“I love you too,” Simon said, trying to reassure her. But everything was happening so fast it was hard to say anything. The doctor was waiting for them when the elevator opened at labor and delivery. She took one look at Blaise, and they took her straight to a birthing room, and Simon and a nurse had her clothes off in less than a minute. There was no time for drugs or an epidural, explanations, or anything except Simon telling her he loved her and Blaise moaning with the pain as they got her on the delivery table, and the doctor checked her with a look of satisfaction, and smiled at Simon and Blaise.
“I think we’re ready for a birthday party,” she said, and told Blaise to push as Simon watched in wonder and Blaise gave a terrifying scream, as their son’s head emerged from between her legs, and he looked at his parents with surprise. He was born with the next contraction, as Simon and Blaise cried and laughed and watched with amazement as the doctor lifted him onto her stomach, and the baby looked around as the doctor cut the cord. The baby was beautiful, looked like Simon, had Blaise’s red hair, and was totally alert. Less than an hour before, Blaise had been on the air. None of them had expected him to come so fast, and he weighed just under nine pounds. Salima arrived just minutes after he’d been born, and Blaise was holding him by then. A nurse led Salima to her mother, and she cried when she kissed her and touched the baby’s cheek.
“I came as fast as I could,” she said apologetically.
“If your mom had done this any faster, she’d have had him during a commercial on the air,” Simon said, still in awe of the miracle they had just seen. They took Blaise to a room a little while later, and the three of them spent the day together, taking turns holding the baby. And in between the baby nursed.
Becky came to take Salima home that evening, and Simon spent the night with Blaise, and in the morning they went home. They were a family and had welcomed Edmond Charles Ward into their midst. He was named after Simon’s uncle in Bordeaux.
The apartment was filled with flowers when they got home, and gifts continued to arrive all day. The network had sent her an antique bassinet filled with baby clothes and teddy bears. Harry had sent enormous flowers and balloons. The baby’s birth had been announced on the evening news. As a result, there were so many gifts and flowers in the apartment, they could hardly walk around. Teresa the housekeeper, Natalie the baby nurse, and Becky were in the kitchen, Salima was hanging out with Simon and her mother in the bedroom with the baby, and by dinnertime, Simon had realized the obvious.
“I think we may have to move,” he said to Blaise with a look of astonishment. They were exploding out of her pristine apartment, and she laughed.
“I thought we might.” She looked peaceful and ecstatic as the baby nursed, and Simon lay next to her to admire them both. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
Simon’s mother waited until the day after they got home to come and visit them from Boston. Simon’s father was too busy, but he promised he’d come to meet the baby soon. The minute Isabelle walked through the door, she commented that they were living like gypsies and she hoped they were planning to move.
“We just figured that out ourselves,” Simon said. The apartment was bursting at the seams. But his mother looked awestruck when she saw the baby, and smiled proudly at her son. She had been knitting tiny blue booties and caps for the last month and had written him a poem that had no point and made no sense, which she read them that afternoon.
She held the baby and he slept peacefully in her arms, and when she handed him back to Blaise, she spoke to Simon in a disapproving tone.
“I hope you’re planning to marry her now,” Isabelle said about Blaise, as though she weren’t in the room. She looked sleepy as she nursed.
“I thought you thought she was too old for me,” Simon teased his mother.
“You have a child now, Simon. You can’t just live together like artists or poets. She has a respectable job, and so do you.”
“Don’t be so bourgeois, Maman. What kind of bohemian are you?” he said, and laughed as she sat down on the bed next to Blaise, whom he loved with all his heart, even if she was not his wife. They hadn’t gotten married, and didn’t see why they should, despite what his mother thought. Or if they decided to, they would do it in their own time, for reasons that mattered to them.
“It’s a shame the baby has red hair,” Isabelle said wistfully as she gazed at him. “Let’s hope it turns dark.” Blaise laughed. The comment was so like her.
“We can always dye it,” Blaise suggested.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Isabelle said in a worried tone.