Chapter 10
CALVIN
It’s been three days since Lois left, and I keep waiting for the situation to implode.
It hasn’t. Not yet, anyway.
I watch from the shade of the dining tent as Georgia works at the excavation site, Ella’s playpen set up under a large canopy close by.
The toddler has a collection of toys—blocks, stuffed animals, some kind of activity board that makes annoying musical sounds—and she’s surprisingly content to play by herself.
For now. I’ve seen firsthand how quickly things can go downhill with her.
Georgia moves between the excavation grid and the playpen with a rhythm she’s developed over the past few days.
Work for twenty minutes, check on Ella. Brush away sand from a promising area, offer Ella a snack.
Photograph findings, check Ella’s diaper and take her for a potty break.
It’s a constant dance, and somehow, she’s managing it.
Not well enough, though. Not by my standards.
“Mr. Aarons?” Khalid appears beside me. “The supply truck will arrive on Wednesday. Do you want to review the inventory list?”
“Later,” I say, not taking my eyes off the work site. “I want to observe the excavation process first.”
Khalid follows my gaze and, wisely, says nothing. He’s learned over the past few days that I’m in a perpetually foul mood.
I walk toward the site, where Omar and Yasmin are working under Georgia’s direction. She’s crouched over a section of grid, carefully brushing away sand with movements so precise they’re almost meditative.
“Anything?” I ask, approaching.
Georgia doesn’t look up. “More pottery fragments. Consistent with the time period we expected. And there are more stone features emerging here.” She gestures to a section where carved blocks are barely visible beneath the sand.
“So, we have fragments and ‘features.’ Nothing definitive.”
“Calvin, it’s been three days. This is normal.”
Apparently, she’s decided she no longer needs to refer to me in a professional manner. And why should she? She knows I need her and consequently knows she can do close to whatever she wants.
“Normal isn’t good enough. We need to establish proof of concept. Confirm that there’s actually a temple here, not just random ruins.”
Now she does look up, and I can see the irritation in her eyes even through her sunglasses. “This is proof. The pottery, the carved stone, the arrangement. It’s all consistent with a temple complex.”
“Consistent with isn’t the same as proof of.”
“In archaeology, this is how proof happens. Layer by layer. Artifact by artifact. We build evidence over time.”
“We don’t have unlimited time.” I don’t have unlimited time. This project is not only costing a ton of money; it’s taking me away from my businesses. While I have proxies to handle things back home, my mere absence is a financial gamble.
“We have six months,” Georgia says. “That’s plenty if you’d stop hovering and let me work.”
There’s that edge again. The one that appears whenever I question her methods. “I’m not hovering. I’m monitoring progress. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” She stands, brushing dust from her knees. “Because you’ve checked on us twelve times today. It’s barely noon.”
Has it been twelve? I haven’t been counting. And why should I? But surely she’s exaggerating. “I have a vested interest in—”
“Mama!” Ella’s voice cuts through our conversation. “Mama, Mama!”
Georgia’s attention immediately shifts. “Just a second, Ella!”
“Mama! Up!”
“I’m working right now, sweetheart. Play with your blocks.”
“No! Mama up!”
The whining continues, and I can see the tension in Georgia’s shoulders as she tries to focus on both the excavation and her increasingly insistent daughter.
“Maybe you should get her,” I say. “She’s been in that crate all morning.”
Georgia gives me a disgusted look. “It’s a playpen.”
“Oh. Pen. Excuse me. Is that any better?”
She sets down her brush with more force than necessary. “Excuse me.”
She walks to the playpen, and I hear her talking to Ella in that patient but strained voice she uses when the toddler is being difficult. After a minute, Ella settles with a juice box and some crackers, and Georgia returns.
“Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine.” It’s not fine. It’s a distraction. But what else can I say?
The day drags on. The heat becomes oppressive, even in the shade. Work slows to a crawl as everyone takes frequent water breaks. Ella needs lunch, then a nap, which means Georgia disappears to the tent for half an hour to get her settled.
That’s another half an hour of lost work time.
When Georgia returns, I notice the bags under her eyes. “Okay, where were we?” she asks.
“Section C-four,” Omar says, pointing to the grid. “We found something interesting while you were gone.”
I perk up at that. Something interesting. Finally.
We gather around as Omar carefully brushes away sand from what looks like more pottery fragments. But these are different. They’re thicker pieces, with some color on them.
“This is glazed,” Yasmin says, leaning in for a closer look. “See the blue? That’s cobalt. Expensive. Indicative of something significant.”
Georgia kneels beside them, and I can see her excitement building. This is the woman from the lecture video Ollie showed me. Her eyes are bright, and she’s completely absorbed in the find. I wonder if she has any idea that she’s the most beautiful in moments like this.
“Careful,” she murmurs as Omar works. “There might be more underneath.”
Slowly, painstakingly, he uncovers more fragments. A curve becomes visible. A rim. What might be a handle.
“It’s a vessel,” Georgia breathes. “A ceremonial vase, maybe. The decoration suggests…” She traces a pattern in the air above the fragments, not quite touching. “Omar, get the camera. We need to document this exactly as it is before we extract.”
