Page 57 of The Captain
The sky was the color of a healing bruise. Heat already pressed its palm to Charleston. The city likes to test your resolve before breakfast.
The facility breathed me in. Pumps low and steady. Pen water ticking against rubber. The particular quiet that means the animals are deciding to let you try.
Miguel stood hip-deep in the big pen, forearms wet, eyes on the bottlenose we’d pulled off Kiawah. She floated in the sling like a tired queen, chin high. Becca crouched on the dock with her clipboard. Tamika leaned on the rail of the quiet room, watching the little Kogia the way you watch a baby with a fever—calm on purpose.
“You look like a person who slept,” Tamika said, without judgment.
“A few hours,” I said. “Don’t tell my mother.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
I did my rounds before I let anyone talk me into feelings.
Kogia calf first: eye clear, blowhole lip free of grit, respiration high but even. I touched her with two fingers behind the eye the way I’d done a hundred times yesterday. The tiny muscle there answered. Present. Then the bottlenose. Her pectoral had tone, if I asked nicely. Every third breath hitched. Every tenth was clean. Progress in the language I could live with.
“Okay,” I said, “rotation change in twenty. And then you three are off feet for a while.”
Three sets of eyes gave me the exact same look. It translated to:not a chance.
“Home,” I insisted. “Sofa. Shower. Naps.”
Miguel shook his head, the corner of his mouth tugging. “Nowhere I’d rather be.”
“Same,” Becca said. “I’ll sleep when she does.” She tipped her chin at the Kogia and the sweet optimism scalded me.
Tamika snorted. “I tried to leave last night. Got to my car, sat there, walked back in and took radio watch until two. Don’t fight us, Camille. It’s a losing game.”
I made a face to hide the way my throat went tight. “You will hydrate. You will eat protein that wasn’t born in a fryer.”
“Oui, chef,” Tamika said, saluting with her water bottle.
“And my father?” I asked, trying to sound casual, failing.
“Your father,” Miguel said, “was here late. Carried the load like a twenty-year-old and tried to pretend he wasn’t happy about it.”
Becca’s smile went soft. “He hummed to her.” She gestured toward the big pen. “Just stood there with his palm on the sling line and hummed like he does when he’s measuring something he loves.”
The image hit me straight in the ribs. “He did?”
“Yeah,” Tamika said. “You left him a job and a daughter who lets him be useful. Don’t you dare cry. I’m not mopping tears before coffee.”
I didn’t cry. I did have to look away. “Fine," I said. “Tell me again why you won’t go home.”
“Because it’s better here,” Becca said simply. “Even when it’s hard.”
“Especially when it’s hard,” Miguel added.
I swallowed around the burn. “Okay. But tonight, when the day’s work is done—you three get out. Not a bar. Go be human for a while so I don’t have to write your obituaries.”
Tamika arched a brow. “Says the doctor who took last night off.”
She was teasing. Not upset.
Becca’s face lit with unholy delight. “How was it?”
“Unprofessional,” I said.
“Hot,” Tamika translated.
