“Without your knowledge?” I asked “I don’t understand.”

“Neither did we. Wendell was so furious he tore the sign down and took it with him. Once our trip was over, he told me it was just a mix-up, that he had dealt with it. But now I’m wondering if that was the truth. I’m wondering how many other district offices were closed.”

I sat back, fingering the crude sign.

“Manila, you said?” I asked. Marion nodded, and I thought of my conversation with the attorneys’ office two days before when I was trying to find out about any real estate deals that were pending. We’ve already closed on Taipei…Manila…and Tegucigalpa, the woman had told me over the phone. I had asked her if Feed the Need had already paid in full. Paid? the woman had drawled. Heck no, y’all sold. The people who bought the places paid.

Was it possible that someone was closing down Feed the Need district offices? If so, then why? To cut costs? To channel the money for those programs into some other direction?

“Look at this,” Marion said, pulling out two file folders. “It took me a while, but I think I finally figured out what this is.”

She opened the first file to reveal the black-and-white photo of a small Hispanic-looking child. The girl had dark skin and big round eyes, and she wore a wrinkled, knotty scarf and sweater that brought to mind the people of the Andes. Behind the photo was a profile; her name was Rosa Parmenta, and according to the profile she lived in a small village in Peru.

“Now this,” Marion said, and she opened the second file. It held another black-and-white photo, this time of a group of children—three dirty but smiling faces, the two boys bare chested, the girl in a light Mexican-style embroidered dress. The profile with this photo listed the children as three siblings—Javier, Luis, and Martina Gonzales—and it said that they lived in the Mexican city of Guadalajara.

“Are these the children people sponsor through Feed the Need?” I asked. I thought of Frank’s words at the wake, and I knew he was right—with these pitiful but adorable faces in front of me I definitely felt the urge to donate some money.

“When you agree to sponsor a child, you get a photo and profile, just like this,” Marion said. “We have a team that prepares these things, that carefully monitors the database, that makes sure we track the progress of the children through the district offices.”

“Okay.”

She pulled out another piece of paper full of scribbled notes and lots of arrows and circles.

“This is Wendell’s handwriting,” she said. “This is how he brainstormed, how he worked through problems.”

I tried reading the notes, but I couldn’t make much sense of it until Marion interpreted for me.