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Chapter12
Banks
He still doesn't know why he did it, writing that note to the boy. The moment he'd heard Ruby go into the den and close the doors at Castelmoron d’Albret he'd gone upstairs and started to pack, then sat on the edge of his bed hunched over his small notebook with a pen. The words had flowed from him and felt cathartic to say, so he hoped they'd be cathartic to read--if not now, while the boy was still so young, then maybe later.
Banks and Ruby are back on Shipwreck Key, which frankly is where he wants to be. Traveling used to be nothing to him. Being a Secret Service agent meant trailing people all over the world at a moment's notice, and he'd done it without complaint or thought. But now...now he wants to be near the ocean. He loves the salty sea air as he drives Ruby around the island in her golf cart, and of course he loves being able to see Sunday any time he wants to. There's a little part of him that wonders whether he's getting old--if he should think about retiring soon. After all, what hale and hearty agent wants to while his days away driving in circles around a tropical paradise without a threat in sight? No bad guys to suss out; no danger to avoid; no one to save. But he can't deny how much pleasure he gets from Shipwreck Key and from the pace of life here.
He gets out of bed early this first day back, his body creaking a bit in protest after the long car and train rides, the cramped flights, the awkward sleeping positions en route. It'll take a day or two, but he'll get himself right again, and he'll start the day with a run on the beach before Ruby even wakes up in the big house next door to his much smaller guest house.
The beach is empty. Banks stretches and then begins to jog. The only sounds are of his own footfalls on the hard-packed sand next to the water, his breaths, and the crashing of the waves. He prefers it this way when he runs: no music in his ears, no running partner to chatter with him, no company.
The trip to France had been ineffectual, in his eyes, but what does he know? Maybe Ruby got what she wanted from the whole thing. Maybe there was closure or an agreement that he wasn't privy to, but Banks doesn't think so. They'd left with stilted goodbyes from Etienne, and Julien had not come to see them off, which was understandable. In the end, he isn't sure why they'd even gone.
Sitting behind Ruby and Dexter on the flight home had been even less illuminating, as she'd carefully steered their conversation away from the whole trip and they'd focused on other topics, like her years as an actress, Athena's birth--which apparently had been extremely difficult--and Ruby's mother's ongoing influence in her life. He'd drifted off somewhere over the Atlantic when he realized that Ruby wasn't going to need him to sing Stevie Wonder with her to get through the flight, and he'd dozed through most of it once he'd become comfortable and assured of the fact that everyone in the First Class cabin checked out and there were no obvious security risks.
In that hazy sleep state he'd dreamed of his father, imagining his own dad comforting him if he'd come home drunk as a teenage boy (wouldn't have happened), and envisioning a world where the man had sat him down and told him the facts rather than shouting at him and making demands that had no relevance for a young kid.
He hasn’t stopped thinking about his dad since getting back to Shipwreck Key, and now, as he jogs, he allows himself to picture the day he’d said goodbye to his father, sitting together in a sterile hospital room in Philadelphia with the television on mute before them.
"You did alright for yourself, Henry," his father had said gruffly. He had an oxygen tube running into both nostrils and his face was lined and weary. His eyes suddenly looked too big for his balding head, but nothing about his attitude had softened or changed over the years.
Instead of speaking, Banks had nodded, watching his dad as they both faced the television in the hospital room.
"I'm not sure why you made some of the choices you made, but you did fine."
You did fine? Banks thought, shaking his head.Is that the best he can do? A parent's deathbed seemed the place for apologies, for explanations, for expressing regrets. It was also the place for tearful goodbyes, for declarations of love and pride, and for final words of wisdom.You did fineseemed lukewarm, at best.
"Well," Banks said, folding his arms across his chest. "Thanks, Dad. Coming from you, I guess that's high praise."
Sergeant Major Banks was quiet for a long moment, his chin nearly touching his chest as he lay there in the hospital bed, staring at a golf game on the television. "You could have done better," he finally said, turning his head an inch or two in Banks's direction. "You could have stayed married to that girl, given her some kids. Your mother would have liked grandchildren."
"Neal has kids," Banks had said immediately, setting his brother out in front of their father as the shining example of a son who'd done right. He wasn't sure why that had been his first response, but it had.
His father made a sound likehmph, and glanced in Banks's direction again. "You were a Marine, son, and now you're living in the big man's house, protecting a figurehead with no power and no balls."
Banks had felt his nostrils flare; his father had never been a huge fan of his job protecting the president, whose political opinions he did not agree with. In his mind, a man was better off in uniform until he retired, and doing anything else was akin to throwing in the towel.
"I'm proud of my job, Dad," he'd said, bristling. It was important to stay neutral as the man sat next to him dying. He knew this.
"I'm proud of the years you spent as a Marine, but you let that flat-chested girl get away, and now you'll spend the rest of your life alone."
Banks's father had never truly had a conversation with Denise during the course of their seven year marriage, and he'd always insisted on calling her "that flat-chested girl" when she wasn't present. Banks should have punched him when he had the chance, but now it was too late. Punching a man on oxygen who was days from death just seemed wrong.
"Why can't you just stop after saying 'I'm proud of the years you spent as a Marine?' Why do you need to ruin that with something rude?" His father turned to him with blank, watery blue eyes. He truly did not understand what Banks was so upset about. "Why couldn't you have said more nice things throughout my life, Dad? Why is everything so negative?"
Banks didn't expect answers, but he stared his father down anyway. Maybe it wasn't too late to get an apology from him, or some kind of encouraging words. Outside the hospital room, they could hear the voices of the nurses at their station, answering phones and talking about patients in hushed tones.
"They do that all night," his father had grumbled, casting a disapproving look at the door. "A man can't get a damn second of sleep around here."
Banks waited, hoping that his father would return to the thread of their conversation. The window, which was next to Banks, looked out on a courtyard filled with blooming daffodils and green trees. It was spring, and there were children sitting on the bench by the window, probably visiting a sick grandmother or perhaps there to meet a new baby sibling in the maternity ward. Banks watched them for a moment and then turned back to his father.
"You can't do it, can you?" Banks said to him, feeling his chest tighten, which was truly just the physical manifestation of his heart hardening for good. "All my life you've been hard on me. You never told me how to do it, Dad. You never showed me how to be a husband, or how to be somebody's father. You never told me I was doing alright, and that you were proud. All these years, and you used them to constantly chip away at me instead of saying or doing anything useful." He paused, hoping to see his words land with some weight on his father, but again, it was just those blank eyes. "I'm a good man, Dad. Maybe I wasn't right for Denise, and maybe I was too scared to be a father, but I was a good Marine, and I'm a damn good Secret Service agent."
His dad remained quiet, watching him with steel in his gaze. "You think I was a terrible husband?"
Banks stood up, frustrated. He paced the room once, twice, then turned to face his father. "That's not what I'm saying. I have no idea what Mom felt about being married to you, though I also have no idea how you two ended up together."
"That's none of your damn business," his father growled.
