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im-just-a-br0adway-baby · 2 years

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Mirabel dragged Bruno into Casita’s courtyard as she and the rest of the family placed some old photo albums on the floor. The Madrigals just celebrated Julieta, Pepa, and Bruno's fifty-first birthday, and it was a big celebration because it was their first birthday in ten years they got to celebrate with Bruno. After a big day of the grandkids putting on a talent show for the triplets and the rest of the Encanto, and eating the most delicious cake Agustin and Felix made by themselves (although it took quite a while, but it was worth it), they decided it was time to relax and look back on some old memories after the rest of the Encanto left.

Alma wiped some dust off of the first album and opened it. The first photo she came across was of the triplets on their first birthday, with their faces smothered in cake. “Did you have to start off with that one?” Julieta said as she attempted to hold in a laugh.

“Don’t act like you three were not the cutest babies. I wish I could carry you three in my arms one more time,” Alma responded as she gave Julieta a hug. She could not help but hug her mother back, even though seeing her one-year-old self with a face full of cake still embarrassed her a little bit.

Bruno could not help but laugh at the fact that he was completely knocked out in the cake while his sisters were still stuffing their faces. “Even back then, all I wanted to do was sleep,” he pointed out.

Julieta and Pepa laughed. “Either that or you just wanted to hog the cake from us,” Pepa added. Bruno playfully nudged her and Pepa did so back.

Right below that picture was another picture of Pepa and Bruno at Dr. Martinez’s office when they were seven years old. Pepa was sitting in the sensory swing next to Dr. Martinez, laughing and not knowing her picture was being taken, and Bruno was in front of Dr. Martinez, looking away from the camera in his infamous deer-in-the-headlights look.

“I remember that sensory swing!” Mirabel exclaimed once she saw the picture. That was the same sensory swing she sat in the first time she saw Dr. Ortega.

“...You do?” Bruno said.

“We completely forgot to tell you, Brunito! Mirabel started seeing Dr. Ortega shortly after her gift ceremony. She’s still seeing her,” Julieta explained when she realized.

Bruno smiled and gave his youngest niece a hug. “That explains so much; how you’ve grown so much as a person.”

“I don’t think I would’ve been able to save the miracle if it weren’t for her.”

Isabela brought out another photo album and opened it to a picture of her, Julieta, and Agustin at her 4.0 breakfast when she was a senior in high school. While it brought back a lot of memories, Isabela could not decide whether to smile or frown at it.

“What’s the matter, Isa?” Luisa asked when she noticed her older sister’s face.

“It’s just that… whenever I see any of my high school pictures, I can’t help but think about how much pressure was put on me to maintain my 4.0 GPA and become valedictorian of my class,” Isabela answered.

Luisa and Mirabel hugged Isabela once she admitted that. She never admitted to the amount of pressure the rest of the family was putting on her when she was a teenager. But after she spoke up, she felt a lot better.

Isabela turned the page in the album and came across a picture of her and Dolores at their first dance recital when they were three. Julieta was holding Isabela and Pepa was holding Dolores, each daughter hugging their mothers. The picture below showed Isabela and Dolores on stage at their violin recital when they were fifteen. Pepa and Dolores came closer when Isabela showed the pictures to her tia and prima.

“I can’t believe how much we’ve grown since then,” Dolores pointed out.

“Seeing you girls on stage reminded us of our old dance and music recitals,” Pepa said as she opened another photo album of her and Julieta after their first dance recital from when they were three years old. Right below that picture was of the triplets with Agustin and Felix backstage at a spring orchestra concert when they were in high school.

“It turned out our oldest daughters would have more in common with us than we would later realize,” Julieta said as Alma turned the page of her photo album and came across a picture of the triplets’ high school freshman pictures. All three of them were in their special outfits that Alma picked out just for them on their first high school picture day. Mirabel looked at the picture and noticed her mother with a short haircut just like hers.

