No Longer Orphans

By Alison Cheah

Two lonely girls

Two distant continents.

Two widely dissimilar ways of life.

When twelve-year-old Jessica is orphaned, Aunt Sophia takes her to live in

California. Thrown among people who are too busy for her,

she wonders whether she will ever find a place to belong.

Then her Sunday school teacher invites her to join a trip to the Himalayas

to tell children about Jesus. Jessica doesn't know Jesus,

but she does want to see the Himalayas.

While there, she meets Sarita, a girl her own age who works in the fields

to earn her food. Sarita's life experience is so different from her own

Jessica wonders if they have anything in common.

Yet a surprise friendship grows, and Jessica learns it is not always the

person with an easy life who finds true happiness.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alison Cheah
• Release date: Mar 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215269886

Alison Cheah

Alison Cheah lives with her husband in Los Gatos, CA. She loves spending time with her six grandchildren and working with high school students at her church youth group. Her favorite way to spend an evening is reading a good story.

Book preview

NO LONGER ORPHANS

Second edition. March 24, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Alison Cheah.

Written by Alison Cheah.

Cover Illustration by Ian Dale

All Rights Reserved. No part of this text may be transmitted, reproduced, downloaded, or electronically stored without the express permission of Alison Cheah. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

No Longer Orphans

By Alison Cheah

––––––––

Cover Illustration

By Ian Dale

CHAPTER 1 –

AN AMERICAN GIRL

Jessica Lai glanced at Aunt Sophia sitting beside her in the taxi’s back seat. Two weeks ago, she didn’t even know her mother had a sister. Dad never talked about her. But now she was going to live with this unknown aunt.

Sorry, Jessica. I had to attend to some business matters. Her aunt tucked the phone into her capacious purse and brushed an invisible speck of lint off her black pencil skirt, as if to show off her long pink nails. She’d been on the phone since they left the airport, talking about money and contracts and showing someone a house that afternoon.

A photo of Mom used to sit on Dad’s bedside table. He had captured her in a pensive mood, staring off into the distance with her hand caught up in her short boyish hair. It was hard to believe that Aunt Sophia with her frightening efficiency and highly manicured appearance could be her sister.

This is Cupertino, and we’re nearly home now. There’s the middle school you’ll be going to.

If Dad was there, she’d have asked him what middle school was. It must be another of those differences between Arizona and California. But she didn’t want Aunt Sophia to think she was stupid, and Dad wasn’t there. He was in Phoenix—or heaven, if she believed what the minister said at the funeral. It was ridiculous to imagine Dad sitting on a cloud playing a harp. He’d rather be lying on the top of a mountain pointing out the constellations in a cloudless night sky.

The car drove into a court and stopped before a double-story house painted yellow with a small green lawn. Shrubs with orange bird-shaped flowers grew under the front window. It couldn’t have looked more different from the single-story sand-colored house with cacti and rocks where she’d lived all her life.

She tugged her coat tightly around her. Aunt Sophia said it would be cooler here than in Phoenix, but she hadn’t thought it would be this much colder.

Inside the house, they took off their shoes, and Aunt Sophia dug through a box of slippers nearby. She found a pair of pink ones with bunnies on the toes and handed them to Jessica. You can put these on for now until you’ve got yours unpacked.

That’d be a long time! Dad didn’t make her wear slippers. They didn’t even always take off their shoes.

I’ll take you to your room first. Aunt Sophia led the way up white-carpeted stairs and down a passage to the last door, then opened it for Jessica to go in.

Pink!

Here you are. Uncle Winston painted it for you. He thought you’d like this better than the math formulas Andrew painted on the wall. Andrew’s just got a job in Connecticut, so he won’t need his room anymore.

Thank you. Dad would have been proud of how polite she was being.

I expect you heard that I must go out this afternoon. I’m so sorry on your first day here. But Jason and Evan will be home from school soon, and they’ll look after you.

