“Are you OK?” Kyle kept asking me. I nodded. I looked for the warning woman, for the black SUV that had caused us to wreck, but there were only the faceless crowds, the normal traffic as we went from building to building, collecting paperwork and leaving bribes—sorry, payments. We would be here for ten days. It felt like forever already.

The paperwork was done. I forgot to say, earlier, we rode in a van this time, with lots of room, and at first I thought it was because I was nervous about being in a car again and the van was bigger. Like Danielle would worry about my feelings. But after our last signature and our last bribe-slash-gift, we went back to the hotel. It was the same one we stayed at before, which made me uneasy.

“I thought we were going to see Grant.” I was done calling him Sasha.

“We are. There’s another family riding with us. I hope that’s fine. They’re here for their first visit. I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

I did mind. I didn’t mind. Kyle said, “Of course.” Wonderful, I could ask them if an odd woman offered them a bribe not to adopt a child—it’s such a conversation opener.

We went into the hotel; they were waiting for us in the lobby. Vince and Chele Robinette, from Philadelphia, a nice, friendly couple. They were adopting a little girl, also at Volkov, and like us that first trip, they were loaded with gift bags and hope. They also didn’t look like anyone had tried to frighten them out of this adoption.

We all got in the van together and Vladimir wended his way through the Saint Petersburg traffic.

“This place,” Chele asked me. “Is it wonderful? Or awful?”

“Hasn’t Danielle told you?” I said, sounding harsher than I ever could have intended.

“I was curious what you thought of it.” Chele was unperturbed by my rudeness. I liked her immediately; she was tough. You have to be to do this.

“I hope our son won’t remember it,” I said. Pavel glanced back at me; maybe it was impolite to criticize the orphanage, but I didn’t care. A country run by billionaire friends of the president, they could make it nicer if they wanted. They didn’t care.

“It’s not terrible,” Kyle, the diplomat, said. “Just depressing.”

The Robinettes told us about themselves, and Kyle and Vince talked football, and I reassured Chele that the chicken pox has probably burned through the orphanage and her daughter wouldn’t be all spotty for her first pictures with them, but if she was it would be fine, and I thought about holding my boy in my arms.