“Mama, I know you mentioned a lot that I look just like you when you were my age, but this picture confirms it,” Mirabel said as she looked at the picture. Julieta gave her daughter a hug from the back and peeked at the picture.

She laughed and gave her daughter a kiss on the cheek. “I have another picture in this box that may confirm it even more.” Julieta brought out a box that said “Julieta and Agustin” on it, and took out a picture of her behind Agustin, when Julieta was seventeen and Agustin was sixteen, wearing his glasses. Mirabel laughed as Julieta gave her the picture.

“I wanted to try on your papa’s glasses just to see how they felt. I had to take them off after only five minutes because my eyes were hurting, but Pepa was able to snap a picture before they would take a toll.”

Mirabel giggled as she held up the picture. “You look even more like me than in the other one, Mama,” Mirabel pointed out.

Julieta then took out a picture of Mirabel in front of Casita after it was rebuilt. She put the picture next to the one of her in Agustin’s glasses, and attempted to hold in a giggle when she realized she basically gave birth to herself. Mirabel began to laugh too as she and her mother shared another hug.

“Speaking of; Tonito, I want to show you a few pictures that I think you would love,” Felix interrupted.

Antonio wriggled out of Mirabel’s arms and over to his father, who just took out another photo album he kept for many years. “I wanted to show this album because I still have a lot of pictures of Pepi and me, but this picture is for you.”

Felix turned to a page to reveal his Pre-K graduation picture. Antonio stared at the picture for thirty seconds once he came to the realization. “Papa; you look just like me.”

Felix then took out the picture of Antonio at his gift ceremony and put it next to his picture. He was a spitting image of his son, with the same eyes, same afro, same nose, and even the same smile. Antonio crawled over to his father and gave him a hug.

Pepa tapped on Julieta’s shoulder. When Julieta turned around, Pepa held another box that said “Pepa and Felix” on it. Pepa opened the box to reveal all the pictures she saved of her relationship, although hers was slightly fuller than Julieta’s.

Camilo could not help but blush and attempt to sneak out of the room. He was immediately caught and Felix pulled his arm back to where he was sitting. “Come on, mama; do you have to show off you and papa as teenagers?”

“I treasure every part of my relationship with your papa, Cami. You’ll understand when you get married,” Pepa answered as she took out the first picture she found.

Felix noticed the picture Pepa took out and shed one tear. They were both in their early twenties, and their faces were close to the camera as they were squishing each other’s cheeks. Pepa and Felix could not help but laugh as they looked at the picture.

“I don’t think there’s a single serious picture of just the two of us,” Felix pointed out as he noticed the box was filled with pictures of just them being silly.

“That just means I’m most comfortable being myself around you,” Pepa responded as she continued to dig through the box. “Speaking of…”

Pepa found another picture of her and Felix and gave it to him. She was about sixteen years old and Felix was about seventeen, and Felix was tickling Pepa’s stomach while she was laughing, with her big, bright smile showing off her tooth gap, her nose scrunched up, and her nostrils mid-flair.

“This was the first time I showed off my teeth in a picture in a long time. I was always made fun of because of my tooth gap when I was little.”

“I wanted to show her how beautiful her smile was, how I saw her smile.” Felix then leaned over towards Dolores and Camilo. “Your mama is also very ticklish, and she hates admitting this, but she loves being tickled, so Julieta, Bruno, and I took that as an opportunity to show her. Julieta and Bruno snapped this picture without her knowing while I was tickling her.”

“Once Felix showed me the picture, that was when I started to see my smile the way he saw it. I mean, I could never help but smile full-out when he’s around, but this was when I truly began to love my smile again.”

Pepa and Felix looked at each other and giggled before they moved closer to each other and hugged tightly. Camilo rolled his eyes at the sight of his parents being all lovey-dovey again. Dolores nudged her little brother and stared at him.

