Lucy
Lucy“Papa!” Benjamin shrieks, slapping his tiny hand against Ravil’s closed office door.
“You want your daddy?” I ask, scooping him up, ready to distract him.
“He can come in,” Ravil calls from the office. I open the door and set Benjamin down because he’s kicking and thrashing to be free. He just learned to walk and can’t get enough of it. He toddles toward Ravil in what looks like a drunken lurch, accelerating, then slowing when he navigates gravity to regain his balance.
Ravil’s normally impassive face splits into a giant grin, and he holds his arms wide. “Come here, son,” he says in Russian.
“Papa!” Benjamin repeats his first word, the one that lights up his father like a Christmas tree every time he says it.
My heart swells watching our tiny son arrive at the desk where Rav
