“I understand that. I don’t want anything to change either. And it won’t. All I’m going to do is look at the file and the tape and tell her what I think.”
“It won’t be just that. I know you. I’ve seen you do this. You’ll get hooked. It’s what you are good at.”
“I won’t get hooked. I’ll just do what she asked and that’s it. I’m not even going to do it here. I’m going to take what she gave me and go over to the boat. So it won’t even be in the house. Okay? I don’t want it in the house.”
He knew he was going to do it with or without her approval but he wanted it from her just the same. Their relationship was still so new that he seemed to always be seeking her approval. He had thought about this and wondered if it was something to do with his second chance. He had fought through a lot of guilt in the past three years but it still came up like a roadblock every few miles. Somehow he felt as though if he could just win this one woman’s approval for his existence, then it would all be okay. His cardiologist had called it survivor’s guilt. He had lived because someone else had died and must now attain some sense of redemption for it. But McCaleb thought the explanation was not as simple as that.
Graciela frowned but it did not detract from his view of her as beautiful. She had copper skin and dark brown hair that framed a face with eyes so darkly brown that there was almost no demarcation between iris and pupil. Her beauty was another reason he sought her approval of all things. There was something purifying about the light of her smile when it was cast on him.
“Terry, I listened to you two on the porch. After the baby got quiet. I heard what she said about what makes you tick and how a day doesn’t go by that you don’t think about it, what you used to do. Just tell me this, was she right?”
McCaleb was silent a moment. He looked down at his empty plate and then off across the harbor to the lights in the houses going up the opposite hillside to the inn at the top of Mount Ada. He slowly nodded and then looked back at her.