Three years ago, Ripley ran out of a room a lot like this one. James is here somewhere, and if she sees him unexpectedly, she’s not sure she won’t run out all over again.
For a moment, the feeling of déjà vu is vertiginous, like she’s collided with her past self.
Then again, she’s been up for seventeen hours already today, so that might have something to do with the swimming feeling in her head.
Their gang—Ripley, Cara, Griff, and Matteo—piled into the Charger at three a.m. with an unreasonably gigantic stack of plastic food containers, courtesy of Geraldine, and a fifteen-hour playlist, courtesy of Matteo. The sun rose somewhere over Idaho and didn’t quit until they reached the Pacific. They sped through endless blue, shouting along with their favorite songs and dragging their fingers through the last of the summer wind.
Ripley pulled James’s letter out of her bag when Cara took a turn at the wheel and Ripley was supposed to be napping in the back seat. The stationery was thick and creamy, the folds soft where she’d smoothed them flat to read and reread his words. The scrollwork around James’s monogram reminded her of their intertwined initials carved into a rock and buried somewhere in western Montana.
Ripley,the letter began, her name penned in the same lettering he’d used to caption his sketches. If he meant to make her remember the drawings, remember him, he’d succeeded.
I’m certain you have no wish to hear from me, but accidentally or not, the drawings of Beauty were among my belongings when you shipped them to Berkeley. After much consideration, I concluded I had a duty to return them to their rightful owner.
The attached document gives you the right to print unlimited reproductions in perpetuity. One day, when the Clever Girl Museum has more visitors than it can handle, perhaps you’ll see fit to display them near Beauty and Beast, or make them into postcards and sell them in the gift shop. Or perhaps you’ll throw them on the barbecue—they are yours to dispose of as you please.
I wish I had the strength to give you the other drawings too, but I felt reasonably certain youwouldburn those, and I’m afraid I couldn’t bear the thought. I have, however, removed the captions and stored them securely so your name need never be associated with mine.
Even on the twentieth reread, Ripley had to stop at that point. She couldn’t unsee him carefully cutting his handwriting fromthe bottom of each page, a nest of long, thin strips gathering on the floor. All of the Ripleys, excised.
I’ve been a coward, Ripley. My whole adult life, I dedicated myself to fulfilling others’ dreams while protecting them from knowing who I really was. If I did that long enough and well enough, I thought, no one need get hurt by my selfish desires ever again.
But youdidget hurt, and I am sorrier for that than I can say. I put what I thought you needed above the principles you held dear. I held back my true feelings, thinking this was the brave thing to do, when really it was the easy way out. You had to ask me if I loved you in the middle of a crowded airport at one of the worst moments of your life.
You received no answer, and I do not and will not forgive myself for that.
You are owed the truth, Ripley. If you don’t want to know it, that is your right. Throw the next page of this letter into the fire now, if you wish.
The bottom corner of the paper was ragged where she’d thumbed it, gripped it, let it go, picked it up again, wanting and not wanting to read on. There was a part of her that couldn’t bear to nurture the newborn spark of hope in case it died too fast. A part that craved the simplicity of blaming everything on him.
In the end, the paleontologist in her couldn’t leave it buried. She’d turned the page to a reproduction of the scrollwork on their rock. It looked exactly the same, except instead of their initials, the center held five words.
I love you, Ripley Adams.
If she held the next page up to the light, she’d see where his pen had carved the imprint of those five words into the page below, like bones left behind and fossilized.
I do not expect you to forgive me. I half expect you will never read this letter. But if I could tell you anything, I would say thank you. Your courage has changed me, Ripley.
The first change I have made was to cancel the agreement with Oxford. You and Cara should choose how and with whom you will study Beauty and Beast. The Smithson Foundation solicitors also inform me that, should you wish to repay their funds, you need not declare their support on any subsequent publications. It would be as if I were never there, in a sense.
If you ever need me—in any place, at any time, from any distance—you need only ask for me, and I will find you, Ripley.
Yours,
J
She reread the letter until the motion sickness was so intense that she had to stick her head out her window at highway speed, ignoring Cara’s yelling.
I love you, Ripley Adams,he’d written. And:I will find you.
Not if she found him first.
In front of Ripley, Cara twitches, her hand rising toward her ear, then falling back to her side. She turns to Griff, smiling like she’s making cocktail conversation. “The twins are ready.” Her eyes cutto the back of the room, and her smile turns stiff. “You need to not be so tall, sweet cheeks. Helen’s back with a couple of goons, and she might recognize you from before.”
Griff hunkers down, pretending to tie his dress shoe. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Calm down, Chris Hemsworth. No one said leave. Actually, wait.” Touching her ear, she speaks quietly. Seconds later, Fiona appears at the front of the room to remove a chair from the stage. No one pays her any attention in her A/V tech outfit and conference ID. When Fiona sets the chair down in front of Griffin, Ripley notices that her name tag readsDr. Herbert Simpson.
She checks her own badge. It’s for Michael Ryan, who consulted on the original Jurassic Park movies.