My suitcase is still downstairs. Her voice was barely above a whisper.

I know. One of the boys will carry it up, and I’ll help you unpack when I come home. The bathroom’s just across the hallway. Come down when you’re ready. The door closed behind Aunt Sophia.

When she had left, Jessica opened her backpack and took out all the maps she saved from the camping adventures she and Dad took. Her aunt put them in the trash can when they were clearing out Jessica’s room back in Arizona, and she wasn’t about to risk her finding them and taking them away. They were the key to her memories—memories of dark nights far away from the city lights when she and Dad lay gazing up at the Milky Way and identifying the planets. Every place they set up the tent and every trail they hiked was marked in red ink and labeled with Dad’s careful printing.

She searched the room for a possible hiding place—somewhere Aunt Sophia wouldn’t look, even when she was cleaning. Someone so efficient probably turned everything upside down when they cleaned. Olga was like that.

She’s a very good cleaner, but she doesn’t know when something is clearly off-limits. Dad used to sigh when his private papers had been tidied again.

The chest of drawers in the closet had a tiny space between it and the wall. Jessica poked her hand into the space to see if it was large enough. She smiled when she drew it out covered with dust. Then she shoved the maps in.

Argh! Now she had to go meet her cousins. Dad called her Jessica the Brave when she broke her wrist playing soccer and continued playing because she didn’t want to miss the end of the tournament game. But the pain in her wrist didn’t compare with the pain in her heart now.

It wasn’t only Daddy who was gone. If only she could rub her hands in Ready’s smooth red coat. But now the Irish setter would run to greet Tiffany when she arrived home from school. Since kindergarten, Tiffany had been part of her life, shaking her brown curls and grinning her mischievous grin, Want to hear a secret?

And who would be the top goal scorer on the soccer team now?

Jessica snatched a pink tissue from the box on the bedside table and blew her nose hard. Oh, Daddy! She was trying to be brave. But where had the brave Jessica gone? Did she die in the car accident with Dad?

She peeped out of the bedroom door. She couldn’t hear any sounds in the house, but Aunt Sophia would be expecting her. She’d better not wait any longer.

At the foot of the stairs, she hesitated and listened again for any clue about which way to go. A saucepan clanked at the back of the house, and she made her way toward the sound down a passageway running beside the stairs. It ended in a closed door that tempted her to retreat, but if she didn’t go in now, she’d have to do it later. As she cracked it open, light from picture windows at the far side of the large kitchen almost dazzled her.

That’s right. Aunt Sophia looked up as she came in. Come and sit at the counter. You haven’t eaten anything all day, so I warmed up some dumplings and soup.

Jessica approached an island half the size of Arizona. High barstools waited in a sedate row, and she climbed onto one while inhaling the chicken soup aroma coming from a pot bubbling on the stove.

Aunt Sophia fetched a blue porcelain bowl from the dresser on the opposite side of the room, ladled soup into it, and added a matching spoon before setting it in front of Jessica.

Dad’s favorite Chinese restaurant used dinnerware of the same design. Jessica shut her eyes to concentrate on the intense chicken flavor as the soup slid down her throat. If she thought about Dad, she’d lose it.

I hope you like it, Aunt Sophia worried.

Yes, thank you.

Sometimes their neighbor in Phoenix, Mrs. Patel, used to bring them homemade Indian snacks, and Dad always made sure to exaggerate how much they enjoyed them. It doesn’t cost me anything, and it makes her feel good, was his explanation when Jessica pointed out that they didn’t like them that much. This was one of those occasions. It wasn’t easy to get away from thinking about Dad, so she assumed her best imitation of his manner. It’s very good, Aunt Sophia.

In the hall outside the kitchen, one deep voice made a comment, and another answered.

Aunt Sophia popped her head out of the door. Hello, boys. Come and meet your cousin.

The boys towered over Jessica, and their almost identical square faces, wide mouths, and close-set eyes gave her nothing to distinguish them from each other.

