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"I understand," he'd said, reaching up to wrap his hands around her wrists as she kept her palms pressed to him. "And all I can promise you is that I want you, and I want this baby. I don't know how it will look, and I don't know anything beyond this moment right now, but I want this."
Etienne's eyes had filled with tears that nearly crystallized in the cold air. She'd come to him without any plan or any intention to make demands, and what he gave her with his words was so much more. She leaned into him, tucking her face gently into the crook of his neck between his cheek and shoulder. Etienne inhaled, breathing in Jack's musky cologne.
Jack had been true to his word: he made her feel loved and the baby feel wanted. He did everything in his power to get to her, to be by her side, and to support Etienne throughout her pregnancy and when Julien was born. He'd arranged his entire life around trips to see them, and after a while, their lives took on a sort of predictable pattern. Etienne knew that while at home, Jack was carrying on with his own life as it had been before. She never asked, but she assumed he still shared a bed with Ruby and parented his daughters as if they were his only children. It was a safe assumption, she'd felt, and it freed her up to live her own life in France during his absences.
There had been lovers; no one serious, but men she'd known and spent time with. Julien would go to her parents' house and Etienne might spend a weekend with Pierre or Jean-Luc. She frequently told herself that once Jack had freed himself entirely from his own bonds she might do the same, but until such time she considered herself a woman in love, but a woman who was bound to that love only intermittently. She felt sure, on some level, that the cavalier way she was forced to feel about her relationship with Jack would ultimately be their undoing, but somehow it worked. For twelve years, she'd waited anxiously for his every return, and she'd nurtured their co-parenting and propped him up in Julien's eyes not as an absent father, but as an omnipresent figure full of love, of excitement, and adventure.
It had worked for them, against all odds. Each time they'd come together, Etienne had wrapped Jack in her arms and in her heart and given herself to him fully. And each time he'd left she'd sighed, suffered roughly twenty-four to forty-eight hours of deep sadness and longing that felt like a miserable flu, and then bounced back, coming to her senses and dressing for a dinner date with whomever she was seeing in Jack's absence at the time.
But now, tucked into a lovely little home in Castelmoron d'Albret, Etienne slips out of her red dress and into a night shirt for bed. She climbs barefoot into the oversized bed and pulls a thick duvet over her body, sighing as she reaches over to turn off the lamp. She's been sleeping alone since Jack's death, refusing to date or to let another man touch her.And maybe those days are over anyway?she thinks as she closes her eyes.
Maybe they are, maybe they’re not, but it’s entirely possible that Jack was the last man who’d ever admire her naked body. Perhaps he was the last one to ever hold her face in both hands and kiss her all over her eyes and forehead, telling her that he loved her and would never leave her.
Etienne falls asleep fitfully, worrying in her halfway between waking and sleeping state whether she ever really had Jack at all. Was he ever hers in any meaningful way? She wants to believe that they had something special—something that defied time, space, and social norms—but a part of her wants to hold him at a distance and not think that he ever really belonged to her.
Etienne knows that this is a self-protective measure of sorts, because if you never have someone in the first place, then how can you ever lose them?
Chapter8
Banks
Dexter has turned in for the night and Banks knows he should follow suit, but something about the freshness of the night air keeps him out on the front porch, sitting on the top step as he loses himself in thought.
He’s been to Castelmoron d’Albret more than once, and he’s explored the grounds and kept himself in the shadows, but he’s never sat at the dining room table, never watched Etienne as she passed dishes around and made conversation over wine and candlelight. Being Secret Service in an environment where he’s technically not supposed to be observing anything is much like being a ghost, and on this particular trip he feels like he’s been elevated from ghost to guest. It’s all a little unsettling.
Banks leans back against the brick pillar on the porch and pulls one knee up, resting an elbow on it casually. Jack’s life had been complicated in so many ways, and being so close to the man had left a strong impression on Banks. In many ways he’d admired Jack: as President; as a father (to all three of his children); and as an intellectual. But in other ways he’d seen Jack as a walking example of what not to do. Which isn’t to say that he felt as though Jack treated the women in his life poorly—he was loving and attentive to both Ruby and Etienne—but it was sometimes hard to watch Ruby knowing that she had no idea about Etienne, and occasionally hard to be around Etienne knowing that Jack would never (could never) truly leave the family and the life that he had in America to be with her in France, no matter how badly Etienne might have wanted that.
