Iris wants out of this house. Now. Now. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she says again. Trying not to look at the bruises. “I’ll leave you to your evening.”

“I’ll see you out,” Carrie says, rising.

Iris steps into the night, Carrie following.

“She mentioned you to me. As one of her success stories,” Carrie says.

Iris turns to face her. “We love our son very much. We’re grateful to her.”

“That man I saw that night, I really can’t be sure which house he might have come from. The color of his coat…it was dark; it was hard to tell. But he was about your husband’s height and build. He skipped the meeting tonight, didn’t he?”

Iris stares at her.

“Memory is such an imprecise thing,” Carrie says. “Tricky. If someone says something bad about one’s family, it can spur one to sharper, more certain memories, can’t it?”

It was a threat. Iris smiles, because she understands threats, and says, “Welcome to the neighborhood. I know we’ll be great friends.” Because you don’t want me as an enemy.

She walks home and she doesn’t look back at Carrie Butler. She sees a sheriff’s car parked in the distance, between the Butler house and her house. Probably to keep an eye on Steve Butler and his troop of volunteer watchdogs.

Kyle is in the driveway, putting out the recycling and trash bins. Tomorrow is pickup day.

“How did it go?” he asks quietly. He doesn’t know about the Butlers. He means the meeting.

Iris doesn’t know how to answer at first, but then the words spill out of her: “If I had been a better friend to her, maybe I would have known what was happening with her. Maybe she needed someone to confide in and that should have been me. To protect our family, I should have been a better friend to her. I know I failed her.”

And then the tears come, hot and sudden, and Kyle encloses her in his arms and she weeps for all that has been lost.

33

From Iris Pollitt’s “From Russia with Love” Adoption Journal

2002

Black SUV, that’s all the few witnesses said. One driver saw it racing away. There were cameras along the highway and the roads, and perhaps they would pick up a damaged SUV making its way into town in the minutes after our crash. We were taken to a hospital and all pronounced fit, except for Feliks, who had a concussion and cuts on his scalp and forehead, and Pavel, who had a broken arm.

I kept thinking about the warning woman in the airport: “Go home.”

Why did anyone care if we got a baby here?

What did we do to anger someone?

The police are polite but not hopeful. Kyle calls the embassy and they send a young woman to translate for us.