To Sing Frogs Chapter 7a

Amy's first picture with Katya

Chapter 7

 

Princess

 

 

  My first observation was of the enormous enchanting dimples book-ending the smile on a perfect round face. It was the beautiful little girl I had seen in the photos. Her short brown hair was messy. It appeared as if she had been wrestling with peers back behind the doors of the playroom from whence she came.

            Amy gasped. Two orphanage workers—who had come to accompany the children to camp—stood behind Katya in their white lab coats. I noticed Stass with one eyebrow lifted, standing next to the others and observing our reactions with anticipation. If for any reason we decided not to move forward with this recommendation, he and Anya would be scrambling. They would need to find a different solution within the week.

            One of the workers had her hands on Katya’s shoulders and she leaned over and spoke to the child in Russian. Amy and I recognized three words from the brief explanation to our future daughter: Mama, Papa, and Amérikoo. Katya gasped and her mouth flew open as she hid her dimples behind clenched fists. Her hands could not hide the smile that remained in her dancing green eyes. She took two steps forward and stopped. Her hands dropped to her sides, the smile left her face and she stared down at her feet as if she had just been rejected. Katya didn’t know what to do any more than I did. I felt like my wife, sent on an errand to the auto parts store to choose a high performance carburetor for a ’68 Camaro.

Fortunately, two women in the hallway did know what to do. The worker who had spoken to Katya stepped forward and stooped, just a little. She reached out with her hand cupping the little girl’s shoulder blade and gently pushed her slightly forward. Amy immediately squatted on the uneven and imperfect parquet floor while holding out her arms. Without another second’s hesitation Katya burst forward and threw her arms around the neck of the mother she had anticipated for so long. Tears filled my eyes as well as those of several other observers. I watched through blurry waves as a smile returned to the little girl’s face. The mother and child remained fixed, statue-like in their embrace, for almost two minutes. Finally Amy gently pushed her back.

“Oh, Katya! You are beautiful!” Stass stepped forward and translated. The child smiled harder and her dimples somehow grew even larger. She threw her hands back around the mother like balls swinging at the ends of string, wrapping her arms tightly around my wife’s neck. Amy returned the embrace again while looking up at me with welling eyes and raised brows as if to ask how we had ever lived without this little girl.

Stass stooped down and spoke to Katya while pointing at me. “Eta Papa.”

The child slowly released Amy and took a step backward. Then she quickly shuffled her red, molded, plastic sandal-shoes over to me. I swooped her up. She gripped me tightly around my neck and didn’t stop squeezing. “Preensessa,” I said softly in her ear. Princess. It was one of the few Russian words I had taken the time to learn. She snuggled in tighter and I heard her breathe deeply while she took in the smell of my cologne.

The Russians began talking and I heard Katya’s name mentioned several times. Soon she sat up on my arm still hiding her bashful smile behind a fist. She nodded and shook her head as questions were posed to her while I remained clueless.

Stass explained. The workers had offered to let us go upstairs to the dormitory if we wanted to visit alone with Katya. Of course he was happy to go with us to translate.