the old light of competition sparking low somewhere in his eyes as his brows knitted. After some thought, he moved his left knight to c3. Agustín copied his move, his own knight at f6, guarding his pawn. Something told him this would be a short game.
"I--" Bruno started as he contemplated his next move. Agustín watched him as he struggled, wincing at the way Bruno chewed his lip in thought. He regretted the thought that he'd have to talk to Julieta when he remembered too late her gift was gone as well. Bruno swallowed audibly and continued. "I...didn't think you'd want to play. O-or talk. 'Cause of...you know." He flinched and moved his third pawn to f4. "'Cause of everything."
"Bruno, of course I want to! I have missed you, you know," he grinned, countering with a pawn to d5.
Bruno chewed his lips some more, studying the board intently and ducking his head. "...for now." He moved his second pawn to f5 and captured one of Agustín's blacks. Agustín saw his fingers then, really saw them. Raw at the cuticles and bitten to bleeding, the nails mowed down to ragged nubs. It was a far cry from the state they'd been in the first day, when Julieta had seen the lack of scars on his fingers as a good sign he'd been taking some care of himself.
Agustín studied the board. The feeling they'd played this configuration before crept up on him, but deja vu was common enough around Bruno he shook it away, future and past slipping around his cuñado, who was barely tethered to the present as it was. Agustín again regretted that things had never panned out with Consuela Rivera, all those years ago. Bruno would have been on a much stronger foundation with someone in his life to keep him tied to reality, rather than constantly slipping in the what ifs and whens of the future. He poured another mug of coffee for him, not worrying about the later hour, and handed it over carefully. He moved his left knight to e4 and took Bruno's pawn.
"Why do you think only for now?"
He watched as Bruno carefully rested a his fingers on two pieces, queen and bishop, pondering over both. His tone had been flat, absorbed in the moves. It was what Agustín had hoped for, the potent distraction of the game always enough to get Bruno to spill his thoughts a little more easily.
"Heh. You're a padre, Gus. Think about what the town will say when it...when it gets out. Where...where I was" He snapped his queen to f3, vindictive.
"I...don't understand."
Bruno snorted, holding his head in his hands as he waited for Agustín to make a move. A third pawn entered the fray, but Bruno remained silent, letting him mull it over. He knew the wagging tongues of the town were vicious still when it came to Bruno, save a few sympathetic souls. The old jeweler. One of the vegetable merchants, even after the prophesy that had seen her son's death. The bibliothecaria. A few others, but still few indeed. And Agustín couldn't quite understand what him being a father had to do with the assessment. Until it fell into place with a wave of dread.
The one thing the town had never called him, the one rumor that had somehow never swirled around him because of his natural timidity and kindness. Even after carousing with that raucous widow for a year, after a string of arranged dinners, Bruno's behavior had always, always been immaculate, if awkward. The realization of his cuñado, his hermano, the man that had welcomed him into the family with a stupid laugh and a mild poisoning was afraid, certain even that Agustín, and Félix by extension, would immediately assume he was some sort of pervert broke his heart.
Agustín stilled his arm as Bruno reached for another pawn, forcing him to look up. His eyes were huge and wet, and he looked sick. And Agustín knew, with the frightening certainty he'd known Julieta was his true love, the same way that he'd known Luisa, born too early and too small, would be the strongest and softest of all of them, that what Bruno feared would never come to pass. Bruno had raised all the children save Antonio right beside him and Félix and his sisters. He'd been right behind Félix at people's doors, ready to spar with anyone who'd made Dolores cry with their terrible treatment of their spouse. He'd been the one to talk Luisa down from so many fears of her own gift. He'd been Isabela's sympathetic ear and Camilo's mentor in mischief and Mirabel's best friend, even as he had slipped away from the rest of them, taken to stuttering silence around his mother.
Bruno was, above all else, a good man. Agustín could see how the constant silencing of his name, Pepa's pretense at anger, Alma's actual anger, how all of it had warped and twisted him, wherever he'd been, into the nervous creature in front of him. The adrenaline of the last few days had fled, and nothing now shielded Bruno from the thoughts he'd carried for over a decade. That they hated him. That they hated him and they would always, always, see the worst in him, even when that very worst was abjectly impossible. He let Bruno's wrist go with a smile and a squeeze, egging him on to make a move.
Pawn to d3.
"Time in the wall made you stupid," he sighed bluntly. Bruno's flinch knocked his king down, and Agustín righted it for him as he stared. "I'm serious. You're as much a parent to those kids as any of us. Joder la ciudad!"
Bruno goggled, his throat bobbing as he tried to speak. Agustín didn't swear much, too used to little ears tattling on him, but points had to be made.
"Joder la ciudad, I said. I know the truth, and I'm not going to believe any stupid rumors." He took Bruno's knight with his own at c3 pointedly. "Neither will Félix. And if our own reputations have to suffer shutting stupid people up, so be it."
"Agustín..."
"Maldita sea, Bruno, you're my brother! I won't say it again. Joder la ciudad!"
He watched as understanding dawned on Bruno's face. The corner of his mouth quirked up, twitching. It wasn't much, but even the ghost of the old lopsided grin was better than nothing. Bruno's second pawn captured his knight tentatively as Bruno whispered.
"Joder la ciudad..."
Agustín looked at the board, stumped, before moving another pawn to d4. For a long moment, they played in silence. He lost a knight and a bishop. Bruno lost a bishop and a pawn. Finally, the silence was too much for Agustín.
"How did you keep sane?"
"Wh--what?"
"You're still...you! I've read enough to know being alone like that isn't healthy for people. How on earth did you not go completely loco?"
