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Jack chuckled. "Wow. Fifteen, huh? So he was your first?"
"Mmm," Etienne said, nodding. Her hair was still shoulder-length then, not cropped above her ears, and she tugged at one long strand, remembering. "He was. And I thought it was love. I wanted to go to America the next summer to see him, and I thought maybe he could transfer to Paris and attend college here. He spoke French, you know."
Jack nodded, still looking at her.
Etienne sighed. "But then on the last night I was there he told me he had a girlfriend back home, and I cried. I wanted to be his girlfriend. I thought I alreadywashis girlfriend, and it hurt so much to know that I was nothing to him. That I'd stolen another girl's boyfriend."
They both fall silent at the realization of what she's saying.
"I guess we didn't exactly break that pattern, did we?" Jack asked wryly, his fingers still on her arm.
Etienne jerked away and threw off the lightweight duvet. She stood up and looked at him, angry and wearing nothing but a gray t-shirt and a pair of underwear. "What did you say to me?" she spat at him, both hands on her hips.
Jack sat up, his forehead knitted into a frown. "Etienne, I'm sorry. It was just a joke. I promise. I didn't mean it--I was trying to be funny and it wasn't."
"No," she said, hurt. "It wasn't. I don't want to be the kind of woman who can only steal men who don't belong to her."
"Shhh," Jack said, leaning across the bed and reaching out a hand to her. "I know, I know. And you're not. That guy was a jerk. He didn't tell you that he had a girlfriend, and he used you."
"And you?" she said, blood rushing through her body and leaving her skin prickling with electricity. "Are you any better than Damon just because it was no secret that you had a wife? And am I worse than I was at fifteen just because I knew about Ruby and I didn't know about his American girlfriend?" Etienne's eyes filled with tears. "Psssh," she said dismissively, waving a hand. "I see the common elements here: American; older than me; just dropping in to France to visit and never stay." Etienne reached for the glass of water on her nightstand and made to leave.
"Etienne," Jack jumped out of bed to follow her in his boxer shorts. "I'm sorry. Please." He rushed around the foot of the bed to intercept her at the door. Outside the open window, the rain fell on the leaves, making atick, tick, ticksound in the silence between them. He held out his arms to her. "Please forgive me."
Etienne felt herself deflate, the anger leaving her as the sadness rushed in to take its place. "Jack," she said, setting the glass of water on the dresser by the door and then falling into his arms. They stood there, holding one another, Etienne's messy bedhead pressed to his bare chest. "How can we live like this?" she whispered, saying for the first time the words that were always there between them. "How can we have a child and live apart and raise him and love him and lie to him and lie to the world?"
"Whoa, whoa," Jack said, putting his lips to the top of her head and kissing it once as he held her. "Slow down. We can only do things one step at a time, as we always have. We'll have him and love him, and then we'll raise him and tell him as much truth as we possibly can about everything. And the world only needs to know what we decide to tell it, okay? This is our life to live, and no one else's."
They continued to hold each other in the quiet of the summer night, listening to the rain outside as they started to sway gently in one another's arms.
"But," Etienne started.
"But nothing," Jack said firmly. "Julien will be nothing like that guy who broke your heart." He paused and they stopped swaying. He pulled back from her and looked down into her eyes. "And he'll be a better man than me. He'll do things right."
"Julien?" she asked, looking hopeful. "He feels like a Julien to you?"
"He does," Jack confirmed, pulling her to him again. "He feels like a boy, and he feels like a Julien."
And so he became a Julien, and it had felt right.
"Mom?"
Etienne turns around in the kitchen now, holding the envelope in her hand. Her son--her tall, lanky, gorgeous boy--is standing there in sweatpants and a t-shirt, hair poking up everywhere.
"Good morning, my love," she says, holding the envelope out to him. She wanted to read it first, but it's not hers to read, and she needs to trust whatever Ruby has decided to say to Julien in this letter. As a mother, she knows it can only be an apology, an explanation, a wish for a bright future. There is no way that Ruby has written anything that would blame Julien for their situation. After all, the blame is all Etienne's and she knows it. Etienne, with her penchant for men who are already spoken for. She mentally berates herself for the millionth time for every mistake she's made in her life: Damon...Jack...every other man who has been wrong for her in any way.
"What's this?" Julien scrubs his head with one hand, reaching for the envelope.
"I think it's a note from Ruby. You can read it or not read it--it's up to you."
Julien takes it, frowning. Without hesitation, he slides the paper out and unfolds it.
Ah, youth,Etienne thinks.That fear of the unknown is still as yet unsharpened. The notion that an envelope might contain bad news or undesirable things, not just birthday cards, money, or love notes, has yet to solidify.She watches as his eyes skim the page and she tries not to pry, but fails.
"What does she say?" Etienne asks, turning her back to Julien and trying to busy herself at the kitchen sink.
Julien's silence goes on as he finishes reading, then finally: "It's not from Ruby. It's from Henry Banks."
Etienne dries her hands on a towel as she frowns. This, she has not expected.
