Never ask me. It wasn’t so cute when it was directed at you. When it closed a door that you needed to see what was behind.

“Are you ever going to tell me?”

“No,” she said. “It’s better you do not know.” Her gaze held steady against mine.

Those final days in Moscow, I watched English-language news sites for Russia obsessively, to see if there was a body found in the abandoned village. There was not. No one had driven through. No one had found her.

Who had Danielle been on the phone with when we were dealing with the body, me sitting in shock in the snow?

“Who did you call…?”

“Never ask me,” she repeated.

Because she was right. If we were caught, we all had so much to lose. We would be considered unfit parents; no decent people would conceal the death of a desperate young woman who only wanted her baby back. We were monsters. If I had just grabbed her arm first, maybe we could have subdued her. Detained her. Called the police.

But that wasn’t what happened.

Of course they killed her to keep that baby, it would be said. I could imagine the whispers, the headlines, the outright accusations. It would destroy our family. Even though Danielle had killed her, although accidentally. Danielle might get extradited back to Russia; even if not, it would end her work there, perhaps mean the end of Global Adoption Consultants. What if social services back in America took Grant from us? They could decide our cover-up—of murder—made us unfit. They wouldn’t have to return him to Russia. They could just give him to a more worthy family here in the United States. The whole thought pressed like an avalanche upon me.

If anyone knew about Anya, we could lose everything.

We left London. Grant, you had been horrible on the flight from Moscow, fussy for nearly all of it, and now you settled against Kyle’s shoulder like it was the safest place on earth. You acted like you weren’t thrilled to have me for a mother. I knew that would pass, that I would come to love you and you would come to love me. But as we settled into our seats and Danielle licked her finger and turned a page in her novel and studiously avoided looking at me and acted like a normal person who hadn’t accidentally killed another person (I mean, she did the killing, and I was the mental case in shock and dismay), I couldn’t bear to look at her, and so I looked at you, sleeping in your father’s arms, and I thought: You can never know.

How will the carrying of this secret shape you and me?

61

Transcript from Interviews for A Death in Winding Creek by Elena Garcia

(Via phone)

Elena Garcia: I appreciate you talking to me. Can you hear me OK?