Chapter 13
CALVIN
“Ella, no!” Georgia lunges across the breakfast table just in time to grab the child away from the hot skillet full of scrambled eggs.
“No!” Ella shouts right back.
Georgia attempts to put her into the highchair, but Ella fights with the commitment of a wrestling champion, her face red with exertion and anger.
“Here, habibti.” Fatima hands Ella a wooden spoon, which Ella grabs and bangs against the table. It gives Georgia enough of a distraction for her to buckle Ella into the high chair.
Fatima sighs. “I’m sorry. I should have moved that skillet.”
“You can’t be everywhere all at once, remembering everything.” Georgia pushes hair from her face, little strands that have worked their way loose from her bun. “If only we could babyproof the desert.”
The table chuckles, but it’s a tired chuckle—the kind people force when they’re desperately trying to make the best of a hard situation. No one complains about Ella—that’s been exclusively my job, up until yesterday when I found the sippy cup and decided I’m done whining.
If I want a change to happen, I need to be the one to make it. “Actually,” I hear myself say, “we probably could. Babyproof the camp, I mean.”
Everyone turns to stare at me.
“What?” Georgia asks, genuine confusion on her face.
“The camp. We could make it safer. More… Ella-friendly.” I gesture around. “Cover sharp corners, secure equipment, create boundaries. It’s just engineering. Problem-solving.”
Edmond raises his eyebrows. “That’s a good idea, but we don’t exactly have a hardware or baby store we can run out to.”
“I doubt we would even need to, if we did have that. We have some foam, right? For packing. I can start there. Also, there are things that can be moved out of her reach but to where they’re still accessible to others.
It would make things easier for everyone.
” I look at Georgia. “Safer for Ella. Less stressful for you.”
Georgia is staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Calvin, you don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to. But I want to.” I pause, trying to find the right words. “I don’t know anything about children. At all. But I can learn. And in the meantime, I can at least make the environment less hazardous.”
There’s a long silence.
Then Khalid says, “I can help. My sister has three little ones. I know which areas are most dangerous.”
“We do have foam padding in the supply tent,” Fatima adds. “For equipment protection, but it would work for sharp edges too.”
“Well, then,” Edmond says with a grin. “Looks like we’re babyproofing the Sahara.”
It turns out that babyproofing a desert camp is more complicated than I anticipated, but also oddly satisfying.
While Georgia and her team work at the excavation site—they’re making excellent progress in the new section, uncovering more ritual pottery—Khalid, Edmond, and I do our own work through the camp.
We start with the dining tent. Fatima’s cooking area has open flames, hot surfaces, and sharp utensils all within a toddler’s potential reach. We construct a low barrier using supply crates and rope, creating a visual boundary that Ella can’t easily cross.
“She’ll still try,” Khalid warns.
“But at least there’s a barrier to slow her down,” I counter. “Buy Georgia a few extra seconds to intervene.”
We pad the sharp corners of tables with foam, secure loose cables and ropes that could be tripping hazards, and reorganize the storage area so heavy items aren’t stacked where they could topple onto small explorers.
“This is actually kind of brilliant,” Edmond says, standing back to survey our work. “We should have done this from the start.”
By lunch, we’ve moved on to the general camp area. I find myself thinking about space from a toddler’s perspective. What would be interesting to grab? What could cause injury? Where are the dangers an adult wouldn’t even notice?
It’s like solving a puzzle. A weird, child-safety puzzle.
“What about her play area?” I ask Georgia when she comes up for lunch, Ella on her hip as usual. “Could we improve that?”
Georgia looks around at the changes we’ve made, her expression stunned. “You’ve been busy.”
“It’s a start. But I was thinking, her playpen is functional, but not very engaging. What if we created a more… stimulating environment?”
“A stimulating environment,” Georgia repeats slowly.
“For cognitive development,” I add, referencing what I was able to research online this morning. “Children this age are learning constantly. They need varied sensory input.”
Khalid snorts into his hand, absolutely trying not to laugh. I frown at him.
“That would be… really nice, actually,” Georgia says. “But Calvin, this is already way beyond—”
“I’ll work on it this afternoon. I have the time.”
After lunch, while the team rests during the worst heat of the day, I find myself in the supply tent taking inventory of potential toy materials.
This is ridiculous. I’m a real estate mogul.
I’ve negotiated multimillion-dollar deals.
I’ve managed complex acquisitions and corporate mergers.
And now I’m trying to figure out how to make toys from odds and ends.
But I find myself… not hating it? Certainly, it’s the most useful I’ve felt since arriving at the camp.
I construct a simple stacking toy from smooth wooden blocks I cut from spare lumber, which I also sanded carefully so there are no splinters.
Then a pull toy using a small crate with wheels and a rope handle.
A “texture board” with different materials attached—smooth plastic, rough canvas, soft fabric, cool metal.
They’re crude. Definitely not something you’d find in a store. But they’re functional. Safe. And different from the toys Ella has been playing with for days. They should be interesting enough to keep her attention for longer than the toys she’s used to.
