At Albertson's we steered the basket down the gleaming aisles. The girls were just learning to read English; they'd been home in California for a couple of months. Olya stopped in front of a blue and white poster. "It's Your Store," she read, slowly the first time, painfully sounding out letters, emphasizing each vowel, pointing with her index finger, polished in Hello Kitty Blue.

"Yes!" I said. Olya beamed, turned back to the sign and read it again, this time with no hesitation.

The hesitation came when we took a sharp right, and made our way down the liquor aisle.

She inched up to me as I pulled a green bottle off the shelf and examined the label, which was a series of words in a sans serif font of black ink; no picture of grapes or vineyards. Typically I'd challenge the girls to read box tops and labels, but not this time. I'd not ventured into the distilled spirits department since their arrival. But a friend was visiting, so I decided to have something on hand for a toast.

"What is in bottle with purple?" Olya asked, not having the words in her repertoire for what the purple liquid really was, nor the sentence conjugation to fake it. But her point was clear.

"Wine," I told her.

She pivoted away, glared at the shelves, at the bottles perfectly aligned. When she turned back her brown eyes were narrowed. "Is wine alcohol?" she asked, her grammar perfect. What she really meant: Is this something I should worry about?

Until now were the "good" and "right" parents, because our behaviors had been opposite of what she'd known in Russia. Defenses mustered over the years were no longer necessary but still existed within her, seeking a purpose. It is odd that a substance that drowned life in one place is used for celebration in another. Ironic that alcohol and its negative effects on a family halfway around the world brought the girls to us. But what I didn't realize was that until she was ready to let go of the past, nothing was going to change her mind.

Alcohol was a character in stories she told about life in Russia. It had a life of its own. Whenever alcohol made an appearance, the arc, the story line, and the conclusion of the tale wasn't good.

"Yes," I finally told her. "Wine is alcohol." I didn't have control over what meaning she attached to that statement, but I was aware there was more going on in her mind that just the classification of a purple beverage.

***

Our friend John had not met the girls. He wanted to celebrate their arrival. We ordered pizza. John wore a Michigan sweatshirt and baseball cap, jeans torn at the knees. Anya jumped when he spoke, his voice deep with bass, not unlike a megaphone. It made Olya giggle loudly, until she realized he'd brought us bottle of wine. Immediately, her smile went upside down.

When she and I were alone in the kitchen she pointed at the label of his bottle, which was a watercolor image of a valley. His bottle stood next to the green bottle I'd bought. "What is inside this bottle with the pretty label?" she demanded in a whisper.

"Wine," I said.

She pushed and poked the new bottle with the tip of her index finger until it clinked against the green bottle. Then she kept pushing until they were backed into a corner, behind the toaster, like two forgotten children.

Then, just like in the supermarket, she asked: "Is wine alcohol?" presumably hoping for a different answer.

"Yes," I said, admitting the worst, allowing this substance that ruined her life in one place to be used for celebration in another.

"I understand," she said, going out of her way, stretching to flick away at the new bottle's neck like one would a mosquito. "I don't like this one."

We heard Anya laugh in the living room. John was hopping on one foot telling a story. My husband was doubled over, they were laughing so hard. Olya glanced toward then, turned back to me. I saw her lovely profile, the roundness of her cheeks, the swing of her waist-length hair. She looked mad. And she looked terrified.

I pulled the bottles out from behind the toaster, got the bottles opened and poured the wine for my husband and John, and filled my glass with water, transparent and clear. I unwrapped two more glasses (from our wedding registry, never used) for the kids to drink soda or juice, and told our daughter we only used these glasses to toast a special occasion; alcohol was optional.

"You should not worry," I said because I did not want her believing alcohol could not be used responsibly by responsible adults. But even then I felt my response inadequate, not that there would have been a better one.

Olya sniffed the broken cork. "But I do," she said, meaning worry. Which is when I realized that, while it's important to teach children about alcoholism, and addiction, and to just say "no" to drugs, there's a point we parents miss. It's not that the disease of alcoholism affects those who don't drink as well as those who do drink—we know that. It's this: that a non-drinker's reaction will often, if not always, be to control or try to control someone else's drinking. Just like drinking, it progresses over time.

***

It's a family disease, and I've got it.

Psychology books talk about polarities: good/bad; right/wrong. There are so many things I now know I do not want for my daughters, and so many things I have no control over. I do not want them to grow up and drink, if drinking causes the pain they knew when they were in Russia. On the other hand, they may not drink. Instead, they may find themselves loving someone who drinks, and I do not want that either, if that produces the same kind of pain. So what really is good/bad; right/wrong?

Regardless, when experiences are embedded in a place far and away in one's unconscious mind, they manipulate every thought until that memory is brought to light. We all have these buried treasures—I call them treasures because releasing them (no matter how dreaded) is the key to freedom. My greatest challenge as a mother, I discovered, was to accept that.

I have heard that it's a mother's job to prevent things like the disease of alcoholism, autism, OCD and other addictions, the list goes on. New moms, eager moms, will believe this—it makes us feel like we're in charge, in control, in command when we simply don't have that kind of power. The power we have comes when we respect these diseases, learn the facts about them, and continue to work on ourselves.

I didn't know that, but nine years after our kids arrived, now I do.