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Having recently delivered news of her academic conquest, albeit not quite as glorious as Luisa's, Mirabel was ready to request a boon. Christmas was around the corner, and she needed supplies for gifts, or that was at least a good excuse for Papá or Tío Félix to drop her off at the shopping center with her favorite fabric shops - and the yarn shops she'd never taken much of an interest in before.
If she looked at the situation economically, the way Luisa was so very good at, the stuffed toys she had made for Antonio had paid for themselves several times over in orders from their extended circle of family friends - when he couldn't have the real Parce with him, he often had one of her creations. That line of discussion would make a good impression - math was still the main reason she had gotten a mere four point eight and not the full five.
Papá might be genuinely curious about what she was going to make and want to spend some quality father-daughter bonding time while she shopped and explained, so Tío Félix was the safer choice.
She waited until Tía Pepa had gone up to her room to work on her book after dinner to strike. Tío Félix had just finished the sports section of the newspaper and had picked up the world news.
"Tío Félix, are you going anywhere near Unicentro on Saturday? I need to get my supplies for Christmas stuffed animals."
"Well, I could be - especially if you'll sell me a little toucan for Tonito." He winked.
Mirabel grinned. "I'll even give you the family discount."
As Mirabel had guessed, Tío Félix had much better things to do than to watch her "go back and forth between dark cranberry and light maroon fabric swatches for two hours" (his words), so she even had time to get the clerk at the yarn store to find a beginner's book that included a hat pattern and to show her how to cast on.
She didn't think her family would be too suspicious of "Mirabel trying yet another craft," or expect to see results under the Christmas tree.
"I only knit things for men I've been dating for at least six months," the clerk told Mirabel as she paid for her book, needles and a couple of skeins of yarn in various colors.
"Oh, it's for my tío," she replied... and did not understand why she felt her face getting warm.
The long bus rides to and from Rosario to study in the library, away from her prying family, provided Mirabel the perfect opportunity to learn her new craft. She didn't get motion-sick while knitting the same way that she did while reading, so was delighted to have found a way to make use of those hours previously just spent begging traffic to move.
Two weeks before Christmas, she bound off the last four stitches. It was finished. She decided against sticking a pom-pom on top. It was far from perfect. She was particularly dissatisfied with the bottom edge that kept rolling in on itself; she really should have started with a few ribbed rows like the pattern said.
It was better than nothing and would keep his barely-covered head warm, though. She still couldn't get over how much the lack of his wavy, slightly shaggy hair emphasized what the past three years had done to him. Tío Bruno was still handsome, but looked to have aged at least a decade...
She dragged herself away from that line of thought and back to the more important matter: how could she get that hat to Tío Bruno? Asking Abuela to bring it with her was obviously out of the question.
She decided to risk calling Joaquín from the house. "Hey, Joaco - I was thinking, we should get together with Monica and Miguel before everything gets crazy with la novena (1)."
"Sounds good. The usual, three o'clock?"
"Perfect. I'll call the others."
After Mirabel had noticed Mamá and Abuela looking a little too interested in her phone calls, she and Joaquín hit upon a solution for him to hand over her letters from Tío Bruno without re-awakening her family's interest in her non-existent love life. Mirabel would call proposing a friendly get-together, and if Joaquín didn't have a letter, he'd claim to be too busy.
Mirabel met Joaquín, without Monica or Miguel, at the group's usual concessions stand. "Want a Coke? My treat," she offered when he handed over the letter.
Joaquín immediately looked skeptical. "Alright, what's going on?"
"Has your cousin been let out yet?"
"No, and Tía Meche is fit to be tied, because she was hoping to have him home for Christmas. How he managed to screw up his supposed August release..."
Mirabel was pretty sure she was able to hide her pleased reaction, but quickly apologized to God for being glad to hear of someone else's misfortune. "Do you think she'd be ok with bringing something else with her?"
"For Don Bruno? Maybe. What is it?"
Mirabel pulled her "masterpiece" out of her embroidered bag. "It's got a note inside with his name and, um, address." By which she meant, prisoner number and cellblock.
Joaquín smiled crookedly. "I think she won't mind. And they've got ways of getting much wilder stuff around in there, despite the heightened searches."
Don Ignacio prided himself on knowing everything of importance that went on in his cellblock. That one incident back in '93 when he had lost track of who wanted that soft radio announcer dead had nearly cost him the only person he actually cared about in that whole godforsaken pile - his godson, his beloved little primita's only boy. After he discovered that said soft radio announcer had thrown the stupid kid out of harm's way with a beatific smile , seemingly offering himself up instead, Ignacio was pleased to finally acknowledge Madrigal.
When a runner from one of the other blocks said, "delivery for Bruno Madrigal," Don Ignacio quickly inspected the item, then called the Announcer over.
"Feliz Navidad," Ignacio greeted Madrigal, and handed him the dark green knit hat. It looked a bit lumpy... like a teenage girl had knitted it.
Ah. His niece. Not the gorgeous one on whose behalf that no longer soft man had landed a few good punches on the jaw of a soon-to-be-released sicko who frankly needed it. After hearing the Announcer hiss about what that freak had wanted to do to his goddaughter, Ignacio arranged for the guards to look the other way for a few minutes. There was nothing more important than protecting one’s family.
No, that gift must have been from the merely pretty one who was lining those guards' pockets every couple of months and routinely lighting up Madrigal's eyes at mail call. Rumor had it that she was a good cook. Ignacio advised his lieutenants to keep their idiots from going over the line in praise of the young lady's remarkable backside within Madrigal's earshot. She seemed like a good girl who went to Mass every Sunday like her uncle did, and Ignacio could not abide discourtesy to good girls.
Madrigal's eyes softened for a moment as he stared at his new hat, then he looked back up and thanked Ignacio for seeing it to him safely. Unlike that recently deceased moron Ortega, who was too stupid to live, the Announcer firmly understood his place, and was properly, but not irritatingly, grateful to Ignacio for it.
"Hey, check out the Announcer's new lid! His icy mamá unfroze! It’s a Christmas miracle!" Chatterbox José announced that night as Bruno put on his new green knit cap before lights out.
"My mother doesn't knit," he replied, in a tone that he had hoped would silence José.
Nothing would silence José if the begging of one of his wiser partners-in-crime couldn't. "One of your sisters start feeling bad?"
Bruno's own silence was no defense against Chatterbox in a garrulous mood.
"Ooooh, I know. Of course. It was your thick chick! Man, a sweet, soft girl who can cook, knit and I bet she even -"
"Don't finish that sentence," Bruno instructed, clapping a hand perhaps a bit less than gently over José's mouth so that he wouldn't have to place a fist there instead, had he let the blabbermouth continue talking.
José raised his hands in mock-surrender and Bruno let go. "Ok, ok, ok... she's your sobrina, and she spends all her free time at church, on her knees."
Bruno did not need to think about Mirabel on her knees.
"Más que un primo, lo más que me arrimo..."(2) echoed from the luxuriously-springed bed in the back of the corner cell a few doors down. Had just about anyone else said that, Bruno would have compelled an apology at his earliest opportunity, but coming from Don Ignacio, all he could do was glare at his snickering cellmates.
After the lights went out, he pulled the cap off and inhaled.
It smelled of wool... and love.