Chapter 36
Eight Days After the End of the Summer Excavation Season
Ripley can’t find the rock.
This is grief, she’s pretty sure: In the place where something should be, it’s not there anymore.
At camp, the picnic table is mostly empty, the games put away. They tried, but it wasn’t the same.
In her cabin, there are two naked brass nails in the wall over the spare bed, the pictures wrapped and shipped with the rest of the things that didn’t belong to Ripley, even if they once felt like they did.
Someday, she’ll walk through her dad’s empty trailer with this same feeling, like time has moved on and left her behind.
After what happened with Beauty and Beast, the younger crew didn’t stick around long, and Ripley didn’t expect them to. To see a summer’s worth of work evaporate in a morning—that’s not easy for anyone.
Finn sobbed until he threw up, and the next day, a red-eyed Fiona pulled Ripley aside and asked if it was okay if she took her brother home to California early.
Jordin left a couple of days later. Harvard’s freshman orientation was the last week of August, and she was a group leader this year.
Ripley promised to write her a reference letter, but given the intense media interest in the FBI impoundment, Jordin probably won’t want anything with Ripley’s name on it.
The Smithson Foundation hasn’t caught a lot of negative press, and Ripley’s not sure whether she’s annoyed or relieved by that.
In the canyon this overcast morning, there are no voices, no misplaced tools, no one yelling at Finn because he’s sneaked Norwegian death metal onto the communal playlist. The newly installed orange survey stakes—part of the legal effort mounted by Cara and Geraldine, the Tribal council, and James’s foundation—make Ripley feel strangely displaced, like she’s been gone for years and come back to find everything changed.
But she should be able to spot where James buried the rock.
There should be a disturbance in the matrix—a small, unnatural mound in the canyon floor or a place where the flaky soil points in the wrong direction after being dug up.
No matter how hard she searches, though, the rock won’t show itself.
She’s relaxed her eyes all up and down this damn canyon, and nothing.
The thing is, she never held it. James showed it to her, but he never put it in her hand.
She never felt its firm weight in her palm.
She didn’t trace the depth of his lettering in the soft stone.
In the cemetery beside the trailer park, she’s seen headstones worn to illegibility after a single century, and those carvings were a half an inch deep.
How long would it take to wash away the barest scratch, made in minutes?
If she could look at the letters one more time, remember how the swirls went, she might feel better. If she held it even once, maybe she’d know why she can’t stop thinking about it.
“Rip! Lunch,” Cara calls from the top of the canyon stairs.
And just like that, her time is up. Even if everything someone worked for is gone, the site needs to be shut down. Fossils need to be capped. Tools need to be gathered and cleaned and stored; the cabins need to be shuttered against the long, harsh winter.
A meteor strikes. The world ends.
Life goes on.
She holds her head high as she climbs the stairs. She wants to leave here in a certain way.
Renzo’s gone now, so lunch and dinner are whatever Geraldine makes and sends a ranch hand to drop off in the mornings. It’s usually the same food for both meals. Sometimes Griff grills the leftovers at dinner so it feels like there’s more variety.
“See anything?” Matteo asks, handing Ripley a cheese sandwich.
“Nope. Today is not my day, I guess.”
Ripley was never more surprised than when Matteo asked if he could stay for the postseason cleanup.
He said he didn’t need pay, but Ripley has enough funds for two weeks of his salary after the twins’ early departure.
Redirecting the money to Matteo is one of the only things that makes her feel good these days.
She hopes Cara will ask him back next summer—if there is a next summer—but if not, she’ll shake her web of contacts and see what falls out.
Ripley bends her sandwich experimentally.
These will be good eating tonight, when they’re grilled, but straight from the cooler, they’re cold and a bit unyielding.
The first bite makes her want to cry, but a lot of things make her want to cry lately, so it’s probably not entirely the sandwich’s fault.
She washes down the lump in her throat with lukewarm Gatorade from her water bottle.
The conversation is as stiff as the sandwiches. In Ripley’s experience, it’s like that when something’s ending. Every interaction feels like it has to mean something final. Something special. The pressure kills the little moments that, taken together, make a place what it is.
What it was.
“Welp,” Ripley says, stepping awkwardly over the picnic table bench for the last time. “I’d better hit the road. Oh, shit, C. Don’t cry, honey.”
“I will cry,” Cara says fiercely, wiping away the tears as she comes to hug Ripley. “I’ll cry if I want to. You can’t stop me.”
“Apparently not,” Ripley agrees. As hard as this has been on her, it’s been harder on Cara and Griff.
Griff already backed out of all his winter excavation commitments, and now everything about Clever Girl’s next season is up in the air.
Who knows what other plans they’ve made—marriage, kids, house—that they’ll now have to rethink.
Ripley rises on tiptoes and whispers in Cara’s ear, “It’s going to be okay.
Your parents and the Smithson lawyers will get the birds back, in time.
We’ll make a decent sale. You’ll have all the choices you want.
” Cara’s arms tighten around her. Ripley knows they’re both thinking about how her dad’s clock might run out before they get their redemption story.
Griff pulls her into a brief, hard hug. “Stop by anytime, Rip. We could always use another set of hands like yours.” He’s taken to calling her by Cara’s favorite nickname. Ripley likes the way it sounds in his accent, like Reap.
“I might,” she says, and means it. “Bye, Matteo. Take care of yourself, okay? Call me if you need a reference.”
“Bye, Ripley,” he says, extending his hand. She takes it, trying to match his gravity. “I wish my dad had made me do this a long time ago.”
Cara barks out a laugh. “Stunning endorsement, Rip. ‘As far as forced labor goes, this wasn’t terrible.’ ”
Matteo blushes, and Griff chucks him on the shoulder to soften the blow.
“I’d better go. I want to catch Geraldine before the end of the lunch hour.”
Cara rolls her eyes. “Oh, she’ll be way out in the back forty. She hates goodbyes.”
“Yeah, well. Me too.”
In the parking lot, the Charger is waiting, every inch crammed with Ripley’s gear. There probably wouldn’t be room for a single extra thing in there anyway.
Not even a rock.