“Camilo! Look at this!” Mirabel said as she skimmed through Alma’s photo album and came across a picture of her and Camilo when they were four years old. Camilo leaned over and saw the picture. It was of her and Mirabel sitting in the backyard, giggling while attempting to give each other bunny ears and leaning away from each other. Camilo giggled once he saw the picture, then shed a tear.

“You know, Mirabel. I miss when we were this close. I know Abuela has often pulled me away since my gift ceremony to help the village, but to be honest, I really just wanted to play with you. But I never got the chance to since then because I would always come home exhausted and wanting to eat something or go to sleep.” Mirabel also began to cry and gave her cousin a hug. Camilo smiled and hugged Mirabel back.

Bruno leaned over to look at the picture Mirabel and Camilo were referring to. “Why does that picture look so familiar?”

Julieta and Pepa also leaned over to look at the picture. Pepa gasped and skimmed through another photo album, until she found a picture of her and Bruno when they were four years old in Casita’s backyard in the exact same pose. Bruno looked at the picture and cried once Pepa revealed the picture.

“That reminded me of how close we used to be when we were that age too,” Pepa said as she hugged her brother.

Bruno looked at the picture again and cried. “I… felt like such a bad son, brother, and uncle around the time Camilo and Mirabel were born. I haven’t been interacting with you all that much since then and… I feel like my relationship with all of you has been strained. So when I left ten years ago, I thought none of you would miss me.”

Alma was the first to cry when her son admitted that and gave him a hug. “Brunito, you were never a bad son.”

“Or a bad brother,” Pepa admitted.

“Or a bad uncle,” Mirabel also admitted.

“We never stopped loving you, and we missed you that whole time. I just had a hard time admitting it for a while. I didn’t want to think about the fact that you were gone, so I just pushed any thoughts of you aside,” Alma continued.

“I’m going to be honest; I wasn’t really all that angry about the whole wedding thing. I just felt pressured to be angry at you for something, and used the wedding as a scapegoat,” Pepa added as she moved over to Bruno and gave him a hug.

The rest of the family cried and gave Bruno a hug. “I know you had to have some hard conversations with us in the past, but that doesn’t mean you make bad things happen,” Dolores said as she let out a tiny sniffle.

“It just means that the truth can hurt sometimes, and the only thing we can do is accept it,” Julieta continued.

As all the Madrigals squeezed Bruno in a group hug, he held out a picture that Alma just developed shortly before the trip down memory lane. He held the picture up to reveal it was of him, Juleita, and Pepa from earlier today with their cheeks squished together and big smiles, behind the cake Agustin and Felix made and their faces covered in whipped cream after being pied by the children during their talent show’s grand finale. The rest of the family leaned over to see the picture.

“I’m pretty sure this was the happiest you’ve been in a picture,” Pepa mentioned.

“Really?” Bruno asked.

He began to rummage through all the photo albums and noticed that in every picture he was smiling in, it was nothing more than a slight smirk. Just like Pepa, he never showed his teeth when smiling. However, unlike Pepa, it has lasted all throughout his life.

Bruno has not noticed this until now. He was never aware of how he was smiling like Pepa was. “I guess that was the happiest I’ve been in years.”

“I think we can see why,” Isabela said.

“This was the first birthday in ten years you had with your family,” Luisa continued.

xx1“Plus, you realized we all love you and missed you,” Camilo mentioned.

The Madrigals squeezed Bruno tighter and he could not help but smile wider than he ever has. Julieta and Pepa were on each side of him, and Agustin and Felix were right next to their wives. All of his nieces and nephews were surrounding them and Alma was hugging all three of her children.

“Feliz cumpleanos, mijos,” Alma said as she squeezed the triplets tight.

“Feliz cumpleanos,” said the rest of the family.

Bruno wriggled his arm out of the group hug for one moment to put the picture into Alma’s photo album. Today was a memory that was worth remembering for years, and the whole family, even Bruno, knew it.

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