A Darkness More Than Night

her in and change her? It’s been a while. And she’ll need a bottle while I make dinner.”
    McCaleb carefully raised his daughter out of the bouncing seat and put her on his shoulder. She made some fussing noises and he gently patted her back to calm her. He walked over to Graciela’s back, put his arm around the front of her and pulled her backward into him. He kissed the top of her head and held his face in her hair.
    “It will all be over soon and we’ll be back to normal.”
    “I hope so.”
    She touched his arm, which crossed her body beneath her breasts. The touch of her fingertips was the approval he sought. It told him this was a rough spot but they were okay. He held her tighter, kissed the back of her neck and then let her go.
    Cielo watched the slowly moving mobile that hung over the changing table as he put a new diaper on her tiny body. Cardboard stars and half moons hung from threads. Raymond had made it with Graciela as a Christmas present. An air current from somewhere in the house gently turned it and Cielo’s dark blue eyes focused on it. McCaleb bent down and kissed her forehead.
    After wrapping her in two baby blankets he took her out to the porch and gave her the bottle while gently moving in the rocking chair. Looking down at the harbor he noticed he had left on the instrument lights on The Following Sea’s bridge. He knew he could call the harbor master on the pier and whoever was working nights could just motor over and turn them off. But he knew he’d be going back to the boat after dinner. He would get the lights then.
    He looked down at Cielo. Her eyes were closed but he knew she was awake. She was working the bottle forcefully. Graciela had stopped full-time breastfeeding when she had gone back to work. Bottle feedings were new and he found them to be perhaps the single most pleasurable moments of being a new father. He often whispered to his daughter during these times. Promises mostly. Promises that he would always love her and be with her. He told her never to be afraid or feel alone. Sometimes when she would suddenly open her eyes and look at him, he sensed that she was communicating the same things back to him. And he felt a kind of love he had never known before.
    “Terry.”
    He looked up at Graciela’s whisper.
    “Dinner’s ready.”
    He checked the bottle and saw it was almost empty.
    “I’ll be there in a minute,” he whispered.
    After Graciela left them he looked down at his daughter. The whispering had made her open her eyes. She stared up at him. He kissed her on the forehead and then just held her gaze.
    “I have to do this, baby,” he whispered.

    ***

    The boat was cold inside. McCaleb turned on the salon lights and then positioned the space heater in the center of the room and turned it on low. He wanted to warm up but not too much, for then he might get sleepy. He was still tired from the exertions of the day.
    He was down in the front cabin going through his old files when he heard the cell phone start to chirp from his leather bag up in the salon. He closed the file he was studying and took it with him as he bounded up the stairs to the salon and grabbed the phone out of his bag. It was Jaye Winston.
    “So how’d it go at the Getty? I thought you were going to call me back.”
    “Oh, well it ran late and I wanted to get back to the boat and get across before dark. I forgot to call.”
    “You’re back on the island?”
    She sounded disappointed.
    “Yeah, I told Graciela this morning I’d be back. But don’t worry, I’m still working on a few things.”
    “What happened at the Getty?”
    “Nothing much,” he lied. “I talked to a couple people and looked at some paintings.”
    “You see any owls that match ours?”
    She laughed as she asked the question.
    “A couple close ones. I got some books I want to look through tonight. I was going to call you, see if maybe we could get together tomorrow.”
    “When? I’ve got a meeting in the morning at ten and another at eleven.”
    “I was thinking the afternoon anyway. There’s something I have to do in the morning myself.”
    He didn’t want to tell her that he wanted to watch the opening statements in the Storey trial. He knew they’d be carried live on Court TV, which he got up at the house with the satellite dish.
    “Well, I could probably get a chopper to take me out there but I’ll have to check with aero first.”
    “No, I’ll be coming back over.”
    “You will? Great! You