What Mila’s mother tells her on the first day of school is different from what other mothers of children at Mount Washington Elementary School are saying at the very same time to their very own six-year-old children. This is almost certainly a fact. But it is not for Mila to know the difference. That will come later: at bars while forming new intimacies over tepid beer; at her therapist’s office, divulging childhood stories with little prompting; or perhaps in self-serious short stories sagging with the weight of too many metaphors. For now, though, she is unaware of any oddity in her mother’s behaviour. Sonia leans down and holds Mila’s shoulders as though afraid she might fall backwards from the burden of her backpack (a not entirely unfounded fear—children’s backpacks never do seem proportionate to their small frames).

She looks Mila in the eye and says, “Now, remember, Mila, we live about a five-minute drive away, your mother works at an office, and you’re not Russian, your mother just liked the sound of your name.”

Mila nods vigorously—a model pupil, for now, at least.

“Any follow-up questions, then what do we say?”

“Mind your own business.”

“That’s right.”

Sonia straightens up and takes out a mirror from the little purse hanging on her shoulder. She refreshes her lipstick with a satisfied smack and kisses Mila’s left cheek, leaving a perfectly formed imprint of herself on the child.

“Off you go,” she says to Mila with a wink, turning her towards the flat, terra-cotta bungalows of the school.