She slid down to the floor from her stool and stood with her right hand extended stiffly to shake their hands. It was how Dad behaved when he met people he wasn’t interested in.

One of her cousins stretched out his hand to meet hers. Hello, I’m Evan.

What a little mouse! The other boy’s eyes twinkled. I’m Jason. What do they call you, Mouse?

I’m Jessica.

She extended her hand further, but he lifted his with a laugh. High five?

She frowned. That wasn’t the correct response. Anyone with a dimple in his right cheek like that was probably annoying. She raised her hand and received his high five, then prepared to return to her soup.

Fist bump?

Yes, first appearances had been truthful.

Evan gave his brother a backhanded slap on the arm. Don’t tease her.

Jason hoisted himself onto the stool next to hers. Hey, Mom. How was Arizona? I want some of what Mouse is eating.

Aunt Sophia poured soup and dumplings into bowls for the boys. I have to show a house this afternoon. You boys look after Jessica, and one of you carry her suitcase upstairs. I’ll be back in time to cook dinner. She slung her purse over her shoulder and disappeared through a door behind Jessica. Presently, the garage door rumbled.

What grade are you in, Mouse?

Since she had to look in his direction to answer, she studied Jason’s slicked-back bangs held in place with gel. Evan had to shake his out of his eyes with a movement so frequent she was aware of it out of the corner of her eye. So that was how she could tell them apart.

I’m in sixth.

Then you’ll be in Franklin. Evan and Andy and I were all at Franklin. You just have to watch out for Ms. Watson. She makes you write poetry. Then she reads your work aloud to the class.

Yeah, but she’s seventh grade. Evan shook his head as he spoke. So annoying!

True that! Then you can forget about her for a year.

Do you remember that sub we had for math—the one who taught sixth and seventh?

Jason screwed his eyebrows together. ‘Ah, devil’s childs! What you don’t listen to me for?’ His voice rose in pitch, and his accent might have come from somewhere in Europe. The boys laughed and rose to put their dishes in the sink, then headed for the door.

Jason stopped before he went out. I’ll take your suitcase upstairs, Mouse. What’re you gonna do? Wanna watch TV?

I want a cup of water. Framing a request, even one as modest as that, was hard. It came out so quietly she had to repeat it to make sure he heard.

Okay. He pulled a cup out of the dishwasher and filled it from a watercooler in the corner.

There are some books here from when Jase and Andy and I were younger. Evan pointed to a bookshelf under a window seat. And my room is next to yours if you need anything.

Jessica watched them go, then finished her soup before carefully carrying her cup of water upstairs. In the front pocket of her backpack, wrapped in a damp paper towel, was a shoot from the geranium in her old backyard. That morning before they left, she’d cut off a sprig from the plant that filled the urn and overflowed down the sides like a red waterfall. She’d lost her dad, her dog, her best friend, and her home. She was going to keep this one living reminder of her old life. She put the shoot in the cup and set it on the windowsill.

Her suitcase lay on the floor where Jason had left it. She emptied it, separating shirts into one drawer, shorts and pants into another, and hanging in the closet the black dress with lacy sleeves Aunt Sophia bought for Dad’s funeral.

Never, ever, in her whole life did she want to wear it again. She hated it the moment she saw it, and just handling it now brought back memories of the terrible afternoon she had to sit and listen to random people talking about Dad as though they knew him. From the front of the room, a large photo of a man wearing a suit and tie stared at her. Somebody had chosen it because they thought it was such a good photo of Dad, but he’d hated it. He’d have been so mad to think of it being blown up large for everyone to stare at.

When they pored over the photo album, he would flip that page quickly. How many times do you see me dressed like that?

You look handsome, Dad, she’d said one time.

But he shook his head. No. Give me jeans and hiking boots with my Jessica beside me, and I’ll be the handsomest man alive.

The pink clock beside