“From the Russians? No. I’ll do what I can with GAC given the situation. But you have no proof you’ve been targeted. None.” Danielle’s voice wasn’t strident, but she seemed out of her depth. “Look, it wasn’t that long ago that Saint Petersburg was considered the crime capital of Russia. Foreigners were often targeted. You want to find a rich foreigner? Go to an orphanage and follow a car from there. Or someone at the orphanage doesn’t like the gift you gave them and calls a friend and tells them when you’re leaving. People have been run off the road before and robbed. The idea that anyone objects that you two specifically are adopting a child is garbage.” Danielle set down her glass, exhausted. “I’m sorry. We’ve just never had this issue.” She looked at me. “I know you love that child, Iris. I could see it. All I’ve wanted to do, for you and every family, is to bring you together. To give these kids a future and to give you a child to love.” Her voice broke.

For a moment I stopped thinking of her as the nagging coach on what I should say or do or the adoption consultant we’ve paid thousands of dollars and I see her at my front door, beyond excited with the news that the Russians found a baby for us. Us falling into each other’s arms in relief and joy, sisters in battle. I must get my mind right. I took her hands in mine.

“We are not giving up,” I said. “That boy is meant to be with us and he’s going to be with us.”

“I won’t have you in danger,” Kyle said.

“Look, someone identified us, maybe because of my work”—Kyle flinched, as he sometimes did when I mentioned that I used to work for some very famous people—“and decided to make an example of us. Because we’d get press coverage of it. Maybe they want to not scare just us, but any foreign families wanting to adopt Russian children.”

A horrified look crossed Danielle’s face at this idea. “I need to make some phone calls.” She left us.

In our room Kyle and I collapsed on the bed. We held each other. The lobby called later and told us two journalists from the major newspapers in town wanted to talk to us. We declined.

“Five weeks,” Kyle whispered to me. “We have to hold on for five weeks until he’s ours. Then we never have to come back to this place.”

“Promise me he’ll be ours,” I said to him, and Kyle nodded and kissed me with resolve.

34

Iris

When Iris comes downstairs the next morning, Peter Horvath is drinking coffee at the kitchen island while Grant eats his cereal.