Chapter 9
Eighty-One Days Until the End of the Summer Excavation Season
In the middle of the crew’s ritualistic evening board-game marathon, Ripley’s phone buzzes with a text.
Dad:
Hey Pip! Is now good?
Monday is Clue night. As with every game, the crew has invented a pile of arcane rules mostly aimed at humiliating one another.
“Hey,” Matteo protests as Jordin steals his beer and drinks half of it in one go.
“Forbidden word!” Fiona instantly snaps.
Jordin grins, ungraciously whips the colander labeled Ross Geller off her head, and plonks it onto Matteo’s. He mumbles the Song of Shame—“I am the worst paleontologist”—on repeat, sung to the tune of the Friends theme.
Smithson’s never played Clue, much less this version of it. Despite creating a gigantic diagram in the sketchbook he carts around the dig, he’s getting slaughtered.
Finn rolls, glances at Fiona, then changes his mind about the Conservatory and heads to the Lounge.
“Twin telepathy,” Matteo mutters.
“More like chair chatter,” Griff says laconically.
Cara lowers her cards. “You mean table talk?”
“Yeah. Chair chatter,” Griff insists. An argument breaks out over whether this is a real Australian phrase.
It’s not a bad time for Ripley to chat with her dad. “I’m out. Back for the next game.” Excited bidding commences for the right to steal her cards.
She grabs a folding chair and carries it outside the circle of lamplight while waiting for the call to connect.
She makes a day trip every second or third Sunday to check on her dad and do the heavy work around the house.
There aren’t many medical appointments now that his postsurgical infection and delayed healing have finally resolved, but she drives the five hours home for all of those too.
Phone calls fill the gaps while she’s on the dig.
“Hey, Pip. How’s Beauty, my dinosaur granddaughter?”
“Very funny, Dad.”
“Seems like she’s the only grandchild I’ll be getting.”
“Human grandchildren are overrated. Why didn’t you answer my call this afternoon?”
“Didn’t expect you to call during work hours. I was out.”
“Sally took you to get groceries?”
“Nope, no store.”
He’s being frustratingly opaque. Ripley doesn’t like it. “Tell me Ronnie didn’t host a poker game on a weekday afternoon.”
“I wish you’d lay off Ronnie, Pip. He’s a good guy.”
“I’d lay off if he’d quit smoking around you.”
“His house is the only one with a wheelchair ramp. And my lungs are toast anyway,” he says cheerfully. “Friendship is more important.”
“Dad.”
“Pip,” her dad replies, imitating her scolding tone. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing. I wanted to hear your voice.” Her heart clenches painfully.
She wants to tell him about Maury and Smithson and the money, but also, she doesn’t.
He’d pretend he wasn’t disappointed, but he has a way of clamping his mouth into a tight line and exhaling through his nose when he’s worried about his daughter.
The windstorm on the phone line always gives him away.
She’s disappointed him enough—wasted enough of the time he sacrificed for her, starting when he was barely twenty—for one lifetime. If she can find a sponsor, her dad never has to know how dangerously her world is teetering. Again.
“My voice is yours for”—he takes a quick breath—“the asking.”
Ripley frowns. “Did you turn down your oxygen again? You know Dr. Patel hates it when you play games with your flow rate.”
“I can take care of my own oxygen, Pip. I used a little more than expected this afternoon, is all. New tanks come tomorrow.”
Five words per breath. Maybe six. “I can afford more tanks, Dad. You shouldn’t have to ration.”
“Oh, let me have my little thrills. It’s the only excitement your old dad gets these days.”
“You’re not even fifty, Dad.”
“Ooooooooold,” he croaks, doing his best impression of Grampa from The Simpsons.
“Go to bed, Grampa. I love you.”
“Love you too, Pip. Kiss my dinosaur granddaughter for me.”
“Ew, Dad.”
He hangs up in the middle of a fit of laughter. Ripley knows it’s because he doesn’t want her to hear him cough.
If she got six figures for Beauty, her half of that would disappear into the void of his medical debt. But half of eight figures would set him up for life. Maybe she can get funding from one of her own contacts, but if Smithson brings a better offer—or the only offer—she has to take it.
Her dad’s needs matter more than her wants. Not to mention Cara’s and Geraldine’s needs. Ripley will move on at summer’s end, but Yellowtail Ranch is Cara’s inheritance and Geraldine’s legacy.
She folds her chair and heads back to the game.
Smithson glances her way, then turns toward the group. Things have been weird between them since she left his impromptu lecture yesterday, but she’s not inclined to have a heart-to-heart about it.
Two weeks. She can coexist with him for two weeks.