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"I found some wine," Banks said, sitting on his chair again and leaning in close to his mother. "Would you like me to prop you up so you can drink it?"
"No, darling," Elizabeth said, one of her bony, veined hands lifting from the bed and floating in midair as she talked with her eyes closed. "I want you to drink it. You need to relax--seriously."
This made Banks howl with laughter, which was never something he was prone to doing. But here was his beloved, frail, dying mother, ordering him to bring her a glass of wine so thathecould drink it and chill out. He laughed until his eyes watered. "Okay, Mama," he finally said, taking a swig of the wine and then puckering up his face. He'd never loved wine.
"Now listen to me," Elizabeth said. Her eyes flew open and she turned her head to look at Banks, focusing in on him with the intensity of a thousand suns. "There are so many things in life worth living for, my darling boy. So, so many. Fresh pancakes. A rainy spring day with the windows open and candles burning inside the house. A pile of warm laundry. A Christmas tree with shiny, wrapped packages nestled beneath it and all the children in the house asleep. The first time you kiss the person who you don't even know is about to become the love of your life. And, my god, Henry,your children."
Banks sat next to her, listening intently. This was the most alert and awake that she'd been in days.
“But what if I never have children?" Banks asked, averting his gaze from hers. He didn't want to let her down--not now, in her final hours. Not ever, but definitely not now.
Elizabeth had clenched his big, strong hand in her cool, weak one. "My love. My sweet boy.Life for me ain't been no crystal stair," she said with a gleam in her eye that let him know she was quoting the famous words of someone else, "but it's been a blaze of glory because I got to be your mother. If you never father a child then that's fine, it's perfectly fine. But make sure you love someone else with the perfect, immeasurable kind of unconditional devotion that you love a child. It will do your heart good--it will teach you how to live. Give yourself completely. Trust. Share. Let someone hold your heart in their hands, even if they break it."
Banks looked at her skeptically. "But why would you want someone to break your heart?"
"Well, you don't, Henry. You don't want that. But your children will break your heart a million times, and it's the love you feel for them that sets things right again. The same can be said for others. It teaches you something about the human condition to give someone the trust and the power to break your heart. Believe me. Please, if you never remember another word that I've said, remember that. Will you?"
Banks looked at her, trying to keep his breathing even. Steady. Measured. If he let his chest heave even once, it would lead to tears--this he knew.
"I will," he said, putting his other hand over his mother's fingers so that he was holding her small hand between both of his. "I'll remember."
The little girl who's been running through the wet grass in the shadow of the Washington Monument in her pink boots stops suddenly and races back in the direction of her father, leaping into his arms with gleeful joy as Banks watches them. This was what his mother had been talking about, this kind of sheer and utter trust. She'd wanted him to believe that someone loved him so much that they would never let him fall, and for him to love someone so much thathewould be there through every storm. Has he done that? He isn't even sure.
He'd let Denise down, and she'd broken his heart by wanting children more than she'd wanted him. (Oversimplified, he knew, but ultimately kind of true; she never would have been satisfied with just him, and that was fine.) He's kept himself to himself for so many years since, not even giving anyone the opportunity to count on him, to love him, to keep his heart safe. And he hasn't offered to be anyone else's shelter from the storm either. All these years, he's thought that being strong and silent and keeping his feelings tucked inside of him was the only real, safe way to be, but maybe he's been wrong. Maybe the only real way to exist is to turn yourself inside out and be exposed to the elements.
The rain that's been falling tapers off and a beam of sunlight breaks through the clouds, casting a shimmer of rainbow through the sky that ends just behind the Washington Monument. It's beautiful. Banks watches as the little girl spots the rainbow and wiggles to free herself from her father's arms, running in the direction of the rainbow like she might just be able to catch it.
Banks wants to believe in something like that. He wants to see beauty and run towards it, rather than shielding his eyes and assuming that it could vanish at any minute. He wants to believe that every single day holds the potential for both rain clouds and rainbows. He wants to trust someone so much that he can put his heart in their hands.
