“Dr Sanders?”

I stabbed at the buttons on my phone as I walked back from the library. No Beatrice this time to give me a lift in her rickety truck, but the air was clean and fresh, and the walk was a pleasant one. After what I’d found about Wunderbar in the council records in the library basement, though, I was too distracted to notice the scenery.

“Yes, this is Ryan Sanders speaking—sorry, I’m out on the street. Just a moment.” I ducked into a doorway and pressed the phone harder against my ear. “Go ahead, please.”

“Dr Sanders, it’s John Watson from the Heritage Committee. Can you talk briefly?”

“John! We haven’t spoken for ages; I hope your family are all well. How can I help?”

“I’ll get straight to the point, Ryan; the Committee has been discussing your findings, and your new proposal, this morning. We weren’t due to discuss it for some time, but in view of the significance of what you’ve found, we decided to schedule an extra session. Ryan, it seems you’ve given us an unusual situation, and something of a dilemma.”

I laughed. “That was never my intention, John, but as you well know, science rarely works out the way you expect it to. But, yes, a fascinating site.”

“Ryan, before a decision is made, the Committee would like you to come back and present your findings in person. We’d like a chance to talk the project through with you personally and get some questions answered.”

“Of course, no problem. When would this be?”

A pause from the other end of the line. “We’d like you to present tomorrow afternoon, Ryan.”

“Tomorrow afternoon?” I let my frustration show in my voice. “John, I’m in the middle of the investigation; it’s half-complete. Is it possible we could reschedule for a later date? Even just a week would let me present a much stronger story.”

“I’m sorry, Ryan, it’s not possible.” I rolled my eyes. “I know it’s short notice, but the Committee is about to go into recess, and we’ve already extended by one session for this matter. The Committee members have their own commitments, and I can’t keep them here indefinitely.”

I exhaled, heavily. “Sure, I understand. Okay, if that’s how it has to be. I’ll book a flight back as soon as possible and put together a presentation on the plane.”

“I’m confident you’ll do a great job. Very well, I expect to hear from you soon. Travel safely.”

“Thanks, John. I’ll be in touch as soon as I land.” I hung up, and cursed under my breath. One day, to pull all of this together? Dammit.

* * *

I started walking faster, crossing the road and heading for the beach; I needed to get back to the bar as soon as I could, get a flight, and get out of here. The sooner I got on a plane, the more time I’d have to put a proposal together and to rehearse it.

But what do I say to Cat? I didn’t have an answer, and I needed one, now. My phone rang again as I got to the coast road, and I realized with a guilty start it was Mom. I’d promised her I’d be back at the bar by now, but my work at the library had robbed me of all idea of what time it was.

“Mom? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, sweetheart, no problem.” It was quieter here on the coast road, and there was almost no traffic, the only sound the noise of seagulls over the water, and the waves on the long shore. “I’m at the home with your father.”

“How are things?”

“Oh, fine.” ‘Fine’ was code for ‘bad day’. “We’ve been looking at photographs today.”

“Okay, good. Just keep trying, Mom, okay?”

“I know, sweetheart. Would you like to talk to your father?”

“Of course. Put him on now.” I took a deep breath, and stopped walking for a minute. And again. Frustration, and sadness, and anger came up in my throat, like it always did at this point.

And, I did what I always did. I wrapped all three in something cool and soft, and put them in a box deep down in my chest. Time to be sad and angry later. Sad and angry is understandable, but it doesn’t help anyone. Now, just patience and kindness. Looking out at the sea, I took another breath. The sea helped a little bit.

There was a shuffling sound, and a voice. “Who—what?” It was my father’s voice, the same newsreader bass I remembered from my childhood, but querulous now, cracked and wavering.

My mother’s voice this time. “Philip. Philip, listen. It’s your son, Ryan. On the phone. Here, take the phone and talk to him.” I waited.

“Phone? Where?”

“Here. This is a phone now. Looks like a packet of cigarettes, doesn’t it? Yes, they’re all different, I know, very confusing, lots of buttons. Take the phone and talk to Ryan.” I waited.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Hi Dad, it’s Ryan. How has your day been?”

“Ryan? Where do I know you from?”

“I’m your son, Dad. I came to see you last week. We had lunch in the garden, and I showed you some photographs of us together. Do you remember?”

“Did you? No. No, I’d remember that if it happened. I’m not losing my marbles, for God’s sake. Although they treat you as if you are in this bloody place. Have you ever been here?”

“Yes, Dad. I’ve been there many times. It’s not so bad, you know.”

His voice took on an annoyed tone. “That’s fine for you to say, young man. They put something in the food to keep us quiet, you know. Docile.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Dad.” There wasn’t really any answer when the conspiracy theories popped up, although they usually went away pretty quickly. “Did you have a nice lunch with Mom?”

“What? Oh, yes. Yes, very nice. Is she your mother?”

