2. All-American Girl

2

ALL-AMERICAN GIRL

NADYA’S ADOPTIVE PARENTS lived in a place called Denver, which was very tall and very dry. The air was thinner than she was accustomed to, and for the first week after they arrived, she was sick almost every day, with a pounding headache that refused to go away. They spoke loudly and quickly in English, which she had very few words of—and they had fewer of Russian—and she began to despair for ever being happy again. The matrons had given her to these people, who had bundled her onto an airplane and carried her halfway around the world, only to rush her into a doctor’s office for a series of painful injections! And now this headache, which would not go away…

If they hadn’t been feeding her, she would have thought they were trying to kill her. Since they were feeding her, and she was vomiting after almost every meal, it was still possible they were trying to kill her and were simply rich enough to be willing to waste food in the process. With no way to communicate and no strength to run away, it was impossible for her to tell.

On the morning of the sixth day, the man who wanted to be called “Daddy” came to sit on the edge of her bed and stroke her hair while she drank a glass of something sweet and fruity. “You need the electrolytes,” he said, words incomprehensible to her, and smiled encouragingly when she swallowed the last sip. Then he tapped his forehead and asked, in an exaggeratedly slow voice, “Feeling better? Okay?”

“Okay” was one of the words she knew. “Okay” meant agreement, meant going along with whatever she was being asked. It also meant “yes,” in a way she was still trying to understand.

Her head did feel somewhat better, and so she nodded, lowering the glass, and said, “Da. Okay.”

He smiled and took the glass away from her, setting it on the bedside table, before offering his own hand in exchange. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

It was so much mild gibberish, but the intent was clear, and Nadya knew enough about adults to understand that biddability was sometimes the only thing that made them relax around you. If she ever wanted to get out of here and back to the orphanage—and after the length of the flight to get here, she knew it must be hours away on foot—she needed them to trust her, to think she was the kind of girl who would agree to things and not break any rules.

She nodded again, ignoring the way it sent pain shooting through her temples, and slipped her hand into his. “Da,” she said. “Okay.”

He beamed like he’d just won a prize as he led her out of the room they had prepared for her use, pink walls and pink furnishings and plush pink carpet—her new parents might have claimed not to have any preconceptions about the child they’d be bringing home from Russia, but they had clearly been expecting a girl—and into the browner, more neutral hallway. A fresh pair of shoes waited for her by the door, just her size, as pink as the curtains.

They felt like pillows on her feet. Nadya stared at them, wide-eyed, and tried a few experimental jumps, laughing a little when the pillowy texture remained intact. She turned up to “Daddy,” beaming, and informed him in a cheery voice that the shoes were amazing, astonishing, the best she’d ever felt.

Her vocabulary went far beyond his limited Russian. Still, he could tell a happy child when he saw one, so he smiled indulgently back and said, “Yes, princess, they’re all yours. Nice new shoes. Now let’s just get your coat on and we can go.”

None of her things from the orphanage had come with her to America; the coat he helped her into was also new, a rough blue velvety fabric that made little swishing noises when she rubbed her fingers over it. It fit her well, and she liked the feeling of the fabric, although it made her oddly sad for her old coat, which had been left behind. It had still been perfectly good for another year or two of wear, and if it had stopped fitting her before it came apart, it would have been handed down to one of the younger children.

She stiffened as she realized that it probably had been, by now. They’d have redistributed all her meager things, to make sure nothing was wasted, and the other children would remember her for a time, but eventually she’d be forgotten, as all the orphans who came before her had been. Who would remember Maksim? Who would treasure the happy little wiggle he gave when slipped a rare slice of fruit, and the funny bump on the edge of his shell?

He had been an orphan too. He deserved to be remembered. But she wasn’t sure even the matrons would.

Her new father took her by the hand and led her out the door, into a bright new world where the sun was too bright and the air was sharp and dry, burning the back of her throat. She breathed in sharply and began to cough, causing him to look at her in momentary concern before he softened and nodded.

“The air here can take some getting used to, princess, but you’ll adjust, I promise. Come on.” Still holding her hand, he began to walk.

Nadya buried her face against her sleeve to cover her coughing as she let herself be led, and bit by bit, it became easier for her to breathe. Bit by bit, the air stopped stinging quite so much, and she started to relax and look at her surroundings.

Everything here was so large and so bright. She had never seen anything like it in or around the orphanage. Cars zipped by on the street, but she paid them little mind; cars were, after all, familiar things, best avoided or ignored. As long as she didn’t get into their way, it wasn’t like they were going to leap up onto the walkway to get her.

Then they left the walkway for a narrow dirt path winding through a green space, peppered with unfamiliar trees. She looked up at the man and asked a question, and he smiled down at her.

“The nice ladies at the orphanage said you’d had a turtle once, and you missed him very much after he went away. So I thought you might want to come and see some turtles here.”

None of that makes any sense, but Nadya nodded all the same. Better not to antagonize him as he led her deeper and deeper into the tall grass and the trees.

Then the path broadened out, and Nadya gasped.

