Danielle got out of the car, Anya slid over while keeping the gun aimed at Kyle, and Danielle got back in the car. She was sweating despite the cold.

“Anya, don’t. Don’t do this. It will never work,” Danielle said. “Let them go and we’ll go talk about this.”

“Drive. I will tell you where.”

Danielle pulled out of the lot, tentatively, as one would driving with a gun aimed at you and with icy conditions. “Where is Tatiana?”

“Visiting her sister. I took her coat, with the car keys in the pocket, and hat off the rack at the service entrance.” She stumbled over her English here. She risked a glance at our baby; I realized this might be the closest she’d been to him since giving birth.

“Anya, do not do this. There is time to stop this, right now,” Kyle said. “If something happens to us, Boris will know you did it.”

“Boris won’t care what I do now.”

We reached the main road. “Turn left,” she ordered.

We drove into the increasing whiteness. I held on to Grant’s hand.

Danielle was silent. Anya was silent. Kyle tried to reason with Anya again and she said, “Shut up or I’ll shoot you in knee,” and he shut up.

Grant fussed. His toys were in the bag, now in the trunk. “He needs something to play with,” I said.

Anya frowned. Then she unclasped a bracelet from her wrist and tossed it to me. It was lovely, silver and small emeralds. I danged it above Grant and he thought it was a toy. The crying stopped. I could see Anya fighting back tears at the sight of this baby playing with her jewelry.

“If you love Sasha,” I said to her, “you’ll stop this right now and let us go.”

“Don’t try and talk love to me,” Anya said. Her English was better than when she’d asked me for help. She’d been playing on my sympathies then, but not now.

“You could have come to the court. You didn’t. Your boyfriend is married. He’s not going to help you. This isn’t the solution.” If you had ever told me I’d be trying to talk a distraught mother into giving up her child, I would not have believed you. But here we were.

“Give me his passport,” she said. We couldn’t take Grant out of the country without that.

She guessed correctly that Kyle had it and gestured at him with the gun. Then she told Danielle to take the next right.

Kyle didn’t produce the passport.

“Now,” she said, putting the gun up to Danielle’s head, “as there will be no adoption, consultant not needed.” Danielle gave out a little shriek.

I thought: She’ll do it.