The children arrive from Ukraine on a warm October night, 31 orphans bundled in winter jackets. By the time they finally get off the plane in Salt Lake City they have traveled for a day and a half, and some of them have been too excited to sleep for days before that.
Igor is the one in the blue parka, the boy who looks down at the floor and doesn't smile. In the group photos taken at the airport — 31 orphans and 24 American families — Igor is the one who has his hand in front of his face so no one can see he is crying. Behind him is Katie Ross, who wishes she knew the Ukrainian for "everything is going to be fine."
Or at any rate Katie hopes everything will be fine. She has not yet realized that like any love story worth telling, this one will be complicated.
The children have arrived courtesy of Utah-based Save A Child Foundation and will stay in the homes of families in Utah, Idaho and Colorado for 19 days. The program is billed as an educational opportunity, a chance for Ukrainian orphans to experience America. The families are called "hosts."
But there is also an unofficial subtext: the hope that the children will find permanent homes here, if not with the hosts then perhaps with another family. The children range in age from 6 to 15, which means they're not likely to be adopted straight from the orphanages, because most adoptive parents want babies. But it also means that they aren't yet 16, which is the age when orphanages in Ukraine send them off to fend for themselves.
Eighty percent of Ukrainian orphans who age out will at some point end up alcoholics, prostitutes or in jail, says Vern Garrett, who with his wife, Nanette, founded Save A Child. The Garretts view their program as perhaps the children's last chance to find a stable family.
So on a Saturday night in mid-October, an exhausted 9-year-old Igor and his 7-year-old brother, Andrew, move into Katie and Shawn Ross' comfortable house in Draper. There is a bedroom just for them, with a queen-size bed. On the bed are matching pairs of new pajamas. There is a living room and a family room and two playrooms.
It's amazing, Katie thinks, how much Igor looks like her husband. And already Faith, the Rosses' 2-year-old, is calling Igor and Andrew "my boys." The day after his tearful arrival, Igor is eager to wrestle with Shawn in the family room, to jump on the trampoline, to study Faith's alphabet books.
The days that follow are full of outings: a ranch, a fire station, a Jazz game, a ride on a friend's four-wheelers in the parking lot behind the Rosses' house. Andrew is the one in the pair of girl's bedroom slippers. In the orphanage, the Rosses have been told, the children share clothes from a communal closet. Andrew's other shoes are giving him blisters.
So Katie and Shawn take the boys shopping. Immediately Igor and Andrew zero in on a pair of Spider-Man shoes; not just shoes covered with pictures of the hero but adorned with removable shiny black plastic webs.
Katie tries to point out the virtues of several other pairs of shoes, but the boys keep smiling at the plastic web. "Darn it, they're like the ugliest shoes here," says Katie, who is suddenly glad that Igor and Andrew can't understand what she's saying. By now, although it is only Day 3, Katie has already fallen in love with these boys.
The days go by quickly. Shy at first, Igor and Andrew now run into Katie and Shawn's bedroom each morning and jump in bed with them to snuggle. At night, Igor will line up his treasures to show them: the ticket stub from the aquarium, his fireman's badge, a Happy Meal box.
Now it's Day 15, Halloween. Igor and Andrew can't believe that someone has invented a holiday as great as this. They run from house to house, filling their bags. When they get back to their own house they line up the candy; each time they eat a piece they offer one to Shawn and Katie.
The boys have been generous from the start, and other families report the same thing. Everyone remarks, too, about how responsible all the orphans are, making their beds and folding their pajamas each morning, always turning out lights when they leave a room.
Through a translator, Katie and Shawn have learned that Igor and Andrew have lived in the orphanage for only a year, following the death of their father. Their mother's whereabouts are more vague, but the guess is that, like many of the orphans' parents, she was an alcoholic who couldn't take care of her children.
To simplify things, Katie has explained to her daughter, Faith, that the boys' parents have both died.
"Me share my mommy and daddy," Faith decides.
But of course Faith doesn't know how complicated everything has become for her parents. After nearly 10 years of marriage, four in-vitro fertilizations and only one pregnancy, the Rosses signed up a few months ago with LDS Family Services to adopt a baby, a process that typically takes two or three years. But for some reason their application speeds along; four days before Igor and Andrew arrive, the Rosses learn they'll be receiving a newborn in January. Now, instead of one child, they are suddenly faced with the happy but chaotic prospect of four.
Finally, after days of soul searching and "buckets of tears," Katie has to admit to herself that she can't be the kind of mom she wants to be to Faith, the new baby and two boys who will need to transition to a new language and new culture.
There's a family in Idaho that might want the boys, Vern tells them. After directing Save A Child for five years, Vern is used to doing some fancy footwork at the last minute as families — and sometimes the orphans themselves — are forced to make painful decisions. The family in Idaho has just found out that the two teenagers they had been hosting don't want to be adopted because they're sure their parents back in Ukraine will be coming to get them soon.
So Katie hurries to pack up the Igor's and Andrew's things. She calls a translator. "Please tell the boys how much I love them and that they've done nothing wrong," she says. "Tell them that another family wants a chance to get to know them." She puts Igor on the phone, but she doesn't know what the translator explains or what Igor says back.
This is the downside of not speaking the same language. Charades and pointing worked fine for some things, Katie says. "But not for emotion. And emotion is what this is all about."
Katie cries on the drive up to Tremonton, where the Idaho family will meet them for the hand-off. The rendezvous happens in an empty parking lot at a rest stop. Igor's brow furrows when he sees that Katie is sad.
"There was no one to tell them why I was weeping," she explained later. "There was no one to tell them my hopes for them."
The story ends where it begins: 31 orphans and 24 families standing in the airport. Nearly everyone is smiling. The orphans, who had arrived with small backpacks, are leaving with suitcases filled with clothes and toys, which of course they will have to share with other children at the orphanage. Igor and Andrew are the boys in the Spider-Man shoes.
Vern reports the good news: It looks like 26 of the 31 children have found homes, some with their host families, some with other families through word-of-mouth. The children will fly back to Ukraine, and the families will begin the paperwork to bring them back to America, a process that can take up to a year.
Occasionally something goes wrong — last year, for example, the regional director over adoptions told two of the orphanages they could no longer be involved in international adoptions — but in the four years of the program, about 90 children have successfully been brought back to America.
Katie and Shawn have come to the airport to say goodbye. They give Igor and Andrew each a scrapbook. Inside are pictures of trick or treating, bubble baths, Shawn's birthday. Katie tries to look happy when she hugs the boys but she knows the bad news: The family in Idaho has decided they're too old to adopt such young, energetic children.
So Igor and Andrew are heading back to Ukraine with no immediate prospect of a family. Still, says Vern, there is always a chance that the boys can come back to Utah next fall with Save A Child. And who knows what will happen then.
For more information about Save A Child Foundation and the hosting program, go to www.saveachild.cc or 801-262-8127.
e-mail: jarvik@desnews.com