Rescuing Julia Twice Read Online Free PDF

and open. It’s hard to relax and trust that all will be well, though that’s what Ricky says constantly.
    I eye the menu and wince. Ricky sees me.
    â€œStop worrying,” he says. “We will never go without. Just order what you want.”

    At night, I have trouble sleeping. My body is so fatigued, but my mind won’t let it rest.
Am I crazy?
I think to myself in the dark.
Should we really bring home a baby before we sort out our financial problems?
We know the adoption agency is not really aware of our circumstances because the application process asked mostly about an earnings history, not current income.
    How does Ricky lie there, so sure that everything will be all right, that it will all work out? I have a solid track record of working, but still, what if something happens to me? I don’t want to ruin our time in Moscow, so I flick the thoughts away as though they were pesky picnic flies. Finally at 5 AM, still sleepless, I peel myself from under the covers and go to the hotel swimming pool.
    Swimming is my refuge from pain, physical or mental. I have learned that by going back and forth, thirty or fifty or seventy times, depending on the length of the pool, I can release whatever shackles me. I have noticed this works even in dire times, like when I got divorced in my early thirties or after my dog died. I don’t know if it is the repetitive motion or the muting of sound or the focus on breathing, but something about swimming rescues me temporarily from anxiety. The pool in the Marriott is cool and divine. I am alone. I knife through the water with purpose. I wonder if lack of sleep will make it hard to swim, but surprisingly it doesn’t. I keep going for thirty minutes. I find the energy, the purpose, the way one does when one must. Afterward, I lie down on a lounge chair. I try to drift into sleep, but I’m still unable to let go.
    I return to the room where Ricky wakes slowly. “Come back to bed,” he says.
    â€œNo, I’m going to shower. Let’s get some breakfast.” This excites him, because the Marriott has a spread of smoked fish, herring, fruits, and egg dishes that makes him feel regal. He tosses the covers aside and joins me in the shower.

    After breakfast we head to the Metro. The escalator descends so deeply I feel like we’re entering a mine. My guidebook tells me that the deepest section of the Metro is 276 feet. I still have remnants of the head cold I had in Novosibirsk, and the deeper we go, the faster my sinuses drain. I’m blowing my nose furiously, but I’m distracted by scores of tattered, lobster-faced souls scattered everywhere in the Metro. Some are slumped over; others are begging with open palms and blank eyes. One woman is spitting and screaming. These are the people who have been lost in the collapse of communism or ensnared in Russia’s disease, vodka. Olga’s words float back up at me, as do the sorry characters we’d seen lying along the snowy roadside in Novosibirsk.
    We leave the Metro to go to the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. Afterward, we walk hand in hand around the Arbat, a cobblestone pedestrian street that is one of the oldest areas in Moscow. It dates back to the fifteenth century, when it was home to artisans, and where Russian nobility lived in the eighteenth century. Now it is lined with overpriced but alluring shops. Street vendors sell everything from Russian soldiers’ winter hats to fake KGB IDs to nesting dolls. This winter streetscape has a carnival atmosphere. I notice a lovely china shop. It is filled with the ornate designs Russians favor.
    â€œLet’s go in,” I say. “Look at this, Ricky.” I lift a blue and white teacup with gold accents and gently bring it to my mouth, pinky outstretched. “Isn’t this wonderful? Decadent. And look, look at the teapot that goes with it. How lovely! And the sugar bowl,” shaped like an elephant. “Aren’t