To Sing Frogs Chapter 24b

Amy and the girls at the aquarium in Vladivostok

The sound of shattering glass pierced the ambiance of the hotel restaurant. Several waitresses quickly rushed to clean up the orange juice and shards. After the initial shock, silverware eventually renewed its chatter but it took a few minutes. Adopting parents walk on eggshells.
We were still eating breakfast on Thursday morning when Missy Beaumont rushed into the restaurant. She and her husband, Andrew, were on their first visit. The little boy they were planning to adopt resided in the Ussuriysk orphanage, where Kirrill was. Since the Beaumonts were using a different agency—with different coordinators—our visit schedules hadn’t run together.

“Aren’t you guys supposed to visit Kirrill today?”

“Yes,” Amy responded. “Our coordinators are picking us up in half an hour.”

“Have you heard from them this morning? Do you know what’s going on?”

That stopped us cold. Missy began crying. “Our visit with Mishka just got canceled.” She started to sob. “There’s—there’s—there’s a—a—a Hepatitis outbreak at the orphanage! It’s under quarantine. No—no—no one gets in or out.” Missy broke down again. Amy jumped up and embraced her. The distraught expectant mother threw her arms around my wife and sobbed even harder. “We don’t even know if Mishka has it. They told us we wouldn’t be able to visit him again on this trip so we might as well go home. We can’t see him again until it’s over.” Amy held our ally tightly and tried to console her even though her own heart raced toward a breaking point.

“It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”

Sounds like what you tell a Russian orphan, especially when everything isn’t going to be okay.

Sarah was shocked as she watched her new mother and the sobbing woman. She looked at me with wide eyes. “Stó, Papa? Stó?”

I returned to the Russian word for “okay,” always given to the orphans without thought and without meaning. “Kharashoh, Sarah. Kharashoh.”

Missy continued. “I can’t leave him! I can’t go. What am I supposed to do?”

“It’s okay. It will be okay. All you can do is wait and pray. All we can do is wait and pray,” Amy said.

Famous last words.
We were pacing in the lobby when Stass and Anya walked in. “Have you heard?” I asked while lunging forward like a sprinter jumping the gun. Stass seemed relieved and the lines left his forehead. At least he wouldn’t have to break the news to us.

“The director just called us. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry we can’t go to visit? Sorry there’s a Hepatitis outbreak? Sorry Kirrill has it? Sorry what?”
“In that case I guess I just have to say sorry we don’t know much at this point,” Stass concluded.

Amy stood anxiously by, wringing her hands. For once she wanted information as much as I did. She knew no one but Torquemada could extract more details than I could so she left me to my work. “Does Kirrill have it?”

“We don’t know.”

“How do we keep him from getting it if he doesn’t have it already?”

“They have quarantined the orphanage.”

“That doesn’t stop him from getting it! Are they taking children to the hospital?”

“Settle down, John. Kirrill lives in a hospital. Tatiana, the director there, is a doctor. I’m sure they’re doing everything they can to help all of the children.”

“In another hospital he wouldn’t continue to be exposed. We need to move him. I’ll pay for another hospital.”

“The orphanage is quarantined. We just need to be patient and see what happens.” Amy began crying but she left me to my barrage.

“You guys are freaking crazy! The only reason he might have been exposed in the first place is because of your asinine law for a ten-day appeal period. Yeah, his dead parents might change their minds and decide to not let us take him. How stupid can things possibly get over here?!”

Go to other sections of To Sing Frogs

Go to John M. Simmons’ blog