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WELCOME RELUCTANT STRANGER by Evy Journey, Multicultural Women's Fiction, 314 pp., $12.50 (Paperback) $2.99
(Kindle edition)

Title: WELCOME RELUCTANT STRANGER

Author: Evy Journey

Publisher: Sojourner Books

Pages: 314

Genre: Multicultural Women’s Fiction

What happens when a brokenhearted computer nerd and culinary whiz

gets rescued by a relationship phobic psychologist with a past that

haunts her? For Leilani and Justin, it’s an attraction they can’t deny

but which each is reluctant to pursue. More so for Leilani whose family

had to flee their troubled country when she was only nine.

Leilani is focused on leaving the past behind, moving forward. But

when she learns the truth behind her family’s flight—the shocking,

shameful secret about her father’s role in a deadly political web—she is

devastated.

Is her father a hero or a villain?  Can she deal with the truth?

But the past is impossible to run away from. Together with Justin,

she must get her father out of her former home. Can she forgive her

father, accept him for what he is? And can she reconnect with her roots

and be at peace with who she is?

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Prologue:
Roots

If you could see heat, you would see it that day rising
from the concrete paving in the schoolyard, colliding with rays plummeting from
the sun. The light was blinding, the heat oppressive.

The schoolyard was unlike most others on this tiny island
on the Pacific. A concrete wall, eight-feet high and topped with countless
pieces of broken glass embedded into the concrete, surrounded both the school
and the perimeter of the 30,000 square foot yard. A young woman fully
covered—except for her face and hands—in the white habit of a Catholic novice,
circled the yard, watching pupils play.

About a hundred girls, ages six to eleven, clad in dark
blue skirts and white shirts with peter pan collars loosely tied with wide,
dark blue bows, formed groups around three or four games. Despite the buzz of
activity, no one shouted, shrieked, or raised a ruckus.

The girls ignored the heat as they played in the few
minutes they had for recess. All, except one girl. She sat in the shade,
smiling, content with observing everyone else, and enjoying the light breeze
that blew now and then.

Younger girls hovered around rectangular hopscotch
courses drawn with chalk on the cemented yard. Some older pupils ran games of
tag but the majority, along with a few younger ones, waited in a long line to
take their turn at jumping rope.

From a slatted wooden bench, Leilani watched the game
with cool interest until her best friend, Myrna, ran into the arc of the
spinning rope to join another girl from her class. Leilani leaned forward.

Two girls, each holding one end of the rope, swung
vigorously down, sideways, up, and around over and over. The rope whirled so
fast that all Leilani saw was an elliptical form pinched at its ends, like a
sausage bulging in the middle. Inside, the girls jumped, as fast and as high as
they could to evade the whirling rope. If they got their feet caught, they lost
and had to get out. The player who lasted longest won.

Myrna was good at it, maybe the best. She skipped like a
fawn and could outlast everyone else Leilani had seen. Before long, the other
girl gave up and yielded her place to another. Leilani clapped hard for her
friend, a wide smile wiping away the pout on her lips.

“Why aren’t you with the other girls, Leilani?”

Leilani turned as Sister Young sat on the bench next to
her. Sister Young was the newest novice who alternated with another novice,
Sister Mariano, in watching the children in the schoolyard. Leilani liked
Sister Mariano better. She had a nicer smile and she spoke in a soft, sweet
voice. Sister Young, tall, thin, light-skinned, and sharp-featured, looked like
she disapproved of everyone. And she was too nosy.

Leilani shrugged, her pout returning, as she turned her
attention back to the girls skipping rope.

“Is anything wrong, Leilani?”

“No. It’s too hot to play.”

“Your classmates don’t seem to think so. Myrna looks like
she’s having fun.”

“Myrna likes to jump rope better than school.”

Sister Young chuckled. “I can understand that. When I was
your age, I preferred running around with my brothers than playing with my
dolls or reading. But what about you? What do you like to do best?”

“Watch people.”

“Is there much fun in that?” Sister Young sounded as if she
believed the opposite.

Leilani shrugged again. The novice said nothing more for
a few minutes.

Myrna jumped out of the spinning rope, yielding her place
to a girl who had just joined her in it. Standing outside the arc of the rope,
she swiped her arm across her face and wiped it on her shirt. She ambled to the
side and dropped her butt down next to one of the girls swinging the rope.

“She must be tired,” Leilani mumbled to herself, sitting
back on the bench and sticking her lower lip out farther.

Sister Young said, “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“How’s your family doing, Leilani?”

“Fine.”

“Sister Mariano told me your father is a doctor who’s
part of the team that takes care of the president. You must be very proud of
him.”

“He’s no better than other doctors.”

