Rescuing Julia Twice by Tina Traster Page B

and become her parents?
    Russian adoptions are closed. We will never know Maria G. I wonder if the name on our documents is even real. I wonder whether her birth mother feels our presence. Will she mourn Yulia on the anniversaries of her birth?

    Barbara is pale and middling. She comes alive when she talks about Amelia, her little girl who is back home with her grandparents. She likes to show pictures of the girl, who is blonde with big blue eyes. She looksnothing like Barbara or Neal, who is thin with dark hair and dark eyes. The couple adopted this child three years ago from Russia. Barbara loves this child. Amelia sustains her. The couple decided to adopt a second child, this time a boy. Neal traveled alone to Russia on the first trip to meet Boris in Orphanage Number Two. He’s nearly ten months old. Barbara stayed at home with their daughter, but both of them have to be here for the final adoption in a Russian court. Barbara is uneasy. Her eyes shift back and forth nervously. She sweats a lot, which is not easy to do in Siberia. Only talking about her daughter eases her. She tells us the first adoption went smoothly, and her daughter is a dream. We are sharing stories in a ground-floor room in our apartment block that seems to have been set up for traveling Americans. Women in babushkas are serving us toast and overcooked hard-boiled eggs. We are refueling before Olga and Vladimir come to take us to Orphanage Number Two.
    Jo, who lives in Washington, DC, is here to adopt a girl. She has an adopted daughter back in the states who is originally from India. Jo’s Russian child, who’s almost two years old, is at a different orphanage, so she will be taken in a separate car.
    In the company of these women, I am the little sister. Ironically, I feel like the pregnant woman being thrown a baby shower. They’re only too happy to dole out mothering advice. This is as close as I’ve gotten to a communal experience around motherhood.

    We are traveling through stark, monotone streets to Orphanage Number Two, which is less than five minutes away. No one is chatting. Will Julia remember us? I imagine it must be unnerving for babies to be handed off to a pair of strangers who make entirely different verbal sounds from the ones they are used to.
    Boris is a fleshy baby with a large head. Barbara and her husband will rename him Brandon. He is clutching his caretaker ferociously, wailing, when Barbara tries to hold him. Barbara makes cooing sounds, but the baby screams louder and louder. She is growing increasingly agitated.Eventually the baby is soothed enough to be placed in Barbara’s open arms. This is the first time she is meeting her baby.
    â€œHere’s Julia,” Ricky says.
    I spin around and see her in another caretaker’s arms, smiling just the way she was the first time I met her. She reminds me of a tiny beauty queen flirtatiously winking at admirers. She doesn’t make a fuss when she is placed in my arms.
    â€œMaybe she remembers us?” I say to Ricky.
    â€œHello, baby Julia,” I say in a hushed voice. “Do you remember us? We are going to be your parents. I hope you’re okay with that. I have bought you the most beautiful yellow snowsuit.”
    She doesn’t cry or resist being held. She also doesn’t cling or clutch.
    â€œDo you want to hold her?”
    Ricky bends down and lifts her off my lap. He does everything with ease. There’s no continuous reel of dialogue looping through his head. Things just are what they are. I envy his cohesiveness.
    We are led, along with Barbara and Neal, to the large gymnasium.
    We sit on the mat with Julia, who cannot sit up by herself. “Don’t worry, that’s normal,” Olga tells us. Boris’s new parents are fifteen feet away. The room is enormous and spare. Ricky is supporting Julia’s back to keep her in a seated position. I’m trying to tempt her with a ball. Once again she seems most