by Anne Valente
Significant sites of the Morrison Formation include Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, which contains over eight hundred paleontological dig sites; Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry in Utah, an alleged predator trap; and the Small Quarry of Colorado.
Many of the fossils found in the Morrison Formation are incomplete, but they nonetheless reveal telling evidence of the Jurassic period’s flora and fauna. Much of the climate was dry, with fossilized vegetation found along former riverbeds. There is evidence of nesting as well, which suggests that the environment was suitable for long-term habitation rather than migratory patterns.
39.3228º N, 110.6895º W:
Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry, UT
Rhiannon knows it’s only rock. She’s already buried her mother in the soft gray of central Illinois, drizzle pelting down on the sheltered tent beside a mud-slung grave. The rhythmic drip, a sound she wants to forget. The rain-damp cotton of her dress clinging to her skin. The weight of Aunt Sue’s hand on her shoulder. Beth silent beside her. Her father speechless then and full of words now, here across so many state lines that have become hers and Billie’s alone, a trip that leaves no space for their father and his hollow posturing around a fire ring that holds an empty urn that makes Rhiannon feel nothing at all. She knows it’s just rock, pebbled gravel and the crimson rust of sandstone, her mother elsewhere deep inside the Midwestern land where she was born. But when Billie rips the canister open and scatters a cloud of ash that takes to the gaping valley Rhiannon rushes forward, her entire body encircling her sister from behind.
Nothing like embracing Billie awkwardly for the first time as she stepped away from the Correctional Center’s curb. The empty canister limp in Billie’s left hand, scars rippling down her forearm that Rhiannon feels. Billie trembling. Rage or devastation, Rhiannon can’t tell. She feels through her sister’s skin every ounce of regret for her absence from a March funeral and still Rhiannon wants to drag her to the ground, make her understand she’s not the only one gutted by loss.
Rhiannon can take a bar fight. The joyride of a car across an empty highway.
She can’t abide six states for a ceremony Billie has destroyed on impulse.
She feels Billie struggle against the wrench-locked grip of her arms, Rhiannon’s mouth pressed to the back of Billie’s sun-soaked shirt. Get the fuck off me, Billie whispers.
Get ahold of yourself, Rhiannon says, her mouth a line of teeth.
Get ahold of myself? There’s nothing in this fucking container. There’s nothing at all here to bury and we have to listen to him drone on like he gave two fucks about Mom or about us?
Not everything is about you.
No? Then who the fuck is this about?
Rhiannon lets her go and Billie pulls away and drops the urn. Rhiannon glances at Angela and Marcus, still sitting in their folding chairs, both looking at the ground. Rhiannon at once embarrassed. Her father standing beside his own chair, his eyes hard, the sage bundles smoking in the ring between all of them. The plastic canister rolls side to side in the ridgeline’s wind, vacant and weighted with nothing.
You should be ashamed of yourself, their father says and Rhiannon knows he is speaking to Billie.
Billie raises her eyebrows. Should I?
They planned this for you. He motions toward Angela and Marcus. Your mother planned this for you. All of this, Billie. All of this is for you and your sister.
And we’re all so glad you’ve made it about you.
Oh, I’m the one who made this about me?
You weren’t invited. You’re not supposed to be here.
What in hell is that supposed to mean?
It means why are you here, Dad? Billie shouts. Why the fuck are you here? Why do you think we care at all what you have to say about Mom? This was ours. You’ve never even been out here. Not even once.
Rhiannon watches her father’s mouth break into a crude laugh. You think you know everything? You know everything about your mother and me and what the hell went on between us? Let me tell you something. She didn’t want me out here. She told me not to come, not even once. She said this space was hers and hers alone. But she wanted me here now. She said I should be here. She wanted me here for you girls.
Rhiannon glances at Angela and wants to ask if this is true, if Angela knows anything of who their mother asked to be here. If she ever spoke about why her own husband never visited Utah once and why it would matter to her if he visited now.
She never said anything about you being here for this, Billie says. Not when she gave me the journal. Not once when she came to visit in her last months.
She didn’t want you to know. She said she wanted us all to find ourselves here, together again.
Billie smiles. Together again. A big happy family. Without her.
I can’t speak for your mother. All I know is she wanted me here. She wanted all of us here on this land that meant something to her.
