Kyle seemed frozen. He watched us. I wondered why he didn’t reach for Sasha and show the faces behind the mirrors what an excellent father he was. Then I realized no one wanted to interrupt me quieting the baby. Sasha didn’t snake an arm around my neck or put his head on my shoulder. His head was raised, taking in all this strangeness.

I took him to the mirror and let him get a good long look at his future: him, my child, in my arms. I sang softly, and now he watched me and him in the mirror, dancing our little dance. Poor sick little thing. “You don’t know where those places are I’m singing about, do you, sugar pop?” This nickname came unbidden into my head. “We live in Texas, with our little girl. She’s three.” I said this to him but to the mirror as well. To whoever was watching and judging on the other side. “That’s next door to Louisiana.”

Now Sasha was just looking at me. Was this the most anyone has ever talked to him? Directly? Had he never been sung to? I put my finger on his little hand and he didn’t really grip back. He seemed surprised by everything. I touched his forehead. No fever. Maybe he was on the downside of the chicken pox.

“Iris?” Kyle’s voice, soft behind me. “May I hold him?”

I handed him over, checked my internal barometer of love. I smoothed his hair at the back of his head as Kyle took him. Did I love him yet? I didn’t know.

Kyle took him and Sasha fussed a little, but Kyle eased down onto the floor in a cross-legged sit and reached into the tote bag. There were toys there. I knew we couldn’t give them just to Sasha—collectivism is still alive and well at the Volkov Infants Home, where all the toys are shared—and he pulled out a stuffed green dinosaur, a friendly looking T-Rex with a smile, not a snarl. Sasha wasn’t sure what to think of this oddity.

Kyle said carefully, “zdravstvuj” to Sasha, one of the ways to say hello in Russian and the one supposedly to use with children you don’t know well. I think it’s more formal, but maybe that’s appropriate. A sign of respect for the culture. I watched Pavel for a reaction if Kyle said it correctly, but Pavel’s face betrayed nothing; Danielle told Kyle not to speak Russian, but now he’s done it, for no good reason, and Sasha didn’t react to the word (which if you ask me needs more vowels). But he reached for the dinosaur, and Kyle gave it to him.

Then he wanted on the floor, and Kyle set him down but stretched out along the floor next to him. Sasha crawled to the tote and peered inside.