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 thenno onewill 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.”