Men make women messy. In hindsight, Banks knows that having children with Denise would have made things complicated for her when she moved on, and part of what he loves about Sunday is that she's too stable and she knows herself far too well at her age to let a man mess her up again. And if men are to be the cause of the kind of anguish that he’s seen in the lives of both Jack Hudson’s widow and mistress, then maybe women truly don’t need them to stick around for decades, muddying their lives and breaking their hearts. Only he knows that this isn’t true: there’s a yin and yang to men and women that, when it works, is incomparable. The way a woman can gently brush a hand across her man’s forehead as she looks at him with love and concern; the way a man can wrap an arm around his lady’s waist and pull her close in one smooth, firm move; the way their bodies, minds, and very mannerisms complement one another…Banks knows that, no matter how difficult it can be to find the right woman, when it works, it’s entirely worth the heartache.
It's getting late and Banks is about to stand, stretch, and head inside to try and sleep, but as he pushes himself up off the steps, he hears a rustling sound in the bushes just beyond where the porch light reaches.
"Hello?" Banks says, immediately bracing himself for the unknown. He doesn't feel that sense of foreboding that comes with real danger, and the hairs on his arms don't stand up. It might sound crazy that he has a physical reaction to unseen threats, but he does. And right now all he feels is a mild curiosity. "Is anyone out there?"
The sound of retching and heaving reaches Banks and his posture relaxes. Someone is getting sick in the tall grass that's hidden in the shadows.
Banks steps down from the porch and lets his eyes adjust to the darkness. "Julien?" he says on a hunch. "Are you okay?" Instead of a response, there is more vomiting. "Hey, let me help you."
Banks can see now by the light of the moon, which has pierced its way through the clouds that have dropped rain on them all day. There, on his hands and knees in the middle of the fenced garden, is Julien. His head hangs low, and his curly brown hair is stuck to his forehead as he sweats and heaves again. Banks crouches behind him, putting a hand on the boy's back between his shoulder blades. Julien's t-shirt is damp and stuck to his skin.
"Hey, bud," Banks says softly, rubbing Julien's back. His spine is bony through the thin cotton material. "It's gonna be alright."
Julien retches again, then sits back on his haunches, lifting his face to the moon. Banks can't help but smile a little at the young man's obvious discomfort. He's been there; most guys he knows have been there, because holding your alcohol when you're a teenager is a fine art.
Julien wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. "I'm alright," he says, his words slurred. "I was out with my friends and I didn't feel good."
"Beer?" Banks asks, reaching out a hand and clamping it on Julien's shoulder as he pitches forward in the dirt again and loses the rest of whatever is in his stomach. Banks doesn't want to think too much about what they ate for dinner coming up here in the garden just hours later.
"Tequila," Julien says. "My friend Henri had it."
"Ah. Sure. Tequila." Banks looks up at the few stars that are visible now that the clouds have parted. He thinks of the young Marines he's known during the course of his life, the number of nights he's spent comforting a brother in pain, just like this.
Unexpectedly, Julien begins to cry. He rolls away from the puddle of vomit in the dirt and falls to his side, pulling his knees closer to his core like he's trying to get into the fetal position.
"Hey, you're gonna be okay," Banks promises. He sits directly on the ground, pulling his knees up to his chest. "It'll pass. I promise."
Julien continues to cry, and as he does, his tears and snot run down his face, making him possibly the most pathetic creature that Banks has ever seen. But no, that's not possible. He himself has been a pathetic creature. He and almost every guy he's ever known has spent time at rock bottom, crying over love, loss, pain, misplaced anger. And maybe now more than ever, Banks knows that being able to have a good cry--just a hard river of tears flowing right from the source--is the best way to get it all out.
And so he sits there quietly, waiting with Julien while he does just that: gets it out. Banks says nothing, but sits there in companionable silence, letting the young boy know that he's not alone. There is comfort in not being alone during an hour of need, and it actually feels good to Banks to sit there, offering his presence.