I clenched and unclenched my fist, watching, idly, my knuckles going white against the blue of the sky. “Yes, she is. Last time I came, we talked about the excavation I’m doing. Do you remember that? The archaeological excavation?”

“Oh? Oh. Yes!” A noise of satisfaction, and a delighted chuckle, the same one he used to make when we’d finished the cryptic crossword together, or come up with a particularly clever phrase for a lecture. “I do remember that. Cable Bay, wasn’t it? Interesting place, geologically speaking.”

Tears pricked my eyes and I fought to keep my voice steady. You do remember, Dad. “Yes, yes, that’s right, Dad. Cable Bay. I’m there now, working on the dig site.”

“How interesting. I would never have expected there’d be anything of interest there, because of course the standard hypothesis states that region was submerged until only quite recent prehistory. But you know that, I’m sure.”

“Exactly, Dad. That’s why this is so unexpected.”

“Hah! Cable Bay, eh? Great stuff. This sounds like a pretty big revision for the textbooks, I’d say. I look forward to hearing more about it. Are you one of my students, then?”

Just when you think things are going well, they have a habit of turning sour on you. “No, Dad. I’m your son. I’m an archaeologist too. I became one because—” I stopped myself. “Never mind. Let’s talk about what I’ve found next week, okay? Can you put Mom back on the phone, please?”

More shuffling, and I heard my mother’s voice. “Hold on, and I’ll say goodbye to your father, and we’ll talk.” I waited for a few minutes, and she came back on the line. “Okay, I’m out in the foyer. Thank you for doing that, sweetheart.”

I shook my head. “Sure. Anything significant on the medical front?”

“No. A persistent cough, according to the nurses, but nothing we should be worried about. Let’s talk about something else for a while. Please.” I could tell Mom was under stress, although she always did a good job of hiding it from everyone else. “What’s happened with the excavation?”

My rueful smile was probably evident in my voice. “Well, that’s the thing, Mom. It turns out things have gotten a bit more complicated.”

“How so?”

“Okay.” I needed to explain this to someone, and Mom was a reasonable place to start. “You remember I said the fossils were found underneath a building, right? This bar where I’m staying?”

“Sure.” Her voice was level, expectant.

“Well, it turns out the building has been on this site for a long time; more than a hundred years, in fact. And, according to the photos I’ve found in the council records, it’s almost completely unaltered. So, that means—”

“That means it’s a historic building, right?” Mom had picked up a lot from putting up with my father for all these years. “It should be certified and ruled on itself. And protected.”

“Exactly right. And that gives us a problem, because—”

“You can’t demolish it to excavate the fossils, can you? Not if it’s a protected building.”

“Right again. You should have been an archaeologist, Mom.”

“Huh. No, thank you.” I could hear her sitting down in a chair. “So, what are you going to do? Can you preserve the building and excavate the fossils at the same time?”

“Maybe. And that’s what I’m going to propose. But it would take years, and cost a heck of a lot, so I don’t know if the Heritage Committee will accept it. They have a limited budget, and I’m going to have to convince them that both the building and the site underneath it are worth saving. They want me back tomorrow to give a presentation.”

“Well, if anyone can convince them, it’s you. You’re the golden boy now, remember? The bright star in the research firmament, and all that.”

“Yeah. I don’t know, Mom. Dad could have done it. I watched him when I was growing up, remember? He could wrap an audience around his little finger. All I ever wanted to do was be half as good as him.”

She snorted. “I watched you both. You are every bit as good as your father was. He would say the same thing if—if he—”

I started talking quickly to cover her silence. “Maybe. I hope so. Anyway, I’ve got to get myself on a plane today, like now, and then come up with a convincing argument.”

“What about Cat?”

Oof. I wasn’t ready for that. “I don’t know, Mom. I like her a lot, I really do. But right now, the most important thing is this project. I’ll do the best I can for her, but—”

“Ryan, listen to me.” She didn’t use her ‘insistent’ voice very often. “I know you care about what you’re doing. But you need to be thinking about the rest of your life as well.”

I started walking, trying to wind up the conversation. “Sure. I understand.” I didn’t really want to talk about this right now, not while my head was rapidly filling up with trying to construct a proposal for the Heritage Committee.

“Don’t use that ‘I understand’ tone with me. Not about this.”

“Okay, okay. I know it’s important, and I promise I’m not trying to brush you off. But I have to get this proposal right; if I don’t make it convincing enough, then I’ll never forgive myself. We need to preserve this—”

She cut me off. “Ryan, as much as you want to be saving memories from the past, I want you to be thinking about creating some new ones of your own. If you think you could have a future with this girl Cat, don’t let it slip away. Find a solution.”

I was silent for a minute. Mom was right, as she always was, but knowing that it was important didn’t magically give me the ability to know what to do. “Okay, Mom. I hear you.”

“Good. I should let you go. I love you, sweetheart.”

I hung up, and then rang Cat’s number, wanting to tell her what had happened, but she didn’t pick up. I’d be back at the bar soon anyway, and I could explain everything then.