“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Danielle said. The three of us were back at the hotel, having dinner. I embraced being in Russia: I downed vodka in steady sips. The Robinettes were off buying supplies for the orphanage, as I did on my first trip, and I was grateful they couldn’t hear this conversation.

My lie was a careful one. I told them that I had been in the building and had seen the woman, heard her scream Sasha’s name after the dog attacked her, hurried out to help.

Not that I had talked to her before. That I kept to myself.

“Did you know about this?” I asked Danielle.

“That Sasha’s mother was being difficult? Not until today.”

I wasn’t sure I believed her.

“She wants her child back,” Kyle said.

“How are we supposed to stand in her way?” I asked. He took my hand and I squeezed his.

“Maybe if we could talk to her, reassure her that we’d be good parents to him,” Kyle said.

“Or they should just give her back her child,” I said.

But Kyle shook his head. “It’s been nine months. Not nine days. She had plenty of time to think this through. Why now? Why has she changed her mind now, once the adoption process started? We’re literally a day away from getting him. What happens when she wants him in a year? Do you give him back then?”

“I didn’t want to tell you this because it’s no reflection on Sasha, but there’s an unfortunate history here. Anya gave up an earlier child as well,” Danielle said. I remembered the medical file told us she’d given birth once before. “She asked for him back. The orphanage returned him, even though they had concerns, but an adoption process hadn’t started. She returned that child to the orphanage four weeks later. He was hungry and neglected. They’re not going to give Sasha back to her.”

“Danielle,” I said, very quietly. “She’s standing out in the freezing snow, looking at the building where her child is.”

“She’s not well. You can’t talk to her again. Contact is forbidden. She doesn’t get the child back. What would it do to adoption here if the Russians cave on this?”

“I don’t care about government policy. This doesn’t feel like adoption. It feels like kidnapping.”

Danielle started to speak, and I waved her silent. “I got warned in the airport. Our car got run off the road. She wants this child and someone doesn’t want us to have him. What is going on here, Danielle?”

“You know as much as I do.” Her voice shook. “I’ve done more than twenty adoptions here and this has never come up.”