Every morning seemed to bring a new struggle for Deana’s family. Deana’s mother’s most recent husband had turned out to be an abusive alcoholic. When Deana’s mother asked for a divorce, he wouldn’t sign the papers. She used her power as a notary to authorize her own divorce and left the man to raise their kids on her own.

Deana, who was born in the northern Russian city of Norilsk, didn’t realize she was Jewish until the day at school when a boy called her zhidovka, a Russian slur for “Jew.” When she asked her grandmother, Sofia, what it meant, her grandmother told her that for her own good, she should never tell anyone she was Jewish. Deana wished she could afford a cassette player and color TV like the rest of her classmates, but her family barely scraped along on her mother’s salary. For a while, her mother talked of moving to Israel, which appealed to Deana, since she knew that was where other Jews like her lived. But a few years later, her mother began hatching another plan.

Deana’s mother began sending lots of mail to someone in Texas. In January of 1997, the man, whom I’ll call Raymond, came to introduce himself and to stay for a week. He seemed to make no attempt to hide his foreignness, wearing his Ray-Ban sunglasses even though it was wintertime in a former Soviet country. Between his accent and her middle school English, Deana couldn’t really make out what he was saying. But she understood when he announced he was there to take Deana, her brother, and her mother back to his home in Texas, where he and Deana’s mother would marry.

Deana’s stomach churned at the news, but Deana’s mother made it clear her daughter’s feelings about the situation didn’t matter. Besides, mail-order brides were common amid the economic upheaval of the late 1990s. Deana’s mother’s friends jealously told her that if they weren’t married, they would be doing the same thing.

Deana’s grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer, and she wouldn’t be able to move with the rest of the family. Goodbye now meant goodbye forever. Her grandmother was the person Deana respected most. She was a firecracker of a woman who had worked on construction sites her whole life and swore like a sailor, yet was deeply compassionate. She had survived World War II, and Deana figured she could get through anything in life if she could be like her.

Raymond, smiling and chipper, was clearly on his best behavior during his visit to Gomel. He asked Deana what her hobbies were.

She replied, in broken English, “Listening to Metallica and shit like that.”

“In my house, there will be no cussing,” he warned. “And no metal music.”

She was doomed.