“But he must be pretty good to be on the team. Do you see
him much? I know doctors can’t keep regular working hours like others do.”

“I see him enough.”

“What about your mother?”

“Mamá is Mamá.”

“Does she work?”

Leilani scowled. “She paints her nails different colors
every day and fills lots of vases with flowers.” She knew no one who worked,
among the mothers of her classmates. She added, “We have maids who do the
housework.”

“Like all the families of the other children here, I’m
sure.”

Leilani turned toward Sister Young. “Didn’t you have
maids when you lived at home?”

“No. I learned to clean and cook by the time I was your
age.”

Leilani stared at the young novice. She wanted to say
something nice to her, but what? Cooking and cleaning at her age—nine years
old—seemed like punishment. How did a child tell someone older and able to
order them around that she was sorry? She reached her hand out to touch Sister
Young, but remembered that school rules did not allow touching between teachers
and pupils. So, she regarded her in sympathy and the novice acknowledged it
with gratitude in her eyes.

The bell rang, announcing the end of recess. Leilani
jumped up from the bench. Although she felt close to Sister Young for a few
moments, she was relieved to be free of her. She joined Myrna in the line for
girls from her class.

“Oh, Myrna, you’re sweating into your white shirt. Your
uniform has stains on it.”

“Yes, lucky our skirt is dark. I’m sure it’s dirtier than
my white shirt.”

“Is that why you stopped skipping rope?”

“Yeah, but it’s too hot, anyway.”

“The stains—will your Mamá be angry with you?”

Myrna shrugged. “She doesn’t care. But Nana will give me
a scolding. You’re lucky your parents didn’t get you a Nana.”

Leilani crinkled her nose. She had once asked her father
for one. “No. Mamá thinks she and no else should take care of us. I’ll bet
she’s stricter than your Nana.”

“Keep it down, girls,” Sister Young said as she led the
line of girls back into the school.

Everyone stopped talking as they entered the classroom
where Sister Lourdes, their math teacher, waited. A middle-aged nun with a thin
face, whose smiling eyes had etched upward creases on the corners, she was kind
but she inspired awe. Her pupils knew quite well what that set to her jaw
meant: She was determined to make them as proficient, if not better, in math as
boys. She followed up on her mission by rigorous training, starting each day
with written exercises on lessons and homework of the previous day.

Leilani calculated that she spent more time studying math
than other subjects, although literature was her favorite. She wanted to please
Sister Lourdes.

A quarter of an hour later, only the scratching of
pencils on paper and the swishing of the nun’s habit, as she paced between
desks, could be heard in the room. The class was absorbed doing the written
arithmetic exercise of the day. Every second pupil or so, Sister Lourdes peered
discreetly down the girl’s back to gauge her progress.

Leilani sensed the nun’s presence behind her. She bent
lower over her work. She had solved two-thirds of the problems halfway through
the allotted time but she did not want her teacher to see her progress until
she finished. A soft knock on the door saved her from the sister’s watchful
eyes. The nun hurried to the front of the classroom. Leilani sighed in relief.

A low but excited buzz of voices broke the relative quiet
of the room as Leilani and many other girls raised their heads from their work.
Before Sister Lourdes reached the door, it swung open and the principal entered.
Behind her, a visitor walked in, partly hidden by the principal’s layers of
black and white habit.

The principal once said she was anxious not to disrupt
lessons, so she rarely came to their classrooms. She had meant to reassure them
of her unwavering interest in growing their minds. Instead, she aroused
curiosity and anxiety when she did come—reactions that grew more acute when she
brought a visitor along.

A visitor meant some pupil was going to be singled out,
taken out of the classroom for some shameful or unhappy reason in her family.
If she had a problem having to do with school, she usually had to go to the
principal’s office. That was the rarest event of all, and it caused greater
shame.

“Mamá,” Leilani muttered, when the visitor came out in
full view from behind the principal. Her mother picked her and her sister,
Carmen, up when school was over, but she never entered the school grounds. She
waited in her car.

She was staring at her now, her lips pressed into a line,
as if she was holding back an urge to cry or to shout. Deep creases on her brow
cast shadows on her eyes. Something disturbed her. Something terribly wrong.

Leilani turned toward the huddled heads of the principal
and Sister Lourdes who had been talking in hushed voices. She thought, they’re
talking too long, as she put the stubby end of her pencil in her mouth, and bit
on it so hard that the eraser broke off.

She spat the broken piece in her hand and looked around
at her classmates, their faces animated with malicious delight. They were relishing
the little drama unfolding before them, squirming with anticipation for what
was to follow.

She knew what it was like, watching and waiting for
trouble to fall on another. But the visitor was her mother and she looked much
too worried.

