CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
OLIVIA
Three months later
THE FAÇADE OF THE LOUVRE SPREADS like wings around a central plaza leading to the vast expanse of the Tuileries gardens. Hungry birds, unafraid, flutter around seeking bread scraps dropped by people who purchased baguette sandwiches from the snack bars.
Dozens of Parisians and tourists wander around the wide pathways, some lounging in the sun and others walking toward one of the museums. Nicholas runs ahead of me, making a beeline for the large fountain that sits like a lake shimmering in the sun.
I catch up with him, huffing and puffing a little thanks to the extra ten pounds I’ve gained, and pull a small box out of the tote bag I carry with me everywhere.
“Les bateaux,” Nicholas announces in—to my ears, flawless—French before taking two walnut-shell boats out of the box.
Nicholas’s boat is bright red with a little blue flag attached to a toothpick and a tiny stick-figure sailor. My boat is glittery pink with a striped sail and a heart painted on the inside of the shell.
“Here’s the starting line,” I say, pointing to the edge of the fountain.
We set our boats in the water and together chant in commanding voices, “À vos marques.”
“Prèts!” I call. “Partez!”
We release the boats and watch as the light breeze pushes them along the water. When we first raced walnut boats in this fountain, we designated “over there” as the finish line, so we follow the boats around the water for a few minutes, each of us cheering our crew on. We mutually agree that Nicholas’s boat wins this particular regatta before we take a few more boats from the box and set them racing.
After the races are finished—Nicholas: 8, Mom: 1—we visit the playground and stop for an ice cream. Our afternoon is one of the ways Nicholas and I have spent the past few months in Paris. We’ve visited many parks, often finding the best ones packed with French toddlers and their mothers or nannies, and had many snacks.
Dean and I have timed visits to museums to coincide with Nicholas’s naps, and several times we’ve been able to stroll through the Louvre or the Orsay, pushing our sleeping son in his stroller.
One of Dean’s colleagues has a daughter, Marie-Laure, studying literature at the Sorbonne, and she has become our de facto nanny when I have French lessons or errands to run.
It’s not perfect, of course. The number of cars and people make me nervous when Nicholas is walking, but it’s cumbersome to navigate his stroller. He’s pitched fits in public—once loud enough to get us politely removed from a café—and I’m still too self-conscious to approach any of the women at the playgrounds to try and make friends.
Interestingly, through my French lessons, I’ve made friends with a German woman, a Canadian woman, and an American couple who invited Dean and me over for dinner one night. And Dean’s colleagues at the World Heritage Center have been exceedingly helpful and solicitous as we navigate our new world.
Nicholas and I take the bus back to the Latin Quarter, where our apartment sits in a nineteenth-century building. We stop at the boulanger, where we buy our bread and croissants daily from Mme Cassin, and greet the grocer who is stocking the fruit bins in front of his shop.
We walk up four flights of stairs to our apartment, a two-bedroom place about the size of the Butterfly House’s kitchen and sunroom. It’s bright and airy, with a wrought-iron balcony that overlooks the narrow avenue. It reminds me of our little apartment on Avalon Street.
I settle Nicholas in his room with some books and stuffed animals, leaving the door partly open so I can hear him if he calls. No need for a baby monitor here.
While he naps, I get dinner prepped—in a blossoming haze of ambition I’ve taken to trying recipes from the cookbooks of Jacques Pepin, Julia Child, and Paul Bocuse, albeit with varying degrees of success.
In my most recent Skype call with Allie, she again suggested I take classes at Le Cordon Bleu, and while I laughed the idea off initially, I contacted the school the next day asking about classes. In other words, I haven’t ruled it out, even mentioning the idea on my blog Liv in a Parisian Wonderland, which elicited dozens of excited and encouraging comments from my mom friends and fans.
Tonight’s dinner menu is ham with remoulade sauce, cucumber salad, and for dessert, plum sherbet and cinnamon-lemon cake. Nicholas wakes just as I put the ham in the oven, and close to six, a key turns in the lock of the front door. Nicholas bolts upright from lounging on the sofa.
“Daddy!” He rushes toward the foyer.
I follow, happy as always at the sight of Dean, so handsome in his tailored suit and five o’clock shadow, his tie loose around his neck. A warm glow lights in his eyes as he picks Nicholas up for a hug. He listens with interest to Nicholas’s excited babbling about the walnut-shell regatta before Nicholas squirms to get down.
Dean sets our son on the floor and approaches me, pulling me into the strong circle of his embrace. He spreads one hand across my rounded belly and bends to press his mouth against mine.
“Hey, beauty,” he says.
“Hi, professor.” I tighten my arms around his waist, feeling a delicious glow of happiness and contentment. “Welcome home.”