“For the few minutes we spent together, she was very courteous.” The elevator comes to an abrupt halt and we stumble out, Camille holding the baby and me taking care of all the other stuff. My trip to Paris suddenly feels a lot less glamorous.

“Why don’t we take her home?” Camille says more than asks. “Then you and she can get to know each other.”

Five minutes later, we’re in the car. I haven’t really found my bearings in Paris yet, but it turns out to be only a ten-minute drive to Camille’s house. That’s how at six o’clock I find myself in Camille’s lounge with a baby in my lap, instead of the much more sensual position I’d been imagining myself in all day while she was at work.

But Emma is endearing like most babies of that age. No longer a featureless tiny mass of flesh, but a veritable tiny person, a girl in waiting, with huge blue eyes and a tug of the lips that could pass for a smile if you were inclined to see it that way. She coos with pleasure every time I so much as lift her from my lap, and her small, clammy hands grab at everything they come across with a surprising fierceness. Her simple, unspoiled joie de vivre is infectious and before I know it, I’ve fallen in love with her as well.

Of course, Iris is jealous of the intruder in her territory so Camille gives her a treat, after which she just keeps asking for more, then walks off in a huff.

“It has been one of the most profound experiences of my life,” Camille says after warming up Emma’s bottle and sitting down next to me. She gives me the bottle, as if feeding babies should be in my repertoire of things I know how to do automatically just because I’m a woman. “Having that little bundle of joy come into my life.”

Camille rearranges Emma in my arms and I bring the bottle to her lips. She starts sucking immediately.

“Having had children of my own and having gone through all that entails, I never thought becoming Emma’s grand-mère would affect me so much. I never thought I’d feel such a big rush of love and such a sense of responsibility ever again. And because I’ve done it all before, now that I’m older and hopefully a little wiser as well, I want to do it better. I want to have more patience with her and want her to know how loved she is at all times. I want to do right by her.”