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"He had a heart attack, and then I was alone with my mom." Ruby can feel her eyes mist over just slightly as she says this. It doesn't matter how many years go by or how old you get, remembering the sudden loss of a parent and acknowledging the fortitude it took for the other parent to carry on can still bring a tear to a person's eye. "And she was really something," Ruby says. "She still is. Her name is Patty, and she was a lawyer. Smart, tough, funny. I admire her more than I admire most people."
Julien looks at Etienne for clarification. "Avocate," Etienne says, translating the word "lawyer" for him. He nods.
Ruby swallows a sip of wine to steady herself. "I hope you admire your mother as much as I admire mine," she says to Julien. "It's not easy to raise a young person alone."
Claire, who has been sitting silently for most of the conversation, lifts her wine glass. "I think we can saycheersto mothers everywhere," she says with a soft smile. "No matter what motherhood looks like, it's a challenge, but it's also life's greatest reward."
Her toast is diplomatic and well-timed, and Ruby lifts her glass along with everyone else at the table, this time catching Banks's eye. He looks at her with concern, but she can tell that he's also admiring her for being here at the table with Etienne and Julien.
"To mothers," Ruby says, feeling her eyes tear up again.
"To mothers," everyone echoes.
* * *
After dinner Etienne and Claire take over the kitchen, commanding everyone else to relax and enjoy the evening. Banks and Dexter step outside to smoke cigars made with tobacco grown in the south of France near the border of Spain, and Ruby is left to wander around downstairs. She's standing in front of a bookshelf while a woman sings a wistful song in French on the sound system.
"Those are his."
Ruby turns around to see Julien standing there. He's watching her as she lets her fingers trail along the spines of the books.
"My dad's books," he says, lifting his chin at the shelf. Julien walks over to her and stands beside Ruby; he is easily six feet tall, and up close his skin is smooth and unlined, stretched across a structure of bones that is unmistakably Jack's.
Ruby inhales sharply and tries to stop her heart from beating wildly. How is it that she can meet and befriend world leaders and celebrities, but standing next to a boy of fourteen makes her more anxious than flying?
"Jack did love to read," Ruby says, turning back to the books and sliding one off the shelf. It's about French cities formed under the Roman Empire. She opens the cover and sees that, as he had done at home, Jack has inscribed the book with his own name. It was a touching, childlike habit of his, and it always reminded Ruby of a little boy who didn't want his toys to get lost or mistaken for someone else's. She runs her fingers over it now, feeling the indent Jack's letters have made on the paper.
"He read to me," Julien says. "In French and English."
Ruby looks at him with surprise. "Jack could read in French?" This is something she does not know. Of course, as President, Jack had mastered the most basic phrases in a variety of languages:Hello, please, thank you, nice to meet you, your country is beautiful. But speaking French? Reading in the language? Understanding it? She'd had no idea.
Julien nods and reaches for another book. "Yes. He knew French. One time," Julien says, smiling at a private joke that he's clearly thinking about in his head, "we went to Strasbourg. Of course it's in France, but many people also speak German there and he tried both languages. It was funny. He ordered a beer in German and his meal in French."
"I remember that," Etienne says, standing in the doorway to the den with a dishtowel in her hands. "And the woman who owned the restaurant gave us our meal without paying because she thought it was charming."
"His accent was--" Julien starts.
"Not bad," Etienne finishes. She tosses the dishtowel at her son. "Can you please dry the pots and pans with Claire? I need to speak with Ruby.”
Julien catches the towel with one hand and skates past his mother in his socks, sliding across the smooth floor with a flourish. It’s such a teenage boy thing to do that the women can’t help watching with amused smiles.
“So,” Etienne says, clapping her hands together gently and then letting them fall to her sides. “Should we sit? Maybe have another glass of wine?”
“I should hold off on the wine,” Ruby says. “After traveling and not getting enough sleep last night I’ll probably pass out right here if you hand me one more glass.”
“Okay,” Etienne says mildly, sitting down on the couch with a sigh. They’re in a room adjacent to the sitting room they’d gathered in earlier in the day, and from the front windows, which are cracked to let in a bit of the fresh night air, they can smell the sweet scent of cigar smoke and hear the muffled words of Banks and Dexter out in front of the house.
Ruby sits and kicks off her shoes, folding her feet up beneath her in a manner that looks much more at home than she actually feels.
“I know you’re staying for a couple of days here,” Etienne says, putting one arm across the back of the couch as she leans her body against it and pulls her own bare feet up under her. She smooths her dress across her lap with one hand and looks right at Ruby. “But I think it would be in our best interest not to dance around reality.”
“As in,let’s not beat around the bush?” Ruby asks, throwing an American phrase out there.
Etienne gives a half-smile. “That sounds like something Jack would have said.” She examines her cuticles for a second before glancing back at Ruby.
“It’s definitely something he would have said.” Ruby pauses. “And he wasn’t one for beating around the bush at all. So let’s cut right to the chase. You invited me here—why?”
Etienne lifts her chin defiantly but volleys back a question rather than an answer. “Why did you come?”
