Page 22 of A Mother’s Love

After lunch, she decided to walk through the Tuileries Garden, which she always liked, and from there to the Faubourg St.-Honoré, where a lot of the best shops were.

She walked along, window-shopping, feeling very sophisticated and glamorous, in Paris for the holidays.

She was glad that her solitary Christmas was behind her, it had too many echoes of the distant past, which her daughters didn’t know about.

She only had New Year’s Eve to get through now.

It had never meant much to her, and she and Robert liked to stay home on New Year’s Eve.

They toasted each other and watched movies on TV.

That was festive enough for her, and cozier than getting all dressed up and going out to a party, which was never as much fun as one hoped.

She didn’t feel cheated being alone on New Year’s Eve.

Christmas was another story, but that was over now, and she’d made it through, and kept busy, getting ready for her trip.

The Christmas decorations on the Faubourg St.-Honoré were still up, and beautiful, as they were on the Champs-élysées, all lit up with red lights and electrical falling stars.

It was only two days after Christmas, and her driver had told her that the decorations on the Avenue Montaigne were particularly elegant this year.

She didn’t call him for her window-shopping on the Faubourg.

She wanted to walk, and enjoy the feeling of being in Paris.

It was a car service the realtor had recommended to her, which she intended to use when she needed to, if she went farther afield, or when the weather was bad.

But it was a sunny winter day, and she loved being out on her own.

She came back to the house after a few hours, as it started to get dark, and as she approached, she saw the guardian standing at his window.

Their eyes met for a second and he glowered at her.

He was clearly unhappy that she was there, and wanted her to know it.

She understood but she didn’t care. That was between him and the owners of the house, his bosses.

She was an innocent, uninvolved party who had rented the house and intended to enjoy it, whether he liked it or not.

She had no way of knowing how long he had worked there, and if he felt proprietary about strangers in the house, but she intended to take good care of it.

With her in residence, there would be no wild parties, drunken gatherings, or damage for him to deal with.

She was a trouble-free tenant for two weeks and he could glare at her all he wanted or stare at her from his apartment.

He seemed harmless but strange, an angry person, bitter about his life.

She couldn’t guess how old he was, maybe somewhere in his late forties or fifties.

He was thin, and she could see that he had powerful arms when he helped with the luggage.

There was a noticeable tension about him.

Maybe he was mentally deranged, but she wasn’t afraid of him.

It took more than that to frighten her. She had given him a tip when he helped with the bags and he didn’t thank her, so he was rude as well, and ungrateful.

Maybe he had a grudge against Americans, or women in general.

In any case, he wasn’t a problem, in his own apartment, and she was safe in the house.

The twins called her that night and she told them all about the house and how much she loved it.

The neighborhood was perfect and lively.

It was easy to get to all her favorite places on foot.

The house was comfortable and warm and cozy.

It was even prettier than in the photographs, and the girls were reassured when they hung up.

“See, I told you it would be good for her,” Olivia said smugly, and Valerie looked unconvinced. She hated to be wrong.

“This is the honeymoon phase, she just got there. If anything goes wrong, she’ll freak out and be on the first plane home, and have wasted the time and the money.”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” Olivia said firmly.

She wanted it to be a success for her mother, and happy memories in the making, to replace the sad ones of losing Robert.

Halley had been so subdued for the last three years, and Olivia knew she was upset about her birthday.

“What could go wrong?” she said to Valerie.

“Anything. A broken tooth, the flu, a cold. She could trip on the sidewalk and hurt herself. A leak in the house, no heating, rodents. I don’t know, but things happen and there’s no one to help her deal with it.”

“She said there’s a caretaker. Don’t be so negative.

” Valerie’s litany of possible disasters annoyed her.

She refused to be happy about her mother’s little adventure, and expected everything to go wrong.

Olivia wanted it to be perfect for her, and at first report it sounded like it was, and Olivia was thrilled, and refused to let her sister put a damper on it.

