The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(73)

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be a good idea. We have plenty to discuss with the others, and the Lizaldes will be back soon enough.”

“If they have any decency, they’ll be back after I have my breakfast,” he muttered.

She smiled, appreciating his attempt at humor. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and was becoming scruffier, but he looked more like himself than when he attempted to shave his face clean.

“I have a great big headache and I’m up. You can get up, too.”

“No surprises there, the way you guzzled my aguardiente. You’ll feel better after you have a cup of coffee,” he said, cracking his knuckles and shaking his head as if to rouse himself.

“I must apologize for that. I shouldn’t have…It must have been bad for you,” she said, not sure exactly how to put it.

He smiled. “Sweetheart, that was the most fun I’ve had in ages.”

“You mustn’t jest with me,” she said, swatting him on the arm, but he laughed harder.

“I’m serious, you swine. It’s not…I don’t want you to think poorly of me or to have that be something…I don’t want to break anything,” she said, brushing the edge of the desk with her index finger.

He went quiet and looked at her solemnly. “Nothing’s broken and I don’t think less of you for it. There’s nothing wrong with kissing a man if you want to and it feels right. But it didn’t last night, and I don’t need lies. Not from you. We are friends, Carlota. That won’t change.”

The relief she felt was great. She had feared rejection would sour him against her, but he truly didn’t look upset. Maybe he was good at concealing his disappointments, unlike Carlota, who cried and ranted and burned, unable to mask anything at all. Not anymore.

“No lies, then,” she said and extended her hand. “We shall maintain our friendship.”

“I’d toast to it, but you drank my aguardiente,” he said, shaking her hand.

“I know you have another bottle hidden in this desk,” she said, tapping a drawer with her knuckles.

“Yes, but I’m not letting you drink it and get fresh with me again.”

She blushed, and he laughed louder, but it was better now. This was themselves, as they normally were, less complicated. Her heart was already in knots, and she didn’t want to twist it any further, didn’t want to hurt him out of selfishness, either.

“I’m going to change. You might want to splash a few drops of water on yourself. You don’t smell nice this morning,” she said, wrinkling her nose, and he gave her another smile and a shake of the head.

Before going back to her room she went to see her father. Ramona was sitting next to him, drinking a cup of coffee, when she peeked her head inside the room. Carlota stood by the doorway, biting her lip, unsure whether she should step any closer. Never had she spoken back to her father. Never had she dreamed she’d hurt him. She thought she ought to pray for him but feared God would strike her dead.

Then again, Dr. Moreau had been the God of Yaxaktun, dispensing wisdom and punishment and love. If he were to perish, it would be like the sun being extinguished in the sky, and yet she could not stop herself from wishing him ill.

I am a bad daughter, she thought.

“He’s still sleeping,” Ramona said, catching sight of her. “You want coffee?”

“No change at all? He has not woken up?” she asked timidly, finally walking into the room.

“No. It takes time to heal.”

Maybe, but Carlota didn’t know if he’d heal from this, and it was not as if they could send for a physician. She bent down and touched his arm, pressing her palm against it. Her father was such a strong man, but strength had fled him, and she could now see the marks of age clearly on his body, the white hair and wrinkles that he strived to hide behind that commanding voice of his. Even when the gout struck him Dr. Moreau was no invalid.

“Why were you giving them supplies?” she asked Ramona, drawing her hand away.

“I didn’t plan it. I went to the cenote of Báalam and stumbled on to a young man hiding there. He was a fugitive who’d ran off from a hacienda. He was looking for Cumux and his men. I knew nothing about that, but I fed him and sent him on his way. He came back later, thanking me for my help, and said he’d found what he was looking for. But he looked scrawny and I told him, take this food. Then he’d come back, and if not him, others.”

“And Lupe knew.”

“Lupe’s always in the kitchen, helping me. She noticed, even followed me a couple of times when I went to leave supplies for them. You shouldn’t be angry at her or at Mr. Laughton. It’s a hard world out there, Loti. They lash the workers in the fields. I had to help the boy.”

“I’m not angry,” Carlota said tiredly. “But I do wish there was a way to make this whole thing go away.”

She tugged at a corner of her father’s bedsheet, smoothing it with her hand. “Ramona, were you aware I am a hybrid?”

“No, Loti. You were a girl when I came here. You were sick often, but the doctor explained it was a thing of your blood and you didn’t look anything like the animal folk.”

“Montgomery says he didn’t know, either. I can’t understand how I could have been so stupid and never guessed the truth, or how others wouldn’t have known.”