They don’t beat the doctor.
The baron doesn’t need bruises to make a man talk.
He uses something sharper.
He uses consequences.
He tells Aguilar he will ride to Guadalajara himself and speak to the authorities about fraud, about malpractice, about bribery. He tells him his European diploma will become paper for wrapping fish.
Aguilar laughs at first.
Then the baron says one more thing, softly, like he’s offering tea.
“And I will tell them about the women you’ve visited at night,” he adds. “The ones who leave your house crying. The ones who don’t get to complain.”
Aguilar goes pale.
Because men like him don’t fear justice for the poor.
They fear scandal among the powerful.
His shoulders sag.
“Fine,” he whispers. “Fine. You want truth.”
He looks at the cradle, at Felipe, and you see something ugly in his eyes: annoyance, as if the baby is a problem that refuses to stay solved.
“It was supposed to be simple,” Aguilar mutters. “A little blindness. A quiet heir. A grieving father who stays upstairs and lets others manage the estate.”
The baron’s face becomes stone.
“Who,” he says.
Aguilar swallows hard.
“Don Joaquín,” he admits. “Your mayordomo.”
Your stomach twists, not from surprise, but from confirmation.
Aguilar continues, words spilling now.
“He said your wife’s family would contest everything,” he says. “He said the estate needed stability. He said you were… unstable with grief. He said the boy should not be… fit.”
The baron’s voice is a whisper that could cut glass.
“And my wife?” he asks. “Did you have a hand in her death too?”
Aguilar flinches.
“No,” he says quickly. “No, I swear. Childbirth—she hemorrhaged. I tried. I—”
His gaze darts away, and your chest tightens.
Because a man who is innocent doesn’t look like that.
The baron sees it too.
He steps closer, and the room feels smaller.
“You tried,” he repeats. “Or you… let it happen.”
Aguilar’s lips tremble.
“I did what I could,” he insists, but his voice is paper-thin.
Then he changes the subject, desperate.
“The veil,” he blurts. “It’s a salve. An herbal film. It was applied carefully. It doesn’t harm the eye permanently if removed in time.”
You feel your breath catch.
So it isn’t nature.
It’s cruelty, spread like ointment.
“How do we remove it?” the baron demands.
Aguilar hesitates.
“There’s… a method,” he says. “A rinse. Certain oils. It must be done gently. Repeated. Days.”
“Do it,” the baron says.
Aguilar looks at you again, and this time the calculation is different.
“If she stays,” he says, and his voice turns sour, “I won’t.”
The baron doesn’t even glance at you when he answers.
“She stays,” he says simply. “You can leave in chains or you can stay and fix what you broke.”
Aguilar’s face twists.
But he nods.
Because fear is a stronger leash than pride.
The next days become a ritual of careful rebellion.
You assist as Aguilar prepares warm water infused with oils, wiping Felipe’s eyelids with maddening patience. The baby fusses more now. He makes small sounds that feel like miracles in a house that has been starving for them.
The baron watches every movement like a hawk.
Aguilar tries to regain control by speaking in medical terms, by making it sound complicated enough to require his authority. But you see his hands tremble sometimes, and you know he is not in charge anymore.
At night, when Aguilar is gone and the doors are locked, you continue the rinses the way he demonstrated.
Your fingers are gentle. Your humming is steady.
Felipe begins to cry.
It’s not loud at first. It’s a thin little complaint that climbs out of him like a newborn learning he has a voice.
The first time it happens, the baron freezes.
He looks horrified, then stunned, then he sways like a man struck.
“That’s… that’s crying,” he whispers, as if naming it makes it real.
You nod, tears hot in your eyes, and you hate yourself for the tears because tears have never bought you anything but weakness in other people’s eyes.
But the baron isn’t looking at you like you’re weak.
He’s looking at you like you brought his son back from the dead.
Felipe’s cries get stronger each day. His arms begin to reach for sound. His mouth finds the bottle with hunger.
And then, one afternoon, something changes.
You hold the candle near his face as you’ve done a dozen times.
The veil is thinner now, broken in places, like frost melting on glass.
You hum, and Felipe turns toward you.
Then you stop humming.
You move the candle slowly to the other side.
Felipe’s eyes follow the motion.
Not perfectly. Not with clear focus.
But they follow.
The baron makes a sound you’ve never heard from him, somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
“He saw,” he says, voice shaking. “He saw something.”
You write on your board with trembling hands:
NOT BLIND. NEVER WAS.
The room spins with hope so fierce it feels like danger.
Because hope always brings enemies.
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