“You want to undo the mistakes you think you made with your own children. It’s very common. I’ve seen it happen with my parents when they became grandparents. Everything my brother and I weren’t allowed to have, these kids will have tenfold. I’m not just talking about material things, but affection and time and just the sheer amount of attention they give them.”

“It’s the circle of life,” Camille says wistfully.

“Except when we were little, our grandparents never fussed over us in the way that’s fashionable now.”

“Our grandparents didn’t have time for that.” Camille looks at Emma in my arms with a look of such undeniable, unquestionably permanent love, a pang of jealousy shoots through me again. One that makes me wonder whether she’ll ever come to Australia again. “Times are different now.”

“You’re hardly close to retirement.” I remind her. “And your foreign lover is in town.”

Camille puts a hand on my knee. “And she’s currently giving my granddaughter her bottle. If I was the more sentimental type, this would be cause for a tear of joy or two.”

This makes me laugh, and makes some of the tension drain from my shoulders. “And this weekend we’ll have an adolescent in the house.” Another event I’m not sure I look forward to entirely. There are so many people to meet in Camille’s life. So many good first impressions to make.

“Ben is a sweetheart. He’s the spitting image of his father, but he has a heart of gold.”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous.”

“I come with a lot of extra baggage. Children. Grandchildren. Political connections.” She gives a chuckle.

“Speaking of, I’m not leaving Paris until I’ve been introduced to the president.”

“You mean there’s such an easy way to keep you here?” She strokes my knee with her thumb.

“You know what I mean.” I check Emma for signs of fullness but notice none just yet. “Besides, I think you might have been downplaying your Dominique Laroche connection all this time. I think you may know her better than you’ve let on.”

“Even a president needs friends. Actually, let me rephrase that: especially a president needs friends.” She puckers her lips together, much like little Emma is doing while she’s extracting milk from the bottle. “It’s not that I see her more now than before she was elected, but when I do see her, everything is much more intense. The contact. The conversation. Because time is so limited, it weeds out the small talk and boils everything down to its very essence, even seeing friends.”

“Ha, I knew you were more than an acquaintance.” My voice shoots up so high, it startles Emma and her mouth loses its grip for an instant.

Camille waves me off. “You’re making too much of this, Zoya.”