We settled back into what was our new life. The change was not just you becoming ours, Grant.

It was what we had seen. What we had done.

I routinely checked the English-language news stories from Russia. Nowhere could I find mention of a dead woman found in an abandoned village outside Saint Petersburg. Had it simply not made the news? Or at least the English-language news feed from Russia? That was my suspicion—it wasn’t about the government, or business, or something bad happening to a foreigner, so it didn’t rate the English feeds out of Moscow. And I could hardly recruit a Russian speaker here at home to ask.

I didn’t tell Kyle about the bribe offer. He would have tried to go back to Russia, hire investigators, see if he could find who it was and “fix” the problem. And just no. They could have come after us when we were in Russia. They didn’t. Why poke the hornet’s nest? We’d won; they’d lost.

It didn’t always feel like we’d won.

Danielle would not discuss it with me, because It Had Never Happened. I could hardly blame her. She focused more on adoptions from Africa and China—I don’t think she ever went back to Russia. If she did, she never told me.

I thought of emailing Anya’s boyfriend, Boris the investment banker, but…if her body had been found, I didn’t want to raise suspicion. Her boyfriend knew us. Knew our names. Knew how desperate we were to dissuade Anya from fighting the adoption. If she was found dead, wouldn’t he speak up? But he was married. He might not want to jeopardize his happy life.

I couldn’t wait for the anvil to fall. We lived our lives. I was the mother Julia and Grant needed. Grant, you got older, started walking, started learning English words, played with your sister, who gave you hugs and kisses, turned into an American boy who stared at the stars at night and loved the Houston Texans and the Houston Astros and soccer and video games and hip-hop and superhero movies.

From Russia, only a long silence.