And how about Decatur? Rhiannon hears Billie say.
Rhiannon feels her jaw clench. Billie.
No, really, Dad. Was Decatur a space that was mine and mine alone, too?
Jesus, Billie, their father says. Not now.
Why not now? You made it all the way out here. Where the fuck were you then?
Rhiannon watches their father and despite Billie turning their mother’s ceremony toward this, now of all moments, she finds herself curious: she wants to know. Wants to hear what her father could possibly say, beyond the excuses she’s given Billie across six years for their father’s absence. Being busy. Being out on the road. Being unsure of what to say. Rhiannon waits for him to speak and realizes she has no idea at all why their father never came beyond any excuse she could give Billie to make it right.
I’m telling you, he says. Drop it.
Oh, I assure you, I won’t.
He looks at Billie. Fine. But you’re not going to like it.
There’s not much left to like about the last six years.
He keeps his eyes on Billie. Your mother told me not to come.
Billie laughs. You expect me to believe that? You weren’t even married anymore. What difference would it make to her what you did or didn’t do?
I don’t care what you believe. It’s the truth. Your mother told me not to visit you and I respected her wishes, just as I respected them by coming out here.
Why would she do that? Rhiannon blurts.
She knows her father. She knows by his voice that he isn’t lying. He looks at Rhiannon, as if he’s forgotten that she, too, is standing by the fire ring.
I don’t know. Your mother had her preferences. And her secrets, as you good well know. I don’t know why she didn’t want me there. At the prison, or out here when she was working. But she didn’t. He looks at Billie and runs a hand through his thinning hair. I figured maybe you told her you didn’t want me there at the prison.
Who gives a fuck what anyone told you? Billie shouts and Rhiannon hears the hurt in her voice trying to be anything but hurt. Who cares what Mom told you to do, or what you thought I wanted you to do? I’m your daughter. You could’ve come. Regardless of what anyone told you to do or not do.
You think I didn’t want to come?
She wasn’t your wife anymore. What would it matter if she asked you not to come to see me? And now, all of a sudden, to come way the fuck out here? What about doing what you want?
Rhiannon speaks up. Stop. Please. Let’s not do this right now.
Angela looks up and meets her eyes. Marcus keeps his gaze on the ground.
This isn’t what she wanted, Rhiannon says. Please, let’s just do what she wanted.
Their father nods. His fists balled and perched on his hips. He slides back and takes a seat in his folding chair and Rhiannon remains on the other side of the fire ring, waiting for Billie to move.
Billie, Angela says softly. Billie, you’re welcome to say a few words.
Billie says nothing and stands firm beside the ridgeline, the urn rolling in the gravel, and Rhiannon feels
her own rage drain away, replaced by nothing but a hollow in her chest. That they’re here. The urn empty, carrying only rock but carrying something. That in the end, it doesn’t matter who was where. Their mother is gone.
IT IS A miracle that Angela and Marcus still set up the post-ceremony reception. Rhiannon helps them pull food from their trailers’ small refrigerators, Billie sitting outside at the edge of the picnic tables alone, surely readying to disappear into her own trailer. The only place on this entire quarry to be alone, a land that for once seems too open and vast. Rhiannon feels for her sister. That their mother kept something from her, too, for reasons Rhiannon can’t understand. Even still she doesn’t want to be near her.
While Marcus and her father set up the food, Rhiannon drifts to the parking lot and sits inside the only other solitary space she knows: the sealed shell of the Mustang, engine off, every window rolled up tight. The visitor center dark and unlit, the sun shifting west beyond its roof. She sits with her hands clenched to the wheel as if she were on the raceway, as if she were in control. She flexes her fingers against the sun-softened padding, a thin disc she’s piloted across an entire country in the past week.
Rhiannon felt nothing watching the urn’s rock blow in dusted sheets across the valley. Billie scattering its contents. The rest of the ceremony mechanical, nothing more. Rhiannon’s own brief-whispered eulogy. We love you, Mom. The words hollow capsules. Everything inside of her spent. Her own grief numbed by the time March ended and pushed her from Beth’s apartment back to her mother’s home. Let Billie feel what she feels, the ceremony for her alone if Rhiannon’s already felt everything she needs to feel.