—

The second day in Paris started out even better than the first. It was another glorious sunny winter day.

It was cold but there was no wind. Halley went for a long walk, all the way from the house to the Avenue Montaigne, where the rest of the luxury brand shops were.

Chanel, Dior, Celine, Prada, Fendi, Bottega Veneta, Valentino, and others.

She went on foot again, and stopped at all the shops she liked best. She lingered at each of them, tried on some things, sweaters, a pale blue wool Chanel jacket and perfect jeans, some ballet flats, a hat at Dior.

She inched her way along, bought a gray cashmere sweater at Celine and tried on a duffel coat and patent leather boots.

It was like playing dress-up, and she loved it.

She missed the girls, but after the first few shops, she realized that no one was telling her what she couldn’t buy, what looked too young, what wasn’t the right look for a woman her age.

They were harsh critics at times, especially Valerie, who didn’t wear playful clothes herself.

Olivia always accused her twin of dressing like a lawyer, and Valerie expected Halley to dress like a mother.

Halley chose a wild shocking pink sweater at Gucci with butterflies all over it.

She wasn’t sure where she’d wear it or with whom, but it made her happy, so she bought it, and flowered sneakers to go with it.

Halley smiled when she paid for them, and compensated with a very chic black Chanel jacket that was more her style.

It was nice to feel free and young, and be doing something different for a change.

She wasn’t editing a manuscript, or meeting a deadline, or buying what her daughters said she should and already had ten of in her closet.

This was her moment, and she was enjoying it fully.

Sometimes, no matter how much she loved them, she needed not to be a mother, and to just be herself.

It was a new experience for her. She had been on full-time-mom duty for twenty-seven years, and was serious about it.

She never took a day off, had her cell phone on every night in case they had a problem and needed her.

Valerie had Seth now, but Olivia was alone.

And if she had an emergency, who would she call?

Halley had been mother and father to them all their lives, and that hadn’t changed now that they’d grown up.

Sometimes, they needed her more than ever.

She was always at the ready to help, on call, like the reserves in case there was a war.

But for this one brief moment in Paris, Halley was doing something for herself.

She felt mildly guilty about it, but was enjoying it anyway.

Her only regret was that she had brought her big Hermès alligator Birkin bag out shopping with her, because it had everything she might need, credit cards, passport, wallet, cash, her hairbrush if she tried on a sweater and messed up her hair, the keys to the house, the realtor’s folder that she kept in her bag in case she needed his number.

She’d forgotten to take her magazines out, and the bag weighed a ton as she walked along, but she didn’t want to just slip a credit card into her pocket to go shopping.

What if she lost it? And she’d brought her passport in case she needed ID.

She walked past a busy restaurant halfway down the Avenue Montaigne.

She still had more shops she wanted to see, of brands she liked.

She was hungry, but more than that she was thirsty.

There were women having lunch on the terrace of the restaurant, and men having business lunches, tables for two with couples, a few bigger groups of young people wearing extreme fashion, and several young women wearing heavy makeup and miniskirts with brightly colored alligator Birkins on their arm.

Halley didn’t know how they’d paid for them, but she could guess.

There was a small empty table on the terrace that beckoned to her, and she decided that she wouldn’t be conspicuous as a single older woman.

She didn’t want to look desperate, and she looked chic enough in a black coat, black jeans, and heels, with her big vintage Birkin.

She had a New York look about her, and blended right in as she approached the ma?tre d’ and pointed to the table in the sunshine.

A man came up behind her wearing a stylish black suit and turtleneck with a black coat over his arm.

He asked for a table, but she had gotten there first, so the ma?tre d’ escorted her to one, and settled the man nearby.

He looked at Halley admiringly, and she ignored him, putting on her dark glasses.

She’d had the glasses forever and loved them, a brand that no longer existed.

They made her look glamorous as she sat on the terrace, enjoying the warmth of the sun.