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"Sounds amazing," Banks says. "But can we go back to this whole 'celebrating freedom and being in love' business?"
Ruby stops working and her face falls. "No. Please don't tell me you don't love Sunday. Everyone loves Sunday. You'll break her heart!" Her eyes go wide with panic.
Banks sets the rolling pin down on the counter next to the dough and steps over to Ruby. He takes her gently by the elbow and steers her to a chair at the kitchen table, which he pulls out for her. She sits without question, looking up at him.
"Okay, first of all," Banks says, feeling himself gear up for a confession. This is an unusual sensation. "May I?" He points at a chair across from hers and Ruby waves him over to it.
"Sit, sit." She puts her elbows on the table and watches him intently.
"First of all," Banks starts again. "Sunday and I are having a great time together and we like each other very much." This doesn't feel to Banks like he's telling tales outside of school; Ruby and Sunday are best friends, and she would at least know this much. "But we haven't said anything about love yet, and I have no idea if she even feels that way."
Ruby nods and her eyes slide over to the window, which is over Banks's shoulder. She's listening, but watching the waves.
"Furthermore, what's all this about being happy and free?" He wants to ask her if she herself doesn't feel happy or free, but it feels like overstepping his boundaries, so instead he waits to see what she'll say.
"Well," Ruby says as she looks at the water outside of her house, "I feel happy to be here--I love Shipwreck Key--but I still don't feel...free. I want to be able to do anything I feel like doing, but somehow I still feel married." She winces. "Is that weird?"
Banks doesn't answer immediately. After all, who is he to say what's weird? Every person, every situation, and every relationship are totally unique.
"And I'm not free, nor will I ever be, of Etienne and Julian." Ruby puts her head in her hands and hides her face. "No matter what I do, they'll be out there, reminding me that, for whatever reason, I wasn't enough for Jack."
This is confounding for Banks; he doesn't know how to reassure Ruby about her place in her marriage. All he'd done was to be a silent observer of the goings-on in the White House and in the Hudsons' relationship, none of which gives him the information or permission to speak his mind about things.
"I can understand how that would bother you," Banks says. He's measuring his words, but he gets the feeling that this is more about Ruby unburdening herself, and less about him saying the right thing.
Ruby stands abruptly, pushing her chair back loudly so that it scrapes across the wood floor as she does. "It would bother anyone, Banks!" She puts her fingers into the messy hair that's escaping her ponytail and makes a face like she's confused. "I need to find a way around it, is all. Jack is gone, and when he was here, he was only like--what?--half here. The other half of him was in France. So I have every right to move on, don't I?"
Banks nods. "I would say yes to that."
"Then why can't I?" Ruby pulls her hands from her hair and flings her arms wide. "Why can't I just accept that I'm a widow and that I will be forever? That my husband is never coming back, nor does he have any say over who I kiss or what I do?"
Banks sits back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest. He watches Ruby and waits to hear what else she needs to say.
"If I have a man who wants to kiss me, in spite of an age difference that might raise a few eyebrows, then I should just let him kiss me, right?" She lets her hands fall to her sides as she waits for Banks to respond. "My god," she says, "I sound like a lovesick teenage girl."
Banks smiles at her. "You don't. There's no age limit to wondering or feeling things and not knowing quite how to deal with them." He gives her a long look. "Are we talking about Mr. North here?"
Ruby nods. "We are."
Banks has suspected this. He's seen the way Dexter looks at Ruby when she's doing something, and the way he makes mental notes on everything she does and says. It's not his business, and yet he makes it part of his job to know who Ruby lets into her personal space and her inner circle.
"Do you think you're worried that he's too young for you?"
"Not emotionally or mentally, but maybe chronologically," Ruby admits. She's still standing, but she puts her hands on the back of the chair she'd been sitting in and leans on it. "I worry that at some point he'll realize--reallyrealize--that I'm fifty, and that he'll want someone younger. Someone who has never been married or had kids. Maybe even someone who wants to have children with him, which is obviously not on the radar for me."
Banks feels this deeply; he understands now how important the issue of children can be in a relationship, and how fraught it can make things when one person wants them or when a couple can't have them.
"Have you gotten any impression that this is something he might want? The children part?" Banks asks.
"We've never talked about anything like that," Ruby shakes her head adamantly. I didn't even know he wanted to kiss me--at least not for sure--until this morning when we went for a walk on the beach. And then I said I wasn't sure, and then he said he thought he should go back to New York and regroup, and now here I am making pasta and telling you everything like a lunatic." She laughs at catching herself in the act of revealing all her personal details to Banks.
"Huh. Okay." Banks is still leaning back in his chair and he pats his stomach now as he thinks. "So you're worried about the age difference, but he hasn't given you any real reason to be."
"No, but he is a man, Banks. No offense, but men seem to prefer younger women."
"Not all of them," he counters. "Sunday is about five years older than I am."
"Okay, you've got me there. But Sunday is special."
