The orphanage was down a side road off the main road in a rural area outside of Saint Petersburg, between a scattering of smaller villages. We turned down it, past a large gate and fence. It felt, God help me, a little like a prison. The building was Soviet architecture—I imagined (hoping against hope) something bright, elegant, soaring, a charming old palace built by Peter the Great now turned to the care of abandoned, adorable infants. This place had a brutalist architecture, and it was cold, forbidding, depressing. I wanted to cry. I wanted to snatch up all the babies and run from this place.

Feliks parked. Another driver sat outside, smoking, and he waved at him. You didn’t think about there being a whole subculture, subeconomy around international adoption. The same agencies hiring the same drivers. Feliks and Pavel had been here before, witnesses to dreams balanced on a delicate point.

Pavel and Danielle and Kyle and I got out. You, our son, were inside there. I had my two totes full of gifts and a mental list of who’s who and what I should give them, courtesy of Danielle.

We walked into the orphanage, and I inched out onto the tightrope.

Chocolates for Svetlana, the receptionist, and Irina, a guard. (Why do babies need a guard? Were they keeping the children in or keeping a threat out?) Perfume for Maria, the caseworker assigned to Sasha, and a coloring book for Maria’s niece, whom we’ll never see but I wished her well. The gifts were accepted with a smile, and Maria made sure that we knew the coloring book was for her niece, not child, as she was not married, and she glanced at Pavel.

We walked down the halls. Inside one room were a few older children, ten to twelve, listening to a teacher. There were the children never adopted as babies, or brought here when they were older (or adopted internally in Russia and returned for behavioral problems—many of these kids had emotional issues and found great difficulty in adjusting to a family life). They were in uniforms. I saw them for only a moment through the glass of the shut door, and I wondered what they thought when they saw our little parade, people here for a baby, this year’s model, and not here for them. Why do we have to walk past them? My heart jolted for them, but I didn’t stop. I kept walking.

“History class,” Pavel whispered helpfully to me. “They are learning about the Great Patriotic War. What you call World War II.”