Before long, the principal stepped back and Sister
Lourdes faced the class. Leilani knew what was coming. She held her breath.
Today was her turn—the unfortunate girl drawn into a familiar scenario, the
butt of the week’s jokes for her often bored classmates. She had known it would
come, and though she was sure it was impossible, she wished she could will it
away.

Later that afternoon, they would gossip. Taunt arrogant,
aloof Leilani, finally pulled down from her pedestal by the disgrace of being
taken out of the class by her nervous mother.

Her teacher said, “Leilani, please gather all your things
and give me your work. I’ll grade whatever you finish. You must go with your
mother at once.”

To Leilani’s relief, instead of the whispered guessing
and curious stares she had anticipated, her classmates hushed up. Maybe, like
her, they sensed something terrible. Their teacher spoke in a tone they had
never heard before, a tone so solemn that her usual calm demeanor seemed as
troubled as her mother’s.

Leilani seized pencils, books, and notebooks off her desk
and hastily stuffed them in her bag. Her arms were trembling and she could not
zip up her bag. She picked it up, hugging it close to her chest.

Myrna, who sat behind her, leaned over and said, “Call me
tonight.”

Leilani nodded without turning toward her friend. She
marched, head straight and gaze forward, toward the waiting adults.

Sister Lourdes lightly tapped the top of her head. “Don’t
worry. I’ll take the number of right answers you gave against the total number
you finished. That’s fair, don’t you think?”

Leilani nodded.

“Thank you, Sister Lourdes,” her mother said. “Let’s hope
she can come back to school tomorrow. She doesn’t like to miss any of her
classes.”

“You’re welcome, Mrs. Torres. And don’t worry about
Leilani’s progress. She catches up very quickly. I’ll give her extra exercises,
but I don’t think she’ll need them. I hope things turn out all right for your
family.”

Leilani felt her mother’s hand pushing her toward the
door. She was impatient to be out of there.

*****

In the car, her older sister Carmen waited in the front
passenger seat. They bobbed their heads in greeting.

Leilani threw her schoolbag on the back seat and climbed
in. She was dying to know what was going on, but she knew better than to ask.
They hardly ever talked in the car. Their mother insisted on silence while she
was driving.

She and Carmen needed only one incident to learn that
their mother meant what she said. One day, they continued their banter after
she told them to stop. Without warning, she slammed on the brakes and Carmen,
who always took the front seat, hit her head on the dashboard. Leilani fell on
the floor. Carmen sported a bump on her head for days after that.

Leilani was impatient to be home, certain that her sister
knew what was going on. Unlike her, Carmen could coax things out of their
mother. She would not hold anything back, eager to show Leilani that their
mother trusted her and liked her better. Leilani refused to believe her sister,
but conceded that because Carmen was thirteen—nearly a young woman—their mother
told her grown-up things.

For now, Leilani would play her waiting game.  She
tried to calm down, but her resolve lasted only until her mother turned at a
street. She could not hold her tongue then.

“This isn’t the way home. Where are we going?”

Neither her sister nor her mother answered and all she
could do was wait to see where her mother was taking them. She scooted close to
the window and watched all the buildings they were passing by.

A while later, she heard the drone of planes flying low
above them and recognized the streets they were on. She knew it. They were off
to a place away from home. She was not about to be dragged away, without
knowing why.

“We’re near the airport. What’s going on? Are we going
somewhere?”

Her sister said, “Just shut up, will you? You’re getting
on my nerves.”

Carmen was quick to notice and use their mother’s
expressions. “Getting on my nerves” was their mother’s way of telling her
children to go away. Leilani heard it often enough that she could tell from the
way she glared and parted her lips that her mother was about to say it. Leilani
learned to walk away before she could utter those words.

But, trapped for the moment, she could only comply.

At the airport, Mrs. Torres parked the car in a
ten-minute zone and said, “Get all your things. Don’t leave anything in the car
and keep quiet until we’re out of here.”

She went to the back of the car and took two suitcases
out, one large and the other small. She banged the trunk close but did not
bother to lock the car, as she usually did.

“What about Papá and Rudy?” Leilani cried. Were they
escaping? But where to and why? And from what?

Again, neither her mother nor her sister answered. Her
mother handed Carmen the small suitcase. Carmen handed Leilani her schoolbag.

As she rushed alongside her mother and sister inside the
airport building, she began to imagine stories about escaping and became
excited at the idea of it. Her heart raced and her whole body tingled. They
were off on an adventure. Any adventure was welcome. She had so little of it in
school, and less at home.

Walking briskly, carrying two schoolbags heavy with
books, she sweated profusely. Her arms ached and her legs groaned. The air
conditioning helped, but that was over too soon. They passed through the
building before she could cool down.

