WHAT: Jules decides it's high time she and Esther talk. WHERE: The Shaw household. WHEN: Afternoon of March 31. WARNINGS: None. STATUS:Complete!
Now that the Shaws had become less of an exciting new addition to the neighborhood, the random visitors during the day had more or less ceased. It was for the best; Esther had been finding it harder and harder to be nice to the neighbors that would drop hints about single relatives as they handed over some type of hot dish. Their freezer was still lined with said hot dishes, waiting for an emergency dinner need.
Because of the lack of afternoon visits, Esther had grown used to being able to work without any interruptions. She didn't always work from home, sometimes needing the change of scenery that Java Chip, the library, or even just Chase's bedroom to feel inspired. She was home today, though, sitting on the couch and jotting down notes into one of her many notepads. She wasn't even really working, instead penning together the start of an idea for a possible children's story; not generally her preferred genre but, as she smoothed her free hand over her growing abdomen, she thought it might at least do for a future bedtime story.
The knock pulled her from her thoughts dragon children and young adventurers, but Esther didn't necessarily mind. Setting her notepad and pencil aside, she pulled herself to her feet, stepped around the lazing cats, and made her way to the front door. The last person she expected to see on the other side of it, though, was Jules Hart.
Esther hesitated at the door, trying to push down all of the ugly emotions inside of her that just wanted to close the door in the other woman's face. Instead, she glanced down once at the basket that Jules was holding, then to her face. "Gabe isn't here. He won't be home for a couple of hours."
"Oh -- yes. Yeah. Yeah, I know," Jules replied, stammering just a bit as she stood on the front stoop of the Shaws' home. She shifted her weight before adding, "I'm here to see you, actually."
A silence stretched between them, Esther's expression hesitant as she considered the woman before her. To her credit, Jules was doing the very same. She knew about the argument that the siblings had been working through. She knew exactly why Esther was upset. She understood why she was upset, though she also believed that any ire ought to be directed at her and not Gabe. That wasn't why she was here, though. For as much as Jules believed that she deserved any anger that Esther, their mother, or Gabe himself might feel regarding her choices all those years ago, she also very much wanted this attempt at a relationship to work out. And, as Jules saw it, a rift between herself and Esther would be a very big hurdle. Even if Gabe could overlook it, she didn't know if she could. The last thing she wanted was to be the cause of him to lose time with more family.
Though she didn't speak, Jules saw when Esther's expression turned a bit more resigned and took that, combined with how she leaned her hip against the frame of the door, as permission to continue.
"I realized that while I've apologized to Gabe many, many times since you both came to town, I never apologized to you." Jules's words came slowly, weighed in a way that made it clear that she had thought about them a great deal. "That wasn't... it wasn't right of me. My decisions when we were younger kept Ella from her father, but also her aunt -- my friend. No amount of apologizing will make that right and I know it. I am sorry, though. I truly am."
Jules paused and Esther knew that this was time for her to say something, but there were no words that came immediately to mind. For as good as she was at putting prose to paper, crafting and describing emotional moments that people seemed to be able to relate to, she struggled when living those moments themselves. There were notable exceptions, but this was not one of them.
Esther's mother's voice echoed around in her mind, a repeat of what she'd said in their last private conversation before she, Gabe, and Chase had left St. Louis. Their mother had picked up on the tension immediately; years of being an attentive mother, even from a distance, left her seeing that not everything was as smooth between her children as usual. Esther didn't know just what Gabe might have shared with their mother, but he wouldn't have had to divulge much of anything, she thought, for their mother to at least know that one of the siblings was being unfair to the other given how the last four months had played out.
"Be kind to him, Esther Corinne. Your brother needs you more than you realize."
Kindness to her brother didn't always mean direct actions to him, Esther realized. It wasn't just apologies and making sure the coffee maker was prepped and ready for him before she went to bed and giving him his space when he needed it. They also meant hearing out the woman that he loved and doing her best to accept that none of them could change the past, but they had control of shaping what their future looked like.
And so, instead of speaking, Esther just swallowed hard, past the lump forming in her throat, and nodded once. Simply happy that it hadn't instead been a door slammed in her face, Jules was happy to accept what felt like tentative acceptance of an olive branch.
"But, um. That's not the only reason I stopped by." Jules looked down into the basket she was holding, then up to Esther almost sheepishly. "I saw your bump picture on Instagram and I thought that maybe you could do with a gift basket. It's been a while since I went through it all, but I put together some stuff that helped me." Her eyes dropped back down to the basket as she looped it through an arm, her free hand sorting through the objects as she continued on to explain some of them. "I know you're pretty much past the first trimester so your morning sickness is probably not as bad, but there were these ginger candies that my grandma gave me that helped me so much with my nausea. I also got addicted to Wheat Thins, since they were pretty much all I could keep down. Some bananas… oh, dark chocolate, because who doesn't like dark chocolate, right?"
Jules looked up, meeting Esther's gaze and, to her surprise, saw a small smile forming on the other woman's face. Esther was still looking at the basket, though, and reached forward to pull out a book of baby names, specifically literary themed ones. "I saw that online," Jules explained, bolstered by Esther's smile. "Your boyfriend is a librarian, right? And with your job being what it is, I just thought it might help with some inspiration."
Another silence stretched between them, this one less fraught with uncomfortable tension as Esther thought over what to do next. After a moment, she blew out a soft breath before reaching for a box of tea that Jules had tucked into the basket, then met her gaze. She smiled, a true smile that reached her eyes.
"Come inside and have a cup with me?"
Jules beamed, nodding her head vigorously before Esther stepped aside to let her in. This wouldn't fix everything, they both knew, but it was a step forward.