Bruno looked away, biting his lip again, picking at what was left of a cuticle and glancing at the board. Too late Agustín realized he'd stalled at a move. Not thinking, he shifted his queen one space forward. Bruno did a doubletake and drummed his fingers nervously on the table.
"I uh...heh...It um...wasn't easy. I...slept. A lot."
"Not for ten years, you didn't. What did you do? You always were keeping busy, back...back before."
There was a squeak as one of Bruno's rats clambered out of his ruana. Agustín gave him a wry grin. The man had always kept his unusual pets, and Agustín knew well enough they were clean. This one was particularly scraggly. Brown with big white patches around its' eyes, and a cocked ear. Bruno grinned, giving the creature a tiny pat to the head and a nibble of something from his shirt pocket.
"Speaking of Loco. Someone heard her name." He flinched and remembered where he was, hurrying to set the rat down. Agustín held out his hand.
"Hey, you don't have to do that anymore." It was quiet, trying not to spook him as Bruno stared at his hand and then back at him. Agustín hid a shudder as the little feet landed on his palm, always the worst part, before tickling whiskers and careful claws inspected him. The little rata must have decided he was alright. She ran up his arm and perched on his shoulder, snuggling under his collar.
"Mamá...she still hates them..."
"Alma can hate what she wants. But she loves you, Bruno. And if she has to put up with your little friends to do it, she will."
"But..."
"Aht aht aht, no buts. They're your pets. And you're her son. She has to accept the things she doesn't like. They don't hurt anyone. And Alma doesn't have a leg to stand on after Antonio's gift. Well. Didn't."
Bruno looked away guiltily at that. Agustín had seen the relief coming off him in waves ater they'd all reunited, the pressure of his gift behind his eyes finally gone, peace for the first time in forty-five years.
"Still though..."
Agustín shook his head decisively. Bruno was too much like Mirabel, in this regard. Too much like Julieta and Luisa and Isabela too, in their way, when he really thought about it. And he felt the fast, familiar twinge at not having seen all his daughters' pain sooner. Too much sacrificing of themselves for the good of the family, the comfort of the family, the needs of the town. Too ready to tear themselves down to build other people up from the scraps of themselves. Pepa had it as well, but her gift had given her the chance to guard her own children from it, her emotions impossible to hide. Something they all must have gotten from Pedro.
"No, Bruno. They're your pets. Your mother can take her opinions about them to her grave as far as I'm concerned. It's the least she can do after a decade of cagada. Besides. Who knows. Maybe I'll get attached to them. Been too long since we've had sensible pets in this house."
Bruno gave him a watery smile of understanding, and took his rook with a well placed knight decisively. He knocked back the rest of the coffee, and looked away as Agustín frantically tried to plot, his king and queen both exposed, while Bruno's queen had her king well defended.
"It...it wasn't easy, really. I...wrote. A lot. Read a lot too. It was easy enough to swipe a notebook or two now and then, so many...so many kids in the house."
"Things get lost?"
"Things get lost. Yep. I mean, yes."
Agustín's grin quirked, Bruno correcting his informality like always, even after so long.
"I...none of us went back to your room. Were you...did you take your books?"
Bruno shrugged. "Didn't take much when I...When I left. Too much to carry...er...too much to carry, into the...the walls I mean!"
Agustín caught his hesitance, his over correction. Julieta had been hounding him, wondering where he'd gone those first months when her poppy extract had disappeared and Dolores had worried herself sick listening for him and hearing nothing. It was Bruno's story to tell. If he never trusted them with it, Agustín could accept that. As long as he stayed. He settled on moving his queen back and capturing Bruno's knight.
Bruno's brow quirked as he studied the board.
"So, not too many of your books, huh?"
"A few. Here and there. They...sort of made their way into the house? Casita...Casita couldn't do much, after a while. They might have been...ones I'd loaned out?"
"Hmm. Still though. Not much for you. I've seen you practically eat a novel in a day."
Bruno shifted in his chair, thumbing at pieces and trying to figure out what move to make. He looked away and laughed uncomfortably.
"I...may have borrowed some...secondhand?"
"Second ha---It was you?!" Agustín laughed, running a hand through his hair. "We thought the house was being temperamental!" There wasn't anyone in the house that hadn't had a book disappear for days or even weeks on end. Some had been from the bibliotheca. Agustín still had a hefty fine sitting on his account for the complete works of Jules Verne, borrowed in Marzo to help Mirabel and Camilo with their homework. He grumbled as much as he came down from the laughing fit, shaking his head and adjusting his glasses.
Bruno gave a shrug and a gawky, crooked grin. "You're the only one in the house that likes science fiction as much as I did--do. Couldn't be helped? I--I'll pay you back for the fines."
"Don't pay me! When you get back to going--don't look at me like that we all know where you used to hide away--Pay Señora Pascual! She's been giving me the stink eye for weeks, and I think that ridiculous parrot of hers is starting to follow me."
"The...the parrot?" Bruno snorted, moving his rook.
"You aren't the only one in town with crazy pets." Agustín blinked at the board and slumped in his seat.
"Well damn. Played chess against yourself too, I take it? Still can't beat you." He set his king down gently, blocked and the board muddled enough he couldn't see a way out that didn't have Bruno winning in three moves. He held out a hand. "Draw?"
Bruno looked from his hand, finally gone down from his allergies, to his face, squinting and taking measure of him for a moment. He gave the tiniest of nods before grasping Agustín's hand, the strength of the terse, nervous handshake surprising him, but Bruno's grin surprising him more.
"Draw."