Danielle Steel - Fine things

“What's his name?” The doctor smiled at them both as Bernie beamed and Liz continued to touch the baby with wonder.

They exchanged a look, and Liz said her son's name for the first time. “Alexander Arthur Fine.”

“Arthur was my grandfather,” Bernie explained. Neither of them was crazy about the baby's middle name, but Bernie had promised his mother. “Alexander A. Fine,” he repeated, and bent to kiss his wife, with the baby in his arms, their tears mixing as they kissed, and the baby slept happily as Bernie held him.

Chapter 16

The arrival of Alexander Arthur Fine created a stir like no other that had occurred in the recent history of his family. Bernie's parents arrived, carrying shopping bags full of gifts and toys, for Jane, and Liz, and the baby. Grandma Ruth was especially careful about not neglecting Jane. She made an enormous fuss over her, for which Bernie and Liz were grateful.

“You know, sometimes just when I decide I can't stand her, my mother does something so nice, I can't believe she's the same woman who's always driven me crazy.”

Liz smiled at him. They were even closer now that they had shared Alexander's birth. They were both still awed by the experience. “Maybe Jane will say that about me one day.”

“I don't think so.”

“I wish I were sure of that.” Liz laughed at him again. “I'm not so sure I'm exempt. … I think a mother is a mother is a mother. …”

“Never fear. I won't let you …” He patted Alexander's behind as he lay sleeping on his mother's chest after she had nursed him. “Don't worry, kid, if she shows any early signs, I'll beat the hell out of her for you.” But he bent to kiss her, as she sat comfortably in their bed, in an ice blue satin bed jacket his mother had brought her.

“She spoils me rotten, you know.”

“She should. You're her only daughter.” And she had given Liz the ring that Lou had given her when Bernie was born thirty-six years before. It was an emerald surrounded by small, perfect diamonds. And they had both been touched by the importance of the gesture.

They stayed for three weeks, at the Huntington again, and Ruth helped her with the baby every day while Jane was in school, and then in the afternoon she took Jane out for special treats and private adventures. It was a huge help to Liz, who had no one to help her and refused to let Bernie hire anyone. She wanted to take care of the baby herself, and she had always cleaned her own house and done her own cooking. “I couldn't stand having someone else do it for me.” And she was so adamant about it, that he let her. But he noticed that she wasn't really getting her strength back. And his mother said as much to him before she left for New York.

“I don't think she should nurse the baby. It takes too much out of her. She's just exhausted.” The doctor had warned her that that would happen, and Liz wasn't impressed when Bernie told her he thought she'd recover more quickly if she gave up nursing.

“You sound just like your mother.” She scowled at him from her bed. After four weeks, she was still in bed most of the day. “Nursing makes all the difference in the world to the baby. They get all the immunities they need …” She gave him the party line of the nursing enthusiasts, but he still wasn't convinced. His mother had worried him about how tired Liz was, and whether or not it was normal.

“Don't be so California.”

“Mind your own business.” She laughed at him and wouldn't hear of giving up nursing the baby. The only thing that really bothered her was that her hips still hurt, which surprised her.

He went to New York and Europe in May, after his parents left, and Liz was still too tired to go with him, and wouldn't consider weaning the baby. But he was upset when he found her just as tired when he got back, and even more so at Stinson Beach that summer. And he thought she was having trouble walking, but she wouldn't admit it to him or the doctor.

“I think you should go back to the doctor, Liz.” He was beginning to insist. Alexander was four months old, and a strapping baby with his father's green eyes, and his mother's golden curls. But Liz was looking pale and wan, even after two months at the beach, and the final straw came when she refused to go to the opening of the opera with him. She said it was too much trouble to go in and pick out a dress, and she didn't have time anyway. She had to start teaching again in September. But he knew just how exhausted she was when he heard her make arrangements with Tracy to sub for her part-time until she felt better.

“What was that all about? You won't go downtown to pick out a dress, and you won't go to Europe with me next month”—she had turned that down too even though he knew how much she had loved Paris when she went with him before—“and now you only want to work part-time. What the hell is going on?” He was frightened, and that night he called his father. “What do you think it is, Dad?”

“I don't know. Has she been to her doctor?”

“She won't go. She says it's normal for nursing mothers to be tired. But he's nearly five months old for chrissake, and she refuses to wean him.”

“She may have to. She might just be anemic.” It was a simple solution to the problem, and Bernie felt relieved after he had spoken to him but he insisted that she go to the doctor anyway and he was secretly beginning to wonder if she was pregnant.

Pretending to grumble all the way, she made an appointment the following week, but her obstetrician couldn't find anything wrong with her gynecologically She wasn't pregnant again at any rate, and he sent her to an internist for some simple tests. An EKG, some blood tests, an X ray, and whatever else he thought was indicated. She had an appointment with the internist at three o'clock in the afternoon, and Bernie was enormously relieved that she was doing it. He was leaving for Europe in a few weeks, and he wanted to know what was going on before he left, and if the doctors in San Francisco couldn't figure it out, he was going to take her to New York and leave her with his father, and see if he couldn't find someone to figure out what was wrong with her.

The internist who checked her out seemed to think she was all right. He did several ordinary tests. Her blood pressure was fine, the electrocardiogram looked good, her blood count was low, so he ran a few more elaborate tests, and when he listened to her chest, he suspected she might have a mild case of pleurisy.

“And that's probably what's been wearing you out.” He smiled. He was a tall Nordic man with large hands and a big voice and she felt comfortable with him. He sent her to a lab for a chest X ray and at five-thirty she got home, and kissed Bernie, who was reading Jane a story as they waited for her. She had left both children with a sitter that afternoon, which was rare for her.

“See …I'm fine … I told you so.”

“Then how come you're so tired?”

“Pleurisy. He sent me for a chest X ray just to be sure I don't have some weird disease, and other than that I'm great.”

“And too tired to go to Europe with me.” He still wasn't convinced. “What's this guy's name anyway?”

“Why?” She looked at him suspiciously. What was he going to do now? What else did he expect her to do?

“I want my father to check him out.”

“Oh, for chrissake …” The baby was crying to be nursed and she went to his room to pick him up while Bernie wrote the check for the babysitter. Alexander was fat and blond and green-eyed and beautiful and he squealed with delight the minute she approached and burrowed happily at her breast, patting her with one hand as she held him close to her. And later when she set him down to sleep again, she tiptoed out of his room, and found her husband standing there waiting for her. She smiled at him and touched his cheek, looking up at him. “Don't worry so much, sweetheart,” she whispered to him. “Everything is fine.”