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.”
“Iwillcry,” 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, likeReap.
“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, tryingto 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.
37
September 8:
Eleven Days After the End of the Summer Excavation Season
Ripley comes in from the garden hot and bored.
She wanted to spend the day out there, but she’s already weeded, edged, staked, mowed, and tidied everything, and her dad won’t let her start any new projects so late in the year.
Steve Adams is sitting at the kitchen table, reading the mail. She’s not used to seeing him without oxygen tubing snaking down the front of his shirt, but these days he can go without it when he’s resting. He’s fit enough to walk to the entrance of the trailer park and back, stopping at the cluster mailbox along the way. Afterward, he allows himself another cup of coffee and the latest L.L. Bean catalog, which seems to arrive two or three times a day.
“Mail for you, Pip.” He indicates a padded envelope.
Ripley soaps her hands at the kitchen sink. “Why didn’t you give it to me on your way in?”
“You were elbow-deep in dirt.”
“I could’ve washed my hands.”
“You mean rinsed them with the hose and dried them on your pants.”
“Same thing.”
“This came all the way from England. I thought it deserved a proper scrub.”
He’s here,she thinks nonsensically, bracing herself against the sink until the tsunami of wanting and fear and unkillable hope recedes.
