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The Missouri Review 27.1 (2004) 31-45



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Family Planning

Instead of the gold-plated onion domes Josie had hoped for, the view from their room revealed only the grimy, cement backside of the Oktyabrskaya metro station, where a few merchants had set up tables selling flimsy newsprint magazines bearing pictures of naked women. She held her map of Moscow up to the window, trying to match the city in her head with the one hulking in the half-dark outside. "I think we're here," she said, stabbing at the map and looking over her shoulder to Adrianna. "I think the river is that way."

"I don't want to go out," Adrianna murmured. She was suffering on the narrow bed by the wall, with her red hair splayed across her face and her arms tightly coiled around her slender frame.

It should have been a festive occasion. They were here at last; it was all coming true. But Adrianna had gotten terribly sick on the airplane, and their first Russian meal—cabbage and kasha and an unidentifiable pink meat—was now gurgling and breaking down in their stomachs.

Josie paced along the wide window. "Maybe some fresh air . . ." she said, but stopped herself. There was no sense in being difficult; in their eight years together, she didn't recall ever winning a dispute with Adrianna. Still, there was so much to see out there, and they only had four days. She pressed her face against the window and practiced sounding out the few simple words she recognized on the dozens of bright city signs—. Adrianna had refused to take Russian lessons with her, claiming it was too hard a language to be able to learn anything useful in only six months, but Josie had gone ahead and taken the lessons anyway. It seemed important to try.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Adrianna moaned a little theatrically.

"Sshhh. They'll hear you."

To reduce costs, the adoption agency had arranged for them to stay these few days in an apartment with a host family, and the walls were thin. Josie could hear their hostess, Masha, humming along with the radio in the kitchen as she cleaned up after their welcome dinner.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and smoothed Adrianna's hair off her face. "Do you want to go to the bathroom?"

"There are cockroaches in the bathroom."

"Don't be such a wuss, A. There are roaches in every city apartment."

"Not in ours." [End Page 31]

Josie decided not to tell her that occasionally, in the middle of the night, she'd seen a cockroach or two in their kitchen sink in Chicago. "That's because ours is a condo," was all she said.

Adrianna flopped onto her other side and pressed herself against the wall, whimpering. She was being childish, but Josie let it go. She had romanticized this trip in her mind many times, had imagined them touching hands and grinning nervously: future parents. Abroad. In the homeland of the new, mysterious child who was waiting to become theirs. She curled up behind Adrianna and put her cheek in the hollow between Adrianna's shoulder blades. "Maybe just once around the block?" she murmured, tugging back the collar of A's blouse to touch the hair at the nape of her neck.

"Give it up," Adrianna said, but she was smiling, almost giggling. That was something.

"You'll feel better tomorrow."

"God, I hope so."

In the morning they would drive west, to an orphanage outside town, which the Russians called a baby home, where they would see the boy with their own eyes.

"And then, just imagine—"

"Don't," Adrianna stopped her. "You said you wouldn't get your hopes up like this."

"I'm not."

"You are. I know how you are." Adrianna stretched out her legs, effectively pushing Josie off the bed. "I'm sorry." She shifted to make room for Josie again. "I'm sorry. There's still an awful lot that could go wrong."

Josie crossed the room...

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