utah 2:3

The simplicity of the agency's assurance turned out to be an exaggeration. They knew where she'd been, maybe, but she was gone when we got there, or more likely she had never been there. They told me to keep the kids with me. They knew where she was for sure, now, they said. They were sure wrong. This happened again and again. They were promising compensation for my time, of course, but again only upon delivery and only to their mother. Maybe - this was my theory - they figured it would be cheaper for me to drive the kids around than to take care of them themselves. After all, the final pay-off, expenses included, was to be made by those mythical sponsors. Then around the time I stopped believing in sponsors, the agency quit answering its phone, and that was just after they told me to pick up this box in Saltlick, Utah or wherever the hell we were. I was doing some long-distance babysitting for no money and one last box of second-hand junk. I was not even sure these kids ever had a mother.

move on...