This is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for. Real evidence of sophisticated artifacts. Proof that something significant was here.
Omar positions the camera, adjusting the lighting. Yasmin prepares documentation materials. Georgia is giving rapid instructions, her expertise clear in every movement and decision.
And then…
“Mama!” comes Ella’s voice, loud and insistent and impossible to ignore.
“Not now, Ella.”
“Mama! Mama! Mama!”
The screaming escalates. Georgia’s face flashes with frustration, then resignation.
“I just need five minutes,” she calls toward the playpen. “Mama needs five minutes—”
“Mama now!”
The crying becomes hysterical. Something must have upset Ella. A toy that won’t work, or she’s hot, or she’s just decided that right now, this exact moment, she needs her mother. Or maybe she’s tired of being in that pen. Who could blame her?
Georgia looks at the fragments, at the camera in Omar’s hands, at the documentation waiting to be completed. Then she looks at her screaming daughter.
“Omar, continue without me. Document everything. Don’t extract until I’m back.”
“Georgia,” I start.
“I know.” She’s already walking away. “I know, okay? But she won’t stop, and if I don’t handle it, she’ll work herself into a meltdown, and then no one will be able to work.”
She’s right. Logically, I know she’s right. But watching her walk away from the most significant find we’ve made, watching her have to choose between her work and her child in the middle of a critical moment…
It’s infuriating. Disappointing. And I feel sorry for her. Which surprises me.
I turn back to Omar and Yasmin, who are pointedly not looking at me. “Continue the documentation,” I say, more sharply than intended. “I want every angle photographed, every fragment’s position recorded.”
“Yes, sir,” Omar says quietly.
I stand waiting, arms crossed, watching them work while Georgia’s soothing voice and Ella’s wails create a soundtrack of disruption in the background.
This was a mistake. Bringing Georgia, accommodating her child, thinking that somehow this could work. How can she lead an excavation when half her attention is constantly pulled away?
But the alternative flashes through my mind: trying to find someone else, starting over, losing more weeks or months to the search. No one else has Georgia’s knowledge of this region. No one else would work as hard or care as much about getting this right.
I’m stuck with her. We’re stuck with each other.
The pottery fragments reveal more of their pattern as Omar photographs them. Even in pieces, I can see the beauty, the careful craftsmanship, the deliberate design.
Georgia returns twenty minutes later. Ella needed a diaper change, apparently, and was overheated and cranky. She’s now settled with new toys and more juice, content for the moment.
“Sorry,” Georgia says again, crouching beside the excavation. “Oh, this is beautiful. Look at the glaze work…”
She’s immediately absorbed again, all business, directing the documentation process with the same precision she showed before. It’s like a switch flips: mother to archaeologist and back again, over and over.
I should admire that flexibility. Instead, it just frustrates me more. “How much longer for documentation?” I ask.
“Another hour, maybe two. We need to be thorough.”
“And then?”
“Then we carefully extract the fragments, stabilize them, and begin analysis. We might be able to reconstruct the vessel, or at least enough of it to understand its purpose.”
“Will it tell us if there’s a temple?”
Georgia looks up at me, and there’s patience in her expression, but also weariness. “One artifact doesn’t prove a temple. But it’s evidence. Combined with the stone features, the pottery distribution, the spatial patterns… It’s all building a case.”
“I need more than a case. I need certainty.”
“Then you’re in the wrong field.” She turns back to the fragments. “Archaeology is about probability, not certainty. We gather evidence and make informed interpretations. That’s the best we can do.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s going to have to be.”
The tension between us is thick enough to choke on. Omar and Yasmin exchange glances, clearly uncomfortable with witnessing yet another disagreement between their boss and their boss’s boss.
I walk away before I say something I’ll regret.
Back at the dining tent, I find Edmond reviewing structural surveys.
“How’s it going?” he asks, looking up.
“Slowly.”
“Archaeology is a slow process.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.” I drop into a chair, suddenly exhausted. “How long did your last excavation take before you found something significant?”
“Define significant.”
“Proof that you’d found what you were looking for.”
Edmond considers. “Four months. And that was with a larger team and easier terrain.”
Four months…
“Calvin,” Edmond says carefully, “maybe you should step back from the daily observations. Trust Georgia to do her job.”
“I’m paying for this excavation. I should oversee it.”
“There’s overseeing and there’s micromanaging. Right now, you’re doing the latter, and it’s creating tension.”
“She brought her child to a professional excavation site. She needs all the help she can get.”
“You agreed to that arrangement.”
“Because I had no choice!” The words come out louder than intended, echoing in the empty tent.
Edmond watches me with something like sympathy. “You’re not going to find what you’re looking for by hovering.”
“I’m not hovering. I said I would stop that, and I have.”
“You are. You’re terrified that this won’t work, that there won’t be a temple, that your grandmother’s stories will turn out to be just stories.
And you’re trying to control the outcome by monitoring every detail.
” He pauses. “But that’s not how this works.
You hired experts. Now you have to trust them. ”
Trust them. Trust her. The woman who takes any opportunity to call me out. Who told me to act like an adult. But she’s also the only person for the job, and I’m stuck with her—my only comfort being she’s stuck with me as well.