The pond was small and almost perfectly spherical, with a low split-rail fence around it and several dead trees protruding from the dark water, their trunks mottled with rot and lichen. Turtles—unfamiliar turtles, but turtles all the same—lounged on the dead trees, heads extended to catch the sun.

“Cherepakha!” Nadya informed the man excitedly. “Cherepakha, cherepakha!”

That wasn’t one of the words he knew, but given the context and what he’d been told at the orphanage, it wasn’t hard for him to understand. He let go of her hand, gesturing for her to go to the fence as he nodded and said, “Yes, Nadya. Turtles.”

“Cherepakha?” she said, more cautiously this time.

“I think that means ‘turtle,’ doesn’t it?” he asked, and folded one hand over the other like a shell before poking out his thumb and wiggling it back and forth like a little head peeking out at the world. He held his hand-turtle out toward Nadya, and she giggled, sounding refreshingly like what he expected a little girl to sound like for the first time since they’d brought her home from the orphanage.

All the counselors they’d spoken to, both at the adoption agency and at the church, had warned them that children from state-run orphanages were often solemn, slow to trust that adults would have their best interests at heart, slower still to adjust to new surroundings. Factoring in the language and cultural barriers, it wasn’t unreasonable to think it might be years, if ever, before Nadya trusted them. Hearing her laugh was a gift he hadn’t been expecting to receive. He smiled, thumb bobbing up and down in parody of a nodding turtle.

“Hello,” he said, making his voice deep and slow. “I am a turtle.”

“Cherepakha,” she said, obviously delighted.

“Cherepakha,” he echoed, only mangling the word slightly. He pointed to one of the turtles. “Cherepakha.”

Nadya beamed and bounced, clapping her hand against her thigh. It made sense, he supposed; she wanted to make a joyous noise, and she couldn’t clap her hands together when she only had one hand. It still dimmed his joy a bit to be reminded that his new daughter, lovely as she was, would always be limited; they could give her all the advantages in the world, but they couldn’t give her back her hand.

“Turtle,” he said, still pointing. Nadya stopped bouncing and looked at him quizzically. “ Turtle, ” he repeated.

“Turtle,” she said hesitantly.

This time, he bounced and clapped his hands against his legs, rather than hitting them together and reminding her of what she lacked (the idea that she might not think of herself as lacking anything had yet to form, and wouldn’t for years yet; the idea that a child who didn’t conform to his exact ideas of shape and function could be completely happy, and not consider herself lacking in the least, was even further away). This might not be the best means of language acquisition.

It was, however, a start.

NADYA’S NEW MOTHER WAS waiting when they returned from their walk, standing in the entryway with the note Nadya’s new father had left on the fridge clutched in one hand. Nadya smiled at her hopefully as she removed her coat and hung it on the peg which she had been told, mainly through pantomime, belonged to her. Then she spun and threw her arms around the man’s waist, giving him a brief but heartfelt hug, before running down the hall to her room.

The two adults were quiet until she was out of earshot. Then the woman asked, “Really, Carl? Taking her for outings without me? What happened to making sure she could accept us both? What happened to presenting a united front as a family?”

“She doesn’t understand anything that’s happened to her,” he replied, voice only a little defensive. “We took her away from the only home she’d ever known and pulled her halfway around the world without asking her if she even wanted to go. So yeah, I took her for a walk while you were at the grocery store. That doesn’t mean she’s never going to accept you as her mother. She just wanted to see the turtles.”

“She wanted to see the turtles, or you wanted to be the big hero who showed them to her?”

Carl threw his hands up in the air. “Come on, Pansy, we agreed we were going to do this together, and I’m still doing it with you! Can’t you try doing it with me? Please?”

His wife, the love of his life, the woman who had reacted to the idea of adoption with immediate and enthusiastic buy-in as soon as their pastor suggested it, who was more than happy to give a little girl a better life in America, land of the free and home of the brave, continued looking at him coldly for long enough that he began to fear her answer. Maybe this wasn’t going to work after all.

Finally, though, she sighed and said, “Our language classes are tonight. Don’t forget. We’re taking Nadya for pizza afterward.”

Language night meant basic Russian for them—only enough to let them make themselves understood; not enough to allow Nadya to cling to her native tongue and refuse to integrate with her new home—and English as a second language for her, to help her adjust better and faster to life with her family. They knew they weren’t equipped to teach a little girl who already spoke one language perfectly well how to speak English, and they needed her to be fluent if she was going to impress their church.

The Winslows had adopted a little boy from China, and he’d been speaking perfect English in less than a year. Nadya was smarter—she must have been, to survive that dreadful orphanage—and could be speaking English within six months, Pansy was absolutely sure of that. The idea of asking Nadya what she wanted had never occurred to either one of them. Children were people, absolutely, but foreign orphans were sure to be so consumed with gratitude that all they could possibly want was to make their new parents as happy as possible.

Peace made, Carl embraced his wife and walked with her into the kitchen. There was time to make all three of them sandwiches before it was time for language class.