Kyle handed her our baby’s passport. My throat felt thick as she tucked it into her own coat. She gave Danielle some more directions—we were off the main road now, and we pulled into a town that looked abandoned. There were signs in Russian, a bright yellow.

How many abandoned towns have you seen outside of movies? Well, in Russia, they have them. Either because the land around them gets bought up by oligarchs or the government moves everyone or the town dies for all the reasons towns have died throughout time. For one awful second I thought, “What if this is like Chernobyl, radioactive or something?” But then I knew they wouldn’t have the orphanage close to it. It was just two streets and a dozen small houses left behind. This town appeared to have died a natural death.

“Stop the car. Park by that car.” She pointed to a car parked farther down the street. It sat next to a cozy-looking house, where a cat peered out from the window, watching our little drama. Is this where she’d been living, with only a cat for company?

“You walked from here,” Danielle said.

“Yes. The roads wind, but going by the fields, it’s only a few kilometers on foot.”

“You know this will never work. You know us taking the baby is the only way this works,” Danielle said.

“Give me your mobile phones,” Anya said. We handed them to her.

“Get out of the car. And you”—she looked at me—“you take out the car seat while he holds my child.”

“He’s not yours anymore. You made your choice,” I said.

“You are going to destroy both your lives,” Danielle said. “Stop this, and it’s forgotten. And forgiven. You can go back to your life and no one will know.”

“I’m saving us both,” she said. “You would use us.”

It was like there was another conversation happening and I was hearing only part of it.

“Anya,” I said. “I didn’t lie to you. I brought him to the window. So you could see him. So you could say goodbye to him. Because your country has given him, legally, to us. Because you gave him up. You made your choice just like you made it before. He is not yours, not anymore. Please. You cannot have that gun around him and be telling me you are going to take good care of him.”

“I want you to shut up now, lady,” Anya said. “You know nothing about me.”

“I know you are trying to take this poor child from a wonderful life,” I said.

“I can give him a better life than you can. He will have everything, now.”

She made no sense, so I pressed my argument. “You are putting him in danger, waving that gun around. He is precious.”

“He is valuable. To her,” Anya answered. Indicating Danielle.

“Adoption is a business, yes,” I said. “But…”