a result, appreciating everything Simon did for him, unlike Sasha, who only wanted more, and had tantrums almost every day. If she didn't want a new dress, it was a new pair of shoes, or a trip somewhere, or she lamented because they didn't go to St. Moritz, or didn't have a house in the country. But considering the fortune Simon had made, neither he nor Zoya had a taste for excessive luxuries. She had had all that before, and what she shared with Simon now was more important.
Zoya's concerns about Sasha almost spoiled their Christmas holidays, and after Russian Christmas, she actually looked ill. She was pale and she was working too hard at the store, almost as though she could drown her sorrows there. And to cheer her up, Simon announced that he was taking her to Sun Valley, without the children, to go skiing. That infuriated Sasha even more. She wanted to go with them, and Simon told her firmly that she couldn't. She had to stay in New York and go to school, and she did everything she could to spoil their trip. She called and told them the dog was sick, and Nicholas told them the following day that it was a lie, she spilled ink on the rug in her room, and she played hooky again, the school called to say. All Zoya wanted to do was go home, and get her back in control again. But she was so worried, she was sick all the way home on the train, and when they got to New York, Simon insisted she go to the doctor.
“Don't be stupid, Simon, I'm just tired,” she snapped at him, which was unlike her.
“I don't care. You look like hell. My mother even said she was worried about you when she saw you yesterday.” Zoya laughed at that, Sofia Hirsch usually lamented about her religion, not her health. But she finally agreed to go to the doctor the following week, feeling foolish. She knew she'd only been working too hard, and she was still worried about Sasha, although the child seemed more subdued now that they were back from Sun Valley.
But Zoya was in no way prepared for what the doctor told her after he had looked her over. “You're pregnant, Mrs. Hirsch,” he smiled benignly at her from across the desk, “or should I call you Countess Zoya?”
“I'm what?” She stared at him in disbelief. She was forty years old, and the last thing she wanted was a baby, even Simon's. They had agreed two and a half years before when they were married that that was out of the question. She knew Simon regretted it, but now with the store, it would have been ridiculous anyway. It was ridiculous, she thought as she stared at the doctor in disbelief. “But I can't be!”
“Well, you are.” He asked her some more questions, and calculated that the baby was due around the first of September. “Will your husband be pleased?”
“I … he …” Zoya could hardly speak, her eyes filled with tears, and promising to return in a month, she hurried out of the office.
She sat silently at dinner that night, looking as though someone had died, and Simon glanced at her worriedly several times. But he waited until they were alone in the library to ask what the doctor had said. “Was anything wrong?” He knew he couldn't live if anything happened to her, and he could see in her eyes that she was terribly upset about something.
“Simon …” She looked up at him with anguished eyes. I'm pregnant”
He stared at her, and then suddenly he rushed toward her and took her in his arms with a shout of joy. “Oh darling … oh darling! … oh God, I love you! …” When she looked at him again, she saw that he was laughing and crying at the same time, and she didn't have the heart to tell him that all afternoon she had even thought of having an abortion. She knew they were dangerous to be sure, but she knew that several of her clients had had them and survived, and she was much too old to be having a baby. No one had a baby at forty! No one she knew anyway, no one in their right mind, tears filled her eyes again and she looked at her husband in irritation.
“How can you be so happy? I'm forty years old, I'm too old to have any