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Etienne shakes her head emphatically. “I wasn’t let down. I wasn’t a girl when I got pregnant, Dexter. I was a grown woman.I knew how my story would go, although I didn’t predict that Jack would leave us entirely. There were times I wished things could be different, but I knew they never would.”
Dexter is trying to wrap his head around this idea of Etienne just accepting the situation at face value. “And how was Jack when Julien was born?”
Etienne smiles again—another faraway, lost-in-memory smile. “He was magnificent. I had a scheduled c-section so he could be there, and he was at my side for the whole thing, holding my hand.”
“How did he manage to get that time out of the public eye?”
Etienne looks almost bored. “I have no idea. I made a point never to ask him how he got away from home, from work, from anything. When he was there, he was there. And when he wasn’t, he wasn’t.” She shrugs. “There was no other way for me, and eventually for Julien, to handle his coming and going so frequently.”
They finish their conversation and Dexter thanks Etienne for her candor, which he appreciates, naturally. There’s so much to learn about Jack Hudson and so much to understand about a man he never met, and the women who loved him are by far the best way to unearth the truth about all of Jack’s good points and character flaws.
Downstairs, Ruby is pouring iced tea into two tall glasses. “For you,” she says, handing one to him but not meeting his gaze.
They drink the tea together in silence and Dexter knows immediately that Ruby is aware that he’d been talking to Etienne.
“I think we should just dive in,” she says, setting the glass on the counter and finally meeting his eye. “I know which box will have the journals from around the time of Julien’s birth, and I think we should read them, no matter how much it kills me.”
“I just…” Dexter cocks his head to one side. Had she been listening at the door of the bedroom to his conversation?
“Purely a guess,” Ruby says, holding up a hand. “I knew you were upstairs talking to her because I could hear her voice and her accent, though I have no idea what you were talking about.” Ruby puts both hands around her iced tea glass and stands there for a moment. “I can understand why her pregnancy and Julien’s birth would be of interest to you, and I’m going to have to read it all eventually anyway, aren’t I?”
Dexter takes a long drink of the tea. “I don’t want to dictate what order you read things in, or how you process all of this,” he says. “I’m here to read along with you, not to do some sort of structured investigation.”
“No, I think we need to read it.” Ruby abandons her glass on the counter and walks through the kitchen, dining area, and into the giant living room, where she turns on an overhead light. “Let’s do this.” Without preamble, she falls to her knees in front of the box that says 2007 and sifts through its contents. “I have the one from the beginning of the year right here," she says, holding up the book they've already started. "And now we’re nearly up to September, which means we have Julien’s arrival in October.” Ruby pulls another diary from the box.
She opens the first book from 2007 as if it might actually be a ticking time bomb. She turns a few pages gingerly while Dexter stands in the doorway between the dining and living areas, watching her as she crouches there.Ruby is lovely, he thinks.If she were my wife, I never would have left her side. And it’s not hyperbole: he truly wouldn’t have, but this kind of thinking gets him nowhere. They’re not spending August on Shipwreck Key to explore the millions of “what ifs” and “what never could have beens,” but to firmly sort throughwhat was.
“Sit down,” Ruby instructs, nodding at the couch. Dexter sits, still holding his glass. He’s afraid to speak and to break thespell that’s grown as Ruby’s eyes skim the pages. “There are a few entries here worth reading.” She swallows and sits back on the ground, pulling her legs under her in a criss-cross fashion. “Ready?”
Dexter nods and puts the glass to his lips.
February 21, 2007
We’ve taken several more pregnancy tests, which Etienne has lined up on the windowsill like little pots of flowers that we can watch as they grow. I wonder if the woman across the courtyard can see into Etienne’s window, if she knows that I’m here, if she can see the little white sticks with their double blue lines, indicating that our love took root and sprouted in the weeks since I first came home with Etienne.
I saw fear in her eyes when she told me last night, and I knew that my response in that moment was one I could never take back. If I panicked or in any way spooked her, I might lose her forever, but if I rose to the occasion, we could get through this—together.
If you’d asked me six months ago what my reaction would be to having a mistress who got pregnant after our first night together, I would have assumed that you’d confused me with someone else. A politician having an affair is so…expected. The woman getting pregnant is such a cliché. The fallout would be predictably messy. None of those are things that I have wanted in my life, nor would I have ever sought them out. When Doug Porter had his public meltdown all those years ago, I thought, “Won’t ever be me. No way would you catch Jack Hudson with his pants down.” And now here I am: pants firmly around my ankles.
But there’s something about love, isn’t there? (And here is where the comparison between myself and Doug Porter ends, because we all know now from the very public trial that Jennifer Rodriguez had been just one in a long string of women that Doug had used his power to seduce, but poor Jenny had made the bad and fatal decision to ask him for more than hotel rooms and heated exchanges in the backs of limousines.) A man in love—truly head over heels smitten—cannot be stopped. He is adrenaline personified. He can move mountains and perform great feats of strength, both physical and emotional. So that’s what I did as soon as the words “I’m pregnant” crossed Etienne’s lips.
I internally compartmentalized my entire life in the span of three seconds: this portion of my heart was for Ruby; this part for my daughters; this section here for Etienne; and the remainder belonged to this baby who I do not yet know. I decided on the spot that I could be something to everyone. I can segment myself into enough parts to go around, and I can use my position and access to the world as a way to make this life possible. Would every man make the same choice in my shoes? Perhaps not. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that I’m probably not the first public figure to find that a lady friend of mine is in some way compromised because of me, but I would imagine that another man might choose to throw money at the situation and force the woman to sign a clause of total discretion. Or perhaps he’d insist that the problem be quietly fixed—erased as though it had never happened. But that’s not me. That’s not who I am and it’s not what I want.
This morning when we woke in Etienne’s bed she rolled over and looked right at me with her giant eyes. “Do you love me, Jack?” she asked. But I knew then that what she was asking was not, “Do you love me so much that you’ll leave your wife and be mine?” so much as she was asking, “Do you love meenough to make this work? Do you love me enough to support my decision to have this baby no matter what happens between us?”
And I answered her honestly, and as truthfully as I possibly could: “I do, petite chou. I love you terribly. And I love this baby. He will be the center of our world.”
And he will. He absolutely will.
"Yeah," Ruby says, letting the book fall closed as she exhales the breath that she's been holding tightly in her chest. "It's just as difficult as I thought it would be to read about pregnancy tests and them being excited and making plans.” She puts her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands and hides there for such a long time that Dexter nearly gets up from the couch and goes to her. But he wants to respect her need to self-soothe and to get through this hard part with dignity. Ruby finally lifts her head and looks at him. "Okay, next entry," she says, shaking her head like she's shaking off the pain of Jack's words.
October 1, 2007
The wonder is beyond compare. The absolute joy and wonder of seeing your child emerge from the woman you love. I'm a lucky man: I've seen Ruby birth both of my daughters, and now I'm here, in Paris, and I got to hold Etienne's hand as the doctors pulled a slick, new-to-the-world Julien from her womb.
A scheduled c-section was the only way to ensure that I could be here, and so Julien was brought forth from his cocoon of warmth and safety a little early--intentionally. But what a hale and hearty young man he is! He came out wailing, alerting us all to his arrival, and ready for the safety of being in his mother's arms rather than inside her body.
"Julien Boucher," Etienne said, holding our son, who was just mere minutes into his existence here on Earth. "Bonjour," she whispered to him, her eyes filled with tears.