Banks stands up, smiles at the father who is smiling at his little girl with loving pride, and cuts straight across the grass with a purposeful stride. He walks directly towards that rainbow, never once allowing himself to think that it might vanish before he reaches it.
Chapter18
Etienne
No one had ever told her that it would be easy, this life. Thankfully she'd never believed that, or actually living each day would have been interminable. And the days have grown exponentially longer without Jack. All the waiting, hoping, dreaming, and thinking of him had ended the day his plane had plunged into the Bay of Biscay, taking with it all sense of security--what little Etienne had, anyway—and drowning it in a watery grave.
Since that day, she's slept fitfully, knowing that the world sees her now as The Other Woman. An evil, calculating mistress who'd gotten pregnant to snare herself an American President. But that isn't the truth, not even by a long shot.
Etienne pulls her tiny Citroen into the gravel drive outside of her house, crunching over rocks as she slows the car to a stop. She pulls the emergency brake and gathers her things: purse, phone, a small bag of groceries, and a laptop. She's been to a cafe in the nearest village, working on a book that she's decided needs to be written: the story ofherlife. Perhaps it will be nothing but a call-and-response to the book that Dexter North is writing, but she doesn't think so. She still has faith that what he's writing is the story of Jack's full life, as seen through Ruby's eyes. She still wants to believe that none of the book will be wasted on defaming her or on casting aspersions towards her young, innocent son.
No, his book will be one thing, and hers will be something else entirely, she thinks, gathering her shopping under one arm and her small computer under the other. She closes the car door with one foot, leaving it unlocked there in front of her small house in the tiniest village in the country.
"Julien!" Etienne calls out, pushing her way through the front door and leaving her purse on the chair in the foyer. "Julien? Are you home?"
More often than not these days he's out with friends, walking, flirting with girls, drinking beer--she doesn't even know what. He might believe that his mother bought the story about him feeling ill that day they took Ruby and Dexter and Banks to Saint Émilion, but she hadn't believed it for a second. She'd taken one look at her son and known that he was hungover, and maybe rightfully so. Could anyone actually blame him for going out with his friends to blow off steam when his own mother had invited his father's true wife to stay in their home? No, Etienne understood, and she'd let it pass.
"Julien? Hello?" she calls again, kicking off her white Converse and carrying the groceries into the kitchen. The lights are out, and through the window that looks into the back garden, all Etienne can see is soft spring sunlight bathing the blooms of spring in warmth. She sets the bag down and watches the scene for a moment, thinking as she does sometimes about Jack, about all the things he isn't here to see anymore, and all the things in the future that he'll miss.
But just as she hadn't blamed Julien for his drunken night during Ruby's visit, neither does she blame Jack for ending things when he did. After all, would anyone want to be trapped inside their own body, left to rely entirely on the kindness of others for the most basic daily needs? Would anyone want to be entirely at the mercy of their own failing mind and body, hurtling towards certain death with no prescribed path? No. Definitely not.
Etienne leans across the kitchen sink and cranks open the window, letting the fresh air fill her small kitchen.
She has yet to hear back from Ruby since her visit, though that's also maybe for the best. Things had ended awkwardly, and she knows she's asking for a lot, for her son to be considered in some monetary way so that his future might be secured in the way his father had undoubtedly intended. It's not an easy thing to ask, nor is it an easy thing to grant, Etienne can imagine. So she will wait. Surely Ruby is still pondering, still thinking. From what little she knows of Jack's wife, this is her nature—to think. To consider. To weigh things heavily before deciding. So Etienne will choose the path of patience.
For good measure she opens the door that leads out of the kitchen and to a breezeway between the house and a small annex. The annex is filled with garden tools, rusty bikes, wrapping paper, and boxes of unloved items. She'll go through it at some point, but not today.
Etienne is walking back across the kitchen on bare feet when a breeze from the open door whips through the room, sending a paper that's been hiding on top of the tall refrigerator drifting through the air like a paper airplane. She stops and watches it as it dances and twists, then falls on the uneven tile floor, coming to rest beneath a well-worn kitchen chair. Etienne stoops to pick it up with a frown. What paper did she leave on top of the refrigerator, way up high where she'd forget to look for it?
