Page 36 of Echoes

“You said you needed time. I don’t want to be some chore for you. Just do whatever you need to do. We’ll talk when you get back.”

“Ami, I–”

“It’s okay. Really. I mean it. It’s not a trap. Just be there. Do your work. We can talk when you get home.”

“Okay. Thank you,” she replied.

“I love–” The video went out, as did the internet connection, before Ami could finish.

Rosie closed the laptop and moved to lie down on her bed. The door opened partway.

“You can come in. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. She’s your wife. You need to talk to her. This week has been intense.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“I got you the cookies you like,” Felicity shared and dropped a bag of cookies onto the bed next to Rosie. “You don’t look good. You okay?”

“Not really, no,” she said honestly.

Six Weeks Later

“And then, he ran down the hallway in his underwear, yelling that there was a snapping turtle in his bed,” Felicity said through her laughter.

“Who put a snapping turtle in his bed?” Rosie asked.

“No one.” Felicity continued laughing. “He’d just had a nightmare and woke everyone up. I’ve never wanted to see a man in his underwear in my life, and there was this two-hundred-and-fifty-pound bear of a man, with more chest hair than I thought was possible on a male body, barreling down the tiny hallway at two in the morning.”

Rosie laughed and took a drink of her beer.

“That was my first trip. And as much as I never want to see another man in his underwear again, I saw what you see in it.”

“A man in his underwear?”

“No,” Felicity said, laughing again before she took a sip of her wine. “The job. Being on the water. It wasn’t a big deal, but they hadn’t been expecting to find anything left on that ship when I told them to look just a little longer. We found a cannon that shouldn’t have been there, though, and that led us to discover that the ship was supposedly there as an ally but that they were prepared for war, too. Three more cannons were found there, and it’s just the most amazing thing to be able to put my name to that.”

“Yeah, it is,” Rosie agreed.

“So, you’re really going back out in the spring? I know that’s what you said on the ship, but you love this.”

“Ami wants me here, and I have a full-time teaching job now. They gave me a few weeks off for this last one because it was the Thanksgiving break anyway, so it was only six classes, and I have a TA.”

“You didn’t want to be a teacher,” Felicity offered.

“It’s not marine archaeology, but it’s not that bad,” she replied. “The students are hit and miss, though.”

“Graduate level?”

“I’ve got one graduate, three undergraduate classes, and a seminar I’m hosting, so that’ll be fun. Six weeks at the start of the year. I’ll be talking about the discovery of theMary Rose.”

“Yeah? You’ll have to give me the info,” Felicity said.

“Why?”

“So I can sit in. I liked your first seminar enough to want to work for you, remember?”

“Sure. It’s Thursdays at five, starting the second week of the year, but I can get you the location when it gets a little closer.”