Detective Ames: Did you tell him about her approaches?

Pollitt: Of course not. Mike Horvath is my friend. So was she. I assumed there was a rough patch that they could figure out.

Detective Ames: Where did you keep this phone?

Pollitt: Hidden on a shelf in our garage, behind a box of pipe.

Detective Ponder: I’m going to ask you again. Did you have any involvement with the death of Danielle Roberts?

Evander: I’d like to confer privately with my client.

(Break)

Evander: We’d like to cooperate.

42

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

2002

I made my choice.

Alone.

Without ever telling Kyle or Danielle what I was offered to say no to Grant.

And screw you, lady. His name is Grant. He’s mine. Ours.

Feliks was not our driver this time. Pavel, however, was again our interpreter. His arm was still in a cast. I hugged him when I saw him at the hotel. Danielle hugged him, too. Our driver was an older man named Vladimir, balding and spare, with eyes that were always watching.

And I watched for the warning woman. I never called her. I never responded to her.

But she knew we were back. She knew our travel arrangements before; she knew our schedule.

I sounded paranoid. I was paranoid. Russia has that effect on people.

When we get on the plane to go back to America, Sasha will be in my arms and he’ll soon enough be Grant Alexander Pollitt. The Russian boy he was will start to fade and a bright American boy will stand in his place. And the warning woman would find a new hobby.

I just hoped the phone she gave me wouldn’t ring.

I steeled myself for the day ahead, in case she tried to disrupt our final steps.

Danielle and Pavel guided us to many buildings in Saint Petersburg. There was so much paper: papers to sign and money to give. This was like everyone in Russia exacting a price for taking their beautiful boy away: money, money, and more money. Pavel told Kyle what we were signing and I half listened. I’d sign anything to get this baby. I started thinking of it as the Adoption Obstacle Course. My hand grew a little weary with the signatures. The Russians didn’t smile a lot, as if they knew they were selling away a part of their future. I wondered, seeing Kyle hand more bills to the third Russian we met with, why it was fine for me to pay a bribe but so repellent if I had taken the warning woman’s bribe.