Let Billie throw dust and rock.
Let Billie do whatever the fuck she wants.
The Mustang’s door creaks open, a quick puncture in the sound-dampened womb of the car, and Rhiannon’s father climbs into the passenger seat and closes the door behind him. He sits beside her, eyes forward, hands resting on his knees. Rhiannon doesn’t look at him. Their positions beside each other reminiscent of so many years shuttling down so many highways. The Mustang immobile. Not windswept and throttling across open plains, not zipping along the yellow dash of a center line to outgun a thunderstorm developing in the black-clouded distance. Rhiannon listens to her father breathe. She doesn’t move when he places a hand on her shoulder.
I’m sorry about that, he says. I’m sorry about all of it.
You have nothing to be sorry about. None of us do.
Rhiannon hears her words and knows she means Billie, despite everything.
I should’ve told you, he says. I should’ve told you your mother wanted me out here, and that she didn’t want me in Decatur at all.
You said you were going to Dacono.
I’m still going. Bryson’s already there. I just made a detour along the way.
Rhiannon looks at him. Did she ever tell you why? Did Mom tell you why she didn’t want you to see Billie for six whole years?
He shakes his head. Not really. For a long time, I thought she was protecting Billie. That Billie told her she didn’t want me there. I can see now that’s not the case. I don’t know if your sister wanted me there or not, but it’s clear she didn’t know.
Neither of us did. I always thought you didn’t want to see Billie that way.
I didn’t. Did anyone? But I would’ve been there. I would’ve been there every week. I wrote letters sometimes, birthday cards. I threw them all away. I thought six years was nothing, that we could celebrate so many more birthdays once your sister got out. I wanted to respect what I thought wasn’t just your mother’s wishes but your sister’s, too.
Rhiannon props her elbow against the driver’s-side door and leans her head against her palm. She imagines Billie sitting across from her in the industrial furniture of the Correctional Center’s visiting room, chairs and tables built in the 1970s, their mute-brown lining and split-pea upholstery matching the drabness of Billie’s navy twill pants and cream starched shirt. The same uniform, the same furniture. Every single time. Through the windshield Rhiannon watches the sun wink above the quarry’s visitor center and knows her own complicity, that she could’ve asked. Her sister always so guarded and so unflinching, so good at seeming like she didn’t care that Rhiannon never thought to ask their father why he never came.
Why didn’t Mom say anything to us about any of this? Rhiannon says. Why didn’t she want you there?
I don’t know. But I’m here now. Regardless of whether you and your sister want me to be here.
Billie didn’t mean that. She’s just upset.
Her father takes his hand off her shoulder and Rhiannon notices he’s still wearing his wedding ring. I know what your sister’s going through. She wasn’t even there to say goodbye in March.
That doesn’t mean you know what she’s going through.
Look, I know I wasn’t the best dad. At least to Billie. And I know I wasn’t the best husband at all. But I loved your mother. This isn’t easy for any of us. And it matters to me that you and Billie know I’m here for you, always. Regardless of what you think.
Rhiannon can think of nothing to say in return. She knows this. Knows her father as a constant presence beside her in their family’s garage, teaching her to read a tire’s pressure, pointing out every fluid gauge beneath the car’s hood: radiator, transmission, brake. Beside her on the road between raceways. Guiding her pit team, making split decisions. Her father always there, a pillar of her childhood and her career before its quick fade, so much that she forgot he sometimes wasn’t there for Billie or her mother.
But he’s here. Now. He’s the only parent Billie has left.
Rhiannon pulls her head from her hands and looks at him. Did you drive because of the weather?
I’d have driven anyway. We always drive the circuits. You know that.
How’s Bryson doing?
Probably running speed trials in Dacono right now. I drove separately to get down here. He’s good. And I can tell he’ll be great.
Rhiannon glances away. How’s Chicago been? Is the airport closed there?
O’Hare was open when I left. Midway’s probably back open by now too.
Does all that worry you?
To be honest, not right now. I was more concerned about getting here on time. And you know me. I’ve never paid much attention to the weather, being on the ground all the time. Your mother was far more concerned about all that.
