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"No, she's not in trouble," Banks says. He puts his hands in his pockets as a way of appearing more disarming. Kids don't have the same frame of reference as adults when it comes to Secret Service agents, but this kid is not so young, nor is he a normal boy unfamiliar with complications and adult situations. "I'm here with Ruby Hudson. She's inside talking to your mother."
There,Banks thinks.That should suffice. Enough information to keep the young man from worrying, but not so much that he's dipping a toe into the world of oversharing.
Julien walks the rest of the way across the yard and stops right in front of Banks. “I remember you,” he says with a French accent. “When my dad came here.”
“Yes, I was here.” Banks remembers fading into the background of Jack’s visits with Etienne and Julien. In a public setting it’s easy to become part of the scenery while taking everything in; it’s much more difficult in the smallest village in France.
Julien nods, still appraising him with slightly narrowed eyes. “And now you are with her?” He lifts his chin at the house.
“With Mrs. Hudson. Yes.”
After a long pause, Julien steps around Banks and walks through the open front door, leaving Banks to exhale. Handling children and young people has always made him nervous, and he doesn’t know why. Perhaps it’s that his own father had no soft skills when it came to parenting, and while he’d done his best, his particular brand of communication and being a father had prepared Banks completely for bootcamp. His mother, on the other hand, had been the most gentle and kind parent Banks could have imagined. She sang to herself in the kitchen while washing dishes by hand, and knelt next to his bed and whispered the words to poems that Banks can’t even remember now on the nights before Sergeant Major Banks returned from Vietnam. As a little boy he’d cried to her over perceived slights and injustices, and she’d held him and run her long, cool fingers through his hair until the storm had passed. It was largely the same for his brother, Neal, but instead of choosing a life in the military as Banks has, Neal left for Berkley at eighteen and never looked back. His life in California now appears to be all about barefoot walks on beaches, herbal tea, and meditation. Banks loves him, but they are not the same.
It had been an unlikely partnership between his parents, but strangely their marriage had lasted until the end. The Sergeant Major had passed from emphysema at sixty-two, and Mrs. Banks succumbed to breast cancer six years later. Banks still misses her all the time. Without his mother in his life, there’s no one he could ever really imagine taking off his armor for. He and Sunday are doing well and he’s incredibly fond of her, but it’s still early days; a man can’t just cry and share and talk to a woman he’s only been dating for a few months. Especially given the fact that Banks couldn’t manage to do those things with a woman he’d been married to forseven years.
He sighs again and leans against the stone pillar that holds up the small overhang covering the porch. As he watches the sky turn mottled and gray off in the distance, the rain starts to fall.
* * *
“Sure, sure,” Sunday says as she smiles at Banks during their FaceTime call later that evening. “Things are great here. Cameron sent me some of those 3-D ultrasound photos of the baby and it’s insane: it’s like looking at a whole human and not just a blob on the screen, you know?”
Banks nods and watches her as she lights up, talking animatedly about her grandson, who is due to make an appearance in about a month. He knows that her relationship with her older daughter, Cameron, has been strained and is on the mend, and he wants to be as encouraging and supportive as possible so that Sunday doesn’t ever feel as though she’s missing a part of her heart. Because that’s how he imagines it must feel to a mother when she’s on the outs with her children: like a part of your heart has vanished. For a long time, Cameron seemed to blame her mother for the fact that she’d stayed married to Peter Bond, the former Vice President, and while Banks had observed the VP and the Second Lady from a distance in Washington and wondered the same thing himself, he also understood from the perspective of adulthood and politics that things aren’t always as black and white as they seem to the young.
Now that Sunday and Peter are officially divorced, he’s finally letting himself feel confident in the idea that Sunday is a completely unattached woman with the freedom to do as she pleases, and while he isn’t one to push or to ask a lot of questions, he’s quietly reveling in the knowledge that Sunday is free of D.C., of Peter, and of the fear of losing one or both of her daughters.
“A 3-D ultrasound?” Banks says, lifting his eyebrows as he holds his iPhone in one meaty hand. “What are they thinking of naming this little human?”
Sunday cracks a smile. “Right now they're guarding the name like a government secret."
"Really?"
Sunday shakes her head and gives a "who knows?" shrug.
"Well, alright then," Banks says. "What else is going on?"
"Not too much, to be perfectly honest." Sunday runs a hand over her forehead and brushes her hair away from her face. She's sitting outside on the front porch of her house with a glass of lemonade resting on the arm of her chair. It's one o'clock--seven in the evening in France--and she looks like she's been sweating in the sun all morning. "I've been trimming some of the bushes in front of my house, and I'm considering taking a trip to the grocery store." She pauses as if weighing her words. "I miss having you here," she says, looking a little shy as she does.
Banks clears his throat. He's sitting on the side of the bed in the guest room down the hall from Ruby's, and he has his AirPods in so that no one who passes by his closed door will hear Sunday's side of the conversation. The only danger in that is that they can still hear him, and without Sunday's replies it will make him sound like he's talking to himself, but he doesn't really care.
"I miss being there," he says, stopping short of fully admitting that it'sherhe misses, when in truth he does wish he could just reach out and touch her. "You look very pretty after working in the sun."
Sunday laughs and it tinkles in the air between Florida and France. To Banks's ears, it sounds like sunlight. "Thank you," she says, looking at him with a soft gaze. "You're sweet."
"I'm honest," Banks says. It's the only way he knows how to be. "I think you're--"
A knock at the bedroom door cuts off his words and Banks stands abruptly, pulling one AirPod from his ear. "Sorry, Sun. Can I call you later? There's someone at my door."
"Yes, of course," she says. "Call me anytime."
They're far from saying "I love you" to one another, so Banks simply smiles and signs off before putting his phone and AirPods on the table next to his bed.
Ruby is there when he opens the door, and she looks slightly anxious.
"Is everything okay?" Banks frowns.
"Everything is...I don't know," Ruby admits. "Do you think I can come in?"
Banks stands there in his doorway for a beat. He's never been alone in a bedroom with the former First Lady before. "Of course." Banks steps back and lets her enter, and she closes the door behind her.