I set them up in her play area under the canopy, arranging them in a way that seems logical for exploration, pride filling my chest. Then I step back and realize I truly have no idea if a fourteen-month-old will find any of this interesting.
“Well,” I mutter to myself, “only one way to find out.”
Later that afternoon, I volunteer to watch Ella while Georgia supervises the documentation of new findings.
“Are you sure?” Georgia asks, for what must be the fifth time.
“Positive. We’ll be fine.”
And we are. Surprisingly, remarkably fine.
I introduce Ella to the new toys, and her face lights up with genuine delight. She immediately grabs the stacking blocks, knocking them over and laughing at the sound they make.
“Block,” I say, holding one up. “Can you say block?”
“Bah!” she responds.
“Close enough. Block.”
“Bah!”
We go back and forth like this, and I find myself oddly invested in getting her to pronounce it correctly. Not because it matters—what age do most kids even start talking?—but because I enjoy the game of it. The challenge.
She moves on to the pull toy, delighted when it moves behind her as she toddles around.
“Walk,” I say. “You’re walking. Walk.”
“Wah!”
“Better. Walk.”
“Walk!” she finally gets out, clear as day, and grins at me like she’s won the lottery.
I gasp in delight. “Yes! That’s right—walk!”
She claps her hands, proud of herself, and something warm spreads through my chest.
“Just wait till we tell your mom,” I say.
Over the next hour, we work through words as we play. She doesn’t repeat any other ones, but she’s listening. At least I think she is, even when she has her fist in her mouth, drool running down it.
At some point, I start explaining what I’m doing to her, even though she clearly doesn’t understand most of it.
“This is archaeology,” I tell her, gesturing toward where her mother is working.
“Your mama is very good at it. She’s uncovering history.
Things that happened thousands of years ago. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Mama?” Ella looks around for her.
“Yes, Mama. She’s brilliant, your mother. Even if she drives me crazy sometimes.”
Ella reaches for my face again, but this time I’m ready and catch her hands before she can grab my hair.
“No pulling,” I tell her firmly. “Gentle.”
I guide her hand to pat my cheek softly instead.
“Dat,” she says, and does it again.
“Yes. Good job.”
The phrase feels foreign coming out of my mouth, but Ella beams at the praise, so I guess I said it right.
We’re playing with the texture board—Ella is fascinated by the different materials, running her small hands over each one—when I feel eyes on me.
I look up to find Georgia standing just outside the tent, watching us.
She must have finished with the documentation and come to check on Ella.
But she’s not moving to take her daughter back. She’s just… watching.
There’s surprise on her face, which makes sense.
I’ve mostly treated Ella like a burden, and so this must seem like a sudden turnaround.
How do I express to Georgia that it was inevitable, though?
I needed something to shake me—in this case the email from my father—for me to really get my head in the game. For me to really become a team player.
But there’s something else in her expression too. Something that makes my chest tighten. Wistfulness, maybe. Or sadness. Like she’s seeing something that moves her but also hurts.
Our eyes meet, and the expression vanishes so quickly I almost think I imagined it. She walks over with a smile that seems forced.
“How’s it going?”
“Good. We’ve been working on words. She said ‘walk’ very clearly.”
“Did she?” Georgia looks at Ella with such love it’s almost painful to witness. “That’s a new one. You’re a good teacher.”
“She’s a good student.” I stand, dusting sand off my pants. “And she seems to like the new toys.”
“The new…” Georgia notices the toys for the first time. “Calvin, did you make these?”
“They’re rough, but functional. The blocks help with motor skills and spatial reasoning. The pull toy encourages walking. The texture board is for sensory development.”
She picks up one of the blocks, running her thumb over the sanded edge. “These are perfect. Calvin, this is… this is really thoughtful.”
The compliment makes me uncomfortable in a way I don’t understand. “It was just something to do. I had time.”
“Still.” She sets the block down carefully. “Thank you. Really.”
Ella has started pulling on Georgia’s pants, wanting attention. “Mama! Walk!”
“Yes, baby, walking.” Georgia scoops her up. “Say thank you to Calvin.”
“Tank!” Ella says, waving at me.
I find myself waving back, a smile tugging at my lips. “You’re welcome.”
After they leave, I stand in the empty play area, surrounded by the crude toys I made, feeling…
strange. Content, maybe. Useful in a way that has nothing to do with money or business acumen.
I find myself wondering about Ella’s father.
What kind of man walks away from this? From this smart child?
From Georgia and the family they could have been?
Then I catch myself. It’s none of my business. Georgia’s past, her choices, Ella’s father. All of it is completely irrelevant to this project. And why would I care, anyway? I’m here to find a temple, not to get involved in my employee’s personal life.
But as I walk back to my tent to clean up before dinner, I can’t shake that image of Georgia’s face. The wistfulness. The sadness. And the uncomfortable realization that I want to understand it. Want to know what put that expression there. Want to, maybe, find a way to make it go away.