"Well, that's that, I suppose." George sounded a bit sad as he watched Sergei and Mathilde leave.
"Isn't he utterly adorable?" It hadn't even occurred to me to be concerned over how well George would bond with Vova.
Suddenly my husband grinned and touched Vova's tiny hand. "Well, how about that? You're going to get to know your Uncle George pretty well, then, aren't you?"
"You know he can't call you that."
"Well, now, 'Papa' and 'Uncle George' are pretty interchangeable, aren't they," George continued to the baby. Yes, George was going to love Vova.
Although much milder than a Russian winter, winter in France was still considerably colder than winter in my native sunny Georgia had been, and George seemed, not exactly depressed, but distracted at times. I remembered that, in addition to the recent loss of his father, it was also the first winter he'd ever spent apart from his whole family.
"You really miss them, don't you?" I asked one mild day as we were walking in the park and pushing a warmly wrapped Vova in his carriage.
"Of course I miss them!" he exclaimed. "And in addition, I'm very concerned about my mother. I know that she misses my father dreadfully, but even more than that, I fear that Alix is causing her even more grief. In spite of all my mother's efforts, she seems unwilling to even make an attempt to blend in with court life, preferring to spend all her time alone reading or praying. She's like Nicky in that way. Maybe they'll be good for each other."
"At least he's happy," I said.
"That's the only good thing about it, I suppose," George agreed. Vova awakened and began to cry.
Spring arrived and, with it, the rain. Day after day we stayed inside reading, playing games, or simply conversing. Vova grew to be a plump, healthy baby with curious round blue eyes that followed me and George everywhere. His primary bond was, of course, with his wet nurse, but he also loved to cuddle with me or George. As he got older, he began to smile and laugh and then to coo. To George and me, he was a ray of sunshine in our often drab lives.
The rain finally passed, and the weather turned sunny and warm. One day George and I were going for a walk when I suddenly felt lightheaded and dizzy. George caught me before I hit the ground."Should I summon the physician?" he asked as he helped me back home.
"I just need to rest a little," I mumbled.
"Are you sure?" His eyes were full of concern.
"I wanted to wait until I knew for certain to tell you this," I told him. "But I think I'm going to have a baby, George."
He looked startled for just a moment, and then his whole face lit up with a grin. "Really?"
"You don't think it'll be a problem to have two babies so close together in age?"
"Not at all! They'll be good company for each other."
My own pregnancy went much more smoothly than Mathilde's had the previous year. After a few weeks of frequent nausea and fatigue, I felt fine. With eyes full of love, George told me I looked radiant. As my belly became gently rounded, I looked in the mirror and thought about my mother and wondered what it had been like for her when she'd been pregnant with me. Had my father looked at her with adoring eyes and told her that she was lovelier than ever, as George did with me?
As my pregnancy continued to progress, I began to feel awkward and to experience some of the same discomforts from which Mathilde had suffered. "I feel like I've been pregnant forever!" I complained as I lay on my side and George massaged my aching back.
"It will all be over with very soon," he consoled me.
The weather turned cool, and on a bleak day in November, my labor began. I was taken to the same hospital in which Mathilde had given birth, and was attended by the same physician, who of course didn't recognize me. For an evening and a night my body was wracked with the worst pain I'd ever experienced in my life, and in the wee hours of the morning, I finally felt my child slide from my body.
"It's a girl!" the doctor announced.
Tears of joy and relief flowed from my eyes as I heard my daughter crying. When she was handed to me, my first thought was how much she resembled Vova at birth. But of course she does. They are cousins, after all. Yet they would be raised as brother and sister.
Suddenly George was there beside me, beaming. "She's beautiful," he told me. "You did well."
"You aren't disappointed that she's a girl?"
"Not in the slightest," he assured me.
"I want to name her Ekaterina, if that's all right with you." My mother's first name was Katie.
"That's fine," he told me.
Several weeks later, we received the news that Nicholas and Alix, now known as Alexandra, had become the parents of a daughter, Olga, born on November 15, a week before the birth of our daughter.