Not the Right Number: My life told a it was

By Suzanne Elkins

When I was eight years old, a social worker asked me what I wanted in a big sister.
I asked for someone who looked like Barbie. Blonde. Rich. Named Susie. I made the list impossible on purpose, because I did not want a big sister and I wanted the whole thing to fall through before it started.
They found her.
Two years later she got engaged, told me she did not have time anymore, and gave me a phone number. The number stopped working within the week. I called directory assistance every few days for the next year and a half, and the operators kept telling me there was a listing, that it was unlisted, and that they could not give it to me.
Then one day I reached a different Sue Peacher, somewhere else in Los Angeles. I started crying and hung up on her.
She called back.
This is the story of two women with the same name. One was screened, matched, and assigned to me. The other answered a wrong number and got nothing for it, not a title, not a thank you, not a line she could put on a resume. It is about what happens to a child when the adult who was supposed to show up stops coming, and what the research says about that, and what nobody tells you before you sign the volunteer form.

It is also about who was still there twenty five years later.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HD6J65C5
• ISBN13: 9798191095424
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 68 Pages
• Weight: 0.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"