Rhiannon watches the sun sink at last beyond the windshield, the afternoon’s breeze dying down beyond the car’s windows. The valley visible just beyond the visitor center, the line of mesas shading lilac in the disappearing sun. All of that. An entire planet, what it hides in the strata of rock. Her mother always holding a hand to the pulse of the earth and her father here at last despite knowing nothing at all about weather or fossilized bone. What surely threatened him at one time, what her mother knew and he didn’t. What Rhiannon herself doesn’t know, what newscasters don’t know, what broadcasters don’t know across so many states of public radio affiliates. Rhiannon leans back. Forgets the weather. Forgets her mother’s reasons for planning a ceremony this way, her father’s arrival a secret. Forgets why her mother might have kept him from so many prison visits, Billie in the dark for six years. Forgets everything but the narrow view of her fingers stitched to the wheel, some small semblance of control.
WHEN RHIANNON AT last leaves the car and treks back with her father to the congregation of trailers, the sun is nothing but a whisper of thinly lit clouds. Billie sits beside Marcus in the same folding chairs pulled from the ceremony’s fire ring to the reception. This postfuneral party: a new cluster of trays and platters spread across the picnic table. Deviled eggs. Olives and cheese. A serving dish of pink shrimp and cocktail sauce. Fancy finger foods Rhiannon has no idea how Angela got here and when, the nearest grocery store at least thirty miles away. Angela crouches beside the picnic table pouring bagged ice into a cooler filled with beer and bottles of white wine.
Rhiannon takes the beer Angela hands her. A Uinta pale ale, the same beer she and Billie drank in Moab only two nights before, what feels like years ago. Rhiannon bottle-opens the cap and stays planted in the dirt beside Angela, a stranger to them until yesterday, a woman who planned an entire funeral for two people she’s never met.
How are you doing? Angela asks.
Fine, Rhiannon whispers. I think we’re all fine.
Angela sighs. Look, I know the ceremony was hard. I know it feels like there was nothing in that urn. But maybe this will help. This isn’t the place or time to get scientific, but the land here is part of the Morrison Formation. The same swatch that contained the stegosaurus skeleton your mother found in Colorado. I thought you should know that you two scattered rock that meant something to your mother.
Rhiannon glances at Billie across the clearing. Rock her sister scattered, no one else. She won’t tell Billie, even out of spite, that the urn she spilled held the sediment of her mother’s entire career. Her father approaches the picnic table and Rhiannon watches as Billie stands and makes her way toward him. Rhiannon traps her breath tight inside her lungs but Billie only extends her hand and briefly holds their father’s hand and Rhiannon knows the word sorry will never find its way from Billie’s throat and that this will have to do, this brief point of contact before Billie pulls her hand away. Rhiannon doesn’t wait to see if Billie will look her way, too, if she will offer another apology. Rhiannon wants none of it. Not now.
Come on, Angela finally says. Food’s ready.
Rhiannon grabs a paper plate. Keeps her eyes on the platters scattered across the picnic table. Blue-cheese olives. Mushroom puff pastries. Toothpicked gouda and butter-knifed brie. A final celebration in the center of a landscape none of them will have any reason to visit again. Their mother’s legacy left behind, fragments of bones gathering dust inside a visitor center. A set of fossils that could bury themselves again beneath wildfires and dust storms, the same tempest of flooding or drought that tidal-waved across a landscape sixty-five million years ago. Leaving mystery. Leaving nothing. The same disasters of climate now, removing all evidence of anything they ever did. Talent and accomplishment. If it matters at all. If in the wide span of geologic time anyone will care if Rhiannon raced or didn’t race. Her mother buried in Illinois. Folded back into the soil of the state where she was born despite everything she achieved. The taste of beer bitter in the back of Rhiannon’s throat as she fills her paper plate. Debris falling from the sky. So many black boxes. Just like the unreadable orientation of so many bones out here. A predator trap. Horizontal bones. Vertical bones. None of them matching, none of them indicating anything at all. Flood or famine. Poison. Drought or turbulence. Rhiannon wonders if it matters. Regardless of stegosaurus plates attracting mates or sensing danger, every single one still perished in the end. She watches the ghosted sun marble the clouds against the jagged line of mesas and sees nothing but the scattered jigsaw of an impossible puzzle, nothing but an earth ready and waiting, always, to claim every one of them.