Page 39 of The Captain
I washed my hands for longer than the skin on the backs of them liked, the water going from cool to hot and back again while my brain replayed the beach in loops. I told the part of me that wanted to sit on the concrete and cry to shut up. It listened because the other part—the one that knows where a blowhole is and how to keep it clear with two fingers and a towel when the world is falling apart—was louder.
I went to the Kogia first because Kogia always go first. The quiet pen held like a cupped hand. Shade settled in soft. The little whale’s eye watched me without moving—too calm, too wise, too indifferent to my human chaos.
“Bonjour,” I said. “You and me, hm?”
We worked. Sling check. Blowhole clear. Pectoral tone—still there. Respiration—high but not panicked. I let the numbers climb into my head one rung at a time until they made a ladderI could climb out of myself on. The wave that had been lodged in my chest since the dune receded a notch.
Tamika arrived as if on cue. She looked at me, really looked,. “You want me to ask or you want me to stand here and be a body?”
“Be a body,” I said, and my voice cracked like a girl’s voice.
She did. Quiet as a tide post. Hands steady on the sling line. Close enough to reach, far enough not to make me feel cornered.
The bottlenose’s pen breathed slow and wide. He lay like a tired boy in a sickbed, a towel tented over his dorsal. Miguel had tucked a damp cloth behind his melon where pressure can bruise.
Good man.
I stepped into the water, slid my palm along the peduncle catheter to check the tape, then ran my other hand along his flank, counting ribs as if they were worry beads. My breath slowed to the music of him.
Bodies are easy. People make it hard.
“Lactate’s at six point one,” Becca said quietly from the dock. “Down two ticks.”
“Good.” My voice found a place that didn’t shake. “Write it. Note the time. Note my witness.”
“Tamika present,” Becca said, pen scritching. “Miguel present. Dr. Allard present.”
Official. Safe. A room where facts live.
After a while, my phone buzzed. I didn’t check it. I ignored the second buzz, too. The third got me.
I looked. The name made my breath trip.
Jacob:Please. Let me explain. Meet me where there are people if you need that. I’ll take whatever terms you set.
I stared at the text until the words floated apart and rearranged into nothing. Another buzz.
Jacob:I didn’t touch that kid until she went under. The mother didn’t see anything until after. I said a name that wasn’t hers. That’s on me.
I turned the phone face down on the dock and set a towel over it as if I could muffle him the way you muffle a pump that’s rattling the wrong way.
“News?” Tamika asked without turning her head.
“No,” I said.
We pulled warm fluids for the bottlenose and I threaded the line. I sank into work so deep the facility sounds drew a soft curtain around the parts of me that had been flayed on the beach. Air pump hum. Pen slap. Becca’s timer chiming like a lullaby. Miguel’s steady footfall. Tamika’s breath.
When the bottlenose’s rate settled into a rhythm, I climbed out and wiped my face with a towel that smelled like vinegar and sun. My throat burned like I’d swallowed the wrong water.
Becca edged into my eyeline. “Do you want to tell me he’s a jerk so I can agree with you and we can eat crackers on the dock until you feel better?”
I barked a laugh that surprised us both. “It’d be easier if he were just a jerk.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Easy’s overrated.”
The phone buzzed again. I let it. Then again. Then silence. Relief and disappointment braided themselves together.
McGuire:Preliminary private permit list in your inbox. I can be at your facility at 1100 to walk you through it if that helps. —L.
