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"Then you should. Harlow and Athena are wonderful young women."
"I met them," Julien says. "I liked them."
Banks stands and offers Julien a hand, pulling him unsteadily to his feet. The boy is still woozy, but he's expelled most of what was in his stomach, and he's sobered up considerably.
"Listen, I think we should sleep on all of this. We'll be here a couple more days, and maybe you'll get a chance to talk to Ruby more."
Julien nods and swipes a hand over his dirty, tear-stained face. He's been lying in the garden and smells slightly of stomach acid, and he could desperately use a shower. But for tonight, Banks will be happy to just see the boy safely to his room.
At the top of the stairs he gives Julien a small, quiet salute so that they don't wake the rest of the sleeping house. Julien gives him a sloppy salute in return and disappears into his bedroom.
The curtains are open in Banks's room and the moon is still visible through the part in the clouds. He stands at the window for a moment and looks out onto the land below, thinking of his own life. Of his divorce, of the fact that hehasno father, of the fact that heisno one's father. He thinks of Sunday back on Shipwreck Key, most likely getting ready for bed at this late hour. He considers calling her to say goodnight, but then realizes how close he is to daylight on his end and instead kicks off his shoes, takes off his pants, and climbs into bed.
Chapter9
Ruby
The rain from the day before has given way to a bright spring morning. Ruby wakes early and finds Etienne in the kitchen, quietly making a pot of coffee. She pours them each a mug and lifts her chin at the kitchen door, indicating that they should go outside.
"Can you walk and drink your coffee?" Etienne asks as she turns the knob on the old farmhouse door.
"Better than most," Ruby says, sipping from mug as she follows Etienne out into the cool morning air.
They walk in companionable silence for a minute or two as they wind their way around the house and past the garden out front. Etienne leads them onto an unpaved road and they stroll, drinking coffee as they hold their mugs to warm their hands.
"Thank you again for coming," Etienne says, shooting Ruby a glance. Etienne is wearing no makeup and is dressed in a long skirt and a t-shirt with a thick cardigan over it, and on her feet she's wearing bright red wellies.
"It seemed necessary for us to meet face-to-face again," Ruby says. She's given it plenty of thought, and she knows this is the truth. Emailing back and forth about Jack, Julien, and the canceled insurance policy would only lead to frustration and miscommunication, and there is no need to exchange vicious words through lawyers over this.
"I appreciate that." Etienne turns her head toward the fields and breathes in deeply as she walks. Her short, cropped hair is messy from sleep, and it reveals a long neck with just a thin, gold necklace clasped around it. She turns back to Ruby. "Jack wanted Julien to be taken care of."
Ah. Right to it. Ruby steels herself. "I knew Jack well, and he would have wanted that," she says carefully. "I can understand your frustration over the insurance policy being canceled."
"You had the right to share that letter with the world," Etienne says, looking straight ahead. "I just wish you wouldn't have."
The letter in question was one left for Ruby, to be delivered a year after Jack's death, that explained the reasoning for it all. Unfortunately for Ruby, the letter did not also contain any real reason or apology for his infidelity and the pain that it caused their family, but it did detail his diagnosis and the fact that the disease would have most likely killed him in less than a year. In the end, all he'd wanted was to spare them the agony that this disease would have created, but instead he'd left a wake of unanswered questions.
"Given all the facts," Ruby says, "I might not have done it. But without knowing that a life insurance policy that would become void with Jack's suicide was hanging in the balance, I felt that sharing the letter with the world might be illuminating. A sitting President dies, and the world is in shock. Understandingwhyhe'd died was important, and I felt that it could potentially help someone out there."
It had also helped the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Foundation, for which Ruby had raised several million dollars by auctioning off spots to her news conference on Shipwreck Key to the highest media bidders.
"Jack would have liked that," Etienne agrees.
The women walk quietly for a couple of minutes, each lost in thought.
"It's a fair amount of money," Ruby says. Etienne nods her head. "I'm not sure what you're asking me to do in order to come up with the money."
"I'm not asking you to do anything but to consider helping me with Julien in some way. How you do that is up to you."
This is all fine and good, but Ruby still feels like she's on the hook for the entire amount of the insurance policy. To just hand Etienne a sum of money that's less than the policy seems...cheap. Or like Ruby is putting a dollar amount on the life of Etienne's son. She isn't sure how to go about it, and she isn't even entirely sure from which source she would pull that kind of money. Truth be told, she doesn't know if she can do it without feeling like she's chewing a sour, bitter pill.
"I'll give it some thought," Ruby says, measuring her words. "I can see that it would be beneficial to Julien to have something in reserve for his future schooling, and I know Jack would want that." She pauses. "And I want to clear up the words that we exchanged last night, Etienne: I understand that Julien isn't a 'mess that needs to be cleaned up.' He's a person, and I imagine that Jack loved him very much. I hope that, in the future, his relationship with his sisters grows and that they can all lean on one another in the years to come."
She has more that she could say, but this is enough for now, and it's all that she can get out before her throat closes up too much to speak.
"Thank you," Etienne says. They've circled back around and are once again approaching the garden where, unbeknownst to them, Julien had thrown up his entire dinner the night before. "Can I make you breakfast?" Etienne offers as they step into the kitchen once again.
"I think I'll just shower and get dressed first," Ruby says. "But thank you."
