A Perfect Life: A Novel (33 page)

“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.

The baby nurse and Teresa were trying to get organized. Becky was helping wherever possible. And Salima picked the baby up as soon as Isabelle set him down. It was easy to tell that he was always going to be in someone’s hands. He had doting parents and a loving sister, and a grandmother who loved him despite the color
of his hair. Isabelle held him in her arms again before she left the next day.

“At least his hair is not quite as red as yours,” she said to Blaise reassuringly, looking at her daughter-in-law affectionately. Isabelle was thrilled with her new grandson. And she reminded them again to get married, as though they might forget. Blaise and Simon didn’t share her concern. “L’amour n’a pas d’âge,” she said, referring to Simon and Blaise. Love has no age. And she looked pensive for a moment as she said goodbye to Blaise.

“Do you realize that when Simon is fifty-five, you’ll be seventy years old?” Isabelle said to her. Blaise had just turned forty-eight and Simon thirty-three that summer. And the fact that they were together and had Edmond was miracle enough for Blaise. They didn’t care about the math.

“We can all count, Mother,” Simon said with a look of exasperation as he escorted his mother out. And Salima bent over the baby to stroke his cheek again. She loved holding him and feeling his face next to hers.

“And when you’re eighty-five, I’ll be a hundred,” Blaise whispered to Simon with a grin, when he came back into the room and she was nursing his son. Edmond looked drunk with delight and his father grinned.

“That sounds good to me,” he said, smiling at her. They had each found the person that they had always wanted and needed. It had just come in a different package than they’d expected. They had been wise enough to see it, and brave enough to grab it, and know it was a gift. The numbers were of no importance. Only the people and the love they shared.

Simon had given her everything she’d ever wanted and longed for in her life. And Blaise was the woman he’d been looking for and hadn’t known it till he saw her. They completed each other, and each was better and had a fuller life because of the other. And with all the humanity that made it special and unique, it wasn’t perfect, and they didn’t need it to be. But it was very, very close to perfect. It was exactly the life they wanted it to be.

POWER PLAY • WINNERS • FIRST SIGHT • UNTIL THE END OF TIME • THE SINS OF THE MOTHER • FRIENDS FOREVER • BETRAYAL • HOTEL VENDÔME • HAPPY BIRTHDAY • 44 CHARLES STREET • LEGACY • FAMILY TIES • BIG GIRL • SOUTHERN LIGHTS • MATTERS OF THE HEART • ONE DAY AT A TIME • A GOOD WOMAN • ROGUE • HONOR THYSELF • AMAZING GRACE • BUNGALOW 2 • SISTERS • H.R.H. • COMING OUT • THE HOUSE • TOXIC BACHELORS • MIRACLE • IMPOSSIBLE • ECHOES • SECOND CHANCE • RANSOM • SAFE HARBOUR • JOHNNY ANGEL • DATING GAME • ANSWERED PRAYERS • SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ • THE COTTAGE • THE KISS • LEAP OF FAITH • LONE EAGLE • JOURNEY • THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET • THE WEDDING • IRRESISTIBLE FORCES • GRANNY DAN • BITTERSWEET • MIRROR IMAGE • THE KLONE AND I • THE LONG ROAD HOME • THE GHOST • SPECIAL DELIVERY • THE RANCH • SILENT HONOR • MALICE • FIVE DAYS IN PARIS • LIGHTNING • WINGS • THE GIFT • ACCIDENT • VANISHED • MIXED BLESSINGS • JEWELS • NO GREATER LOVE • HEARTBEAT • MESSAGE FROM NAM • DADDY • STAR • ZOYA • KALEIDOSCOPE • FINE THINGS • WANDERLUST • SECRETS • FAMILY ALBUM • FULL CIRCLE • CHANGES • THURSTON HOUSE • CROSSINGS • ONCE IN A LIFETIME • A PERFECT STRANGER • REMEMBRANCE • PALOMINO • LOVE:
POEMS
• THE RING • LOVING • TO LOVE AGAIN • SUMMER’S END • SEASON OF PASSION • THE PROMISE • NOW AND FOREVER • PASSION’S PROMISE • GOING HOME

Nonfiction

PURE JOY:
The Dogs We Love
A GIFT OF HOPE:
Helping the Homeless
HIS BRIGHT LIGHT:
The Story of Nick Traina

DANIELLE STEEL has been hailed as one of the world’s most popular authors, with over 600 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international best sellers include
Power Play, Winners, First Sight, Until the End of Time, The Sins of the Mother, Friends Forever, Betrayal
, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of
His Bright Light
, the story of her son Nick Traina’s life and death;
A Gift of Hope
, a memoir of her work with the homeless; and
Pure Joy
, about the dogs she and her family have loved.

Visit the Danielle Steel website at
daniellesteel.com
.