The next few days, in Moscow, had been a nightmare. I constantly glanced over my shoulder, looking for the warning woman, looking for Anya’s ghost to materialize in the snow like a winter’s specter from a dreadful fairy tale. Grant was restless, shocked to be away from the only world he knew. The caretakers might not miss him, but he missed them; Kyle and I were strangers. I felt like a stranger. I kept waiting for the deeper bonding to kick in, that thread between mother and child that no force of nature or man could break. He writhed in my arms, he frowned, he cried, he reached for Kyle (Julia had rarely done that as an infant, but now she was a daddy’s girl), and I felt vaguely abandoned.

What were we doing with this baby? Would he ever love us? We’d chosen for him.

By blood and violence.

How had I let Danielle talk us into turning this awful tragedy into this permanent secret? Now we could never tell. Me writing this down is the only telling, my own way to process it, my own way to rebel against Danielle’s order, my only way to chronicle for my child what we saved him from.

My only way to convince Grant that he must never, ever come back here.

Kyle had gone to the airplane lavatory as our fellow passengers continued to board. I pulled the warning woman’s phone out of my purse. Powered it on. Selected the one number.

It rang.

“Yes, Mrs. Pollitt?” Her voice, calm.

“No,” I said, just the one word. She told me I’d find out what would happen if I said no to her.

Silence, for a moment. Then she hung up.

I tossed the phone back into my purse. Kyle returned to his seat and Grant gurgled and fussed, but I wanted to hold him right then, not hand him over to Kyle. I got a bottle ready to help him with the stress of takeoff.

The plane took off. Grant cried harder. I’d nursed Julia, and it had always seemed a comfort to her, a way to quiet her, but I couldn’t nurse with Grant. The bottle didn’t ease his burdens.

I waited for the “OK to stand up” light to click on, and I stood up and surveyed the other passengers around us. “I’m sorry,” I said, in the tone of a public announcement. “I’m sorry our baby is crying. We’ve just adopted him. He’s not used to me or my husband. He just isn’t. So, he may cry a lot of the flight. I apologize in advance and we’ll do our best to keep it to a minimum. Thank you for your understanding.”