Out in the sun, their mother ran in front of them, toward
a small plane waiting on the tarmac. She looked back at them and shouted, “Run,
you two. You move like turtles.”

Her mother was actually laughing, as if she shared and
enjoyed her fantasy that they were about to embark on a great adventure.

Leilani was bewildered. The fear in her mother’s eyes and
her mouth had been palpable not only when she stared at her inside the
classroom, but also when she drove towards the airport, gripping the steering
wheel so tight that, from the back passenger seat, Leilani could see the
muscles in her arms twitching.

Leilani and Carmen ran faster, laughing, infected by
their mother’s mirth. Leilani felt light and carefree. Everything was going to
be all right. But the feeling lasted only a few short minutes.

Before they reached the plane, she saw a man she
remembered seeing with her father once. He was a big man with alert, suspicious
eyes that Leilani found menacing. He waited for them at the foot of the steps
to the plane.

He took the suitcase from her mother’s hand and said,
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Torres, I couldn’t get him out. Rudy is waiting for you inside
the plane. He’s in the front row.”

The laughter died from her mother’s face and deep worry
crept back on her brow. The man was clearly talking about her father. Something
awful was going on and no one was telling them anything about it. She had to
find out what it was.

Inside the plane, she spotted her brother sitting on an
aisle seat. He stood to let her and Carmen pass to the seats next to him. As
was Carmen’s habit on a bus, a train, or a plane, she claimed the window seat
and Leilani had to content herself with the place wedged between her and Rudy.
At least her brother, the oldest among them, liked her better than Carmen. He
would tell her what was going on.

Her mother took the aisle seat across from Rudy. He
helped her place the small luggage Carmen carried in the compartment above her.

Before she sat down, she reached out silently, reassuring
each of them with a tender pat on their hands. But Leilani caught the sadness
in her eyes.

Rudy sat down again and buckled himself in place.

Leilani said in a soft subdued voice, “Where’s Papá?”

“He couldn’t come. But he should follow us soon.”

“What’s going on, Rudy? Where are we going?”

“I don’t know any more than you do. The guy you saw by
the steps? I know him. He picked me up at school, said he had a letter from
Papá to me. But I wasn’t supposed to open it until after we get to where we’re
going. It’s in my jacket pocket. Then, he brought me here without telling me
anything more.”

“Are we escaping? Is Papá in trouble?”

“Why do you say that?”

Leilani pouted and scowled. “Because … Why doesn’t anyone
say anything and why is everything so mysterious? Can’t you open the letter
now?”

Rudy shook his head. “No! You’ll have to wait, like me.”

“Does Mamá know what’s going on?”

“She must, but you know Mamá. She thinks her main role is
to protect Papá, at all costs.”

“But why does Papá need protecting? Did he do something
wrong?”

“I’m as clueless as you about this,” Rudy said, scowling
and getting irritated.

“What about my clothes? My dolls? I promised to call
Myrna.”

“I think Mamá might have brought a few clothes in that
big suitcase.”

“But where’s that suitcase?”

“The stewardess put it away on a luggage rack. Now, Lani,
will you shut up until we get to wherever we’re headed?”

Leilani pouted again, leaned back against the seat, and
closed her eyes. She was going to sleep if nobody wanted to talk to her. Still,
she did not give up that easily. She would find out somehow.

Not long after, she felt her brother’s hand on her arm.
He whispered in her ear.

“I’ll tell you this, though you won’t like it. Be
prepared. For anything.”

“Why?” She tried to whisper but her shrill voice rose
above the whirr of the plane.

“Shhh! I don’t know much, but I’ve seen and heard enough.
We’re not going back home. Ever. No more Myrna. And you’ll have to make do with
the few clothes Mamá packed for you until Papá comes.”

Evy Journey, SPR (Self Publishing
Review) Independent Woman Author awardee, is a writer, a wannabe artist, and a
flâneuse. Her pretensions to being a flâneuse means she wishes she lives in
Paris where people have perfected the art of aimless roaming. She’s lived in
Paris few times as a transient.

She's a writer because beautiful prose
seduces her and existential angst continues to plague her even though such
preoccupations have gone out of fashion. She takes occasional refuge by
invoking the spirit of Jane Austen and spinning tales of love, loss, and
finding one’s way—stories into which she weaves mystery or intrigue and sets in
various locales.

In a previous life, armed with a Ph.D.
and fascinated by the psyche, she researched and shepherded  the
development of mental health programs. And wrote like an academic. Not a good
thing if you want to sound like a normal person. So, she began to write fiction
(mostly happy fiction) as an antidote.

Her latest book is Welcome Reluctant Stranger.

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