Him. Something colder than the wind began to creep along my flesh. “Why won’t they give the baby back to you?” I asked calmly, thinking she could be a crazy woman who just wants a baby. I was not going to help her kidnap some kid. There had to be a reason, if her story was true, that they have not just given her back her child. She was an addict or unstable or dangerous or… An addict wouldn’t have a nice coat like that, and her eyes were clear. But there were plenty of well-dressed mental cases in the world.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Anya.”

“Anya, I want to help you, but I can’t. If I break a rule, they won’t give me my child.”

“Please. Please. You are an American with money. They will listen to you.”

I felt sick. I felt torn. As a mother, I couldn’t NOT help her. As a mother, I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t risk the adoption for this. Maybe I could find out, though, where her child was, where he was in the adoption pipeline.

“What is your baby’s name?”

I saw her struggle to trust me. She decided.

“Alexander Borisovich Stepurin,” she said, very quietly.

Sasha. Grant. My son.

I repeated the name to her, slowly, like I’d not heard it before. She nodded. She pressed a piece of paper into my hand, with a phone number on it. I closed my hand around it.

“I can ask about him,” I managed to say.

“You must not tell them you talked to me. You could say that you are interested in a second child. Adopting two. Ask for a boy. He’s nine months old.”

“Why didn’t you ask for him back before?”

“I couldn’t,” she said, without explanation. Shame flickered in her eyes.

I thought: If I help her, what will they think of me? If I don’t help her, what will I think of me?

“You could go inside. Take him to a window. Let me see him. I have not seen him since he was born.”

My courage started to desert me. It felt like God was saying I couldn’t have this child. “Why have they not given him back to you? Are you ill? Are you an addict? I know nothing about you and you ask me to take this risk.” I can’t even remember everything that I asked her then.

“There are people…who don’t want me to have him,” she said.

“Who? Who?” How did the warning woman fit into this?

“To explain would put you in danger,” she said. “I cannot. I have tried to get help from inside, from the workers, and no one will help me. I’m up against too much. The money they make.”