Fraying at the Edge (3 page)

“Sorry.” She hurried back toward the sidewalk, tripping over the curb in her haste. It was time to get back to Nicholas's house. But nothing looked familiar, and now that she thought about it, she realized she'd stepped off the curb several times, crossed roads, and then gotten back on other sidewalks.

So where was she? And why was a man getting out of his car and coming toward her?

Mingo, Pennsylvania

Q
uill poured batter onto the hot skillet. The last time he'd made pancakes he was with Ariana while they worked to fix up the abandoned restaurant. That was a really good day.

“Yeah, sure.” His oldest brother walked into the kitchen, talking on his cell. “This Saturday at four. Can you hold, please?” Dan removed the phone from his ear and pressed the Mute button. “Smells good.”

Quill and his four brothers took turns cooking or bringing in takeout food during the week, and tonight was his turn. “It'll be ready in five.”

“Listen, McLaren is flying in on Saturday. He says he wants you to be at the meeting too. Any chance you'd stay in Mingo this weekend rather than go home?”

McLaren was a wealthy developer, maybe even a billionaire. When he made a request of Schlabach Home Builders, they took it as a demand. But Dan's question was phrased as if Quill had a social life. He didn't. And that needed to change. Soon. “Sure. No problem. Any idea what he wants?”

“To discuss ‘issues.' That's all he's willing to divulge.”

Schlabach Home Builders had taken on a lot of responsibilities to win the bid for this job, and they were often close to being in over their heads with the workload and legalities. Had they messed up? They'd learned the hard way there was no end to Englisch laws and regulations regarding construction.

“I'll be there. No problem.” Quill turned over the sizzling bacon.

Dan disappeared down the hall. “Thanks for waiting. I can confirm…”

Quill shoved a spatula under the pancake, opened the warm oven, and stacked the pancake on top of the others. The tiny trailer wasn't much, but it provided sufficient living space when they were working this far from their homes in Kentucky. Staying here was difficult. It was hard on his brothers because they had wives and children in Ashton and hard on Quill because he liked solitude—lots of it. In Ashton he lived alone in a tiny home he'd bought. It wasn't much, but he loved the old place.

His golden retriever stood near him, staring as pets do, unwavering and unabashed. Why weren't people, the creatures with the ability to speak, as direct with their thoughts and hopes? Lexi whined, a barely audible noise, hoping she'd get some of the bacon. Quill broke off a small piece and tossed it to her. “That's enough for now. Go lie down.” After circling her bed several times, she plopped in the perfect spot to watch his every move—just in case he dropped a morsel.

Elam walked to the sink, his cell propped between his ear and shoulder while he washed his hands. “Sure, we'd love to see you and the kids, honey. When do you think you girls could head this way?” Elam grabbed a stack of plates from the cabinet and a handful of forks from the drawer while listening to his wife. The “girls” were Quill's four sisters-in-law, and when their husbands worked out of town too many weeks in a row, they would visit. The trailer was supertight during their visits, but Quill understood the girls' reasoning. “In two weeks?” Elam's words faded as he moved to the kitchen table.

Quill's thoughts drifted back to Ariana. He'd helped her buy the café, but she didn't know most of what he'd done. Despite his efforts to support her, he—and his vast array of secrets—had alienated her again. He called them confidentiality issues; she called them secrets. Either way, the last one had broken their relationship.

His cell phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket. Speaking of people who mattered…Frieda had sent a text, asking how he was. He pressed the microphone to dictate a response: “I'm good. Fixing dinner. Call after. Okay?” He hit Send and quickly received a smiley face in response. He tucked the phone back into his pocket.

He removed the last of the bacon, added the sizzling strips to the rest, and turned off the eyes and the oven. With a potholder in hand, he reached into the stove and took out the plate of hot pancakes. “Food's ready,” he yelled.

Within a few minutes he and his brothers fixed their pancakes to their liking, loaded bacon onto their plates, and were ready to give thanks. Each of them had left the Amish at a different time, and none of them had kept many of the traditions they'd grown up with, but they did say a silent prayer before every meal.

Unlike his brothers, Quill hadn't felt a need to pursue life outside of the Amish culture, and he hadn't been filled with a desire to explore the world beyond the Amish. For a while he'd hoped to stay and build a life with Ariana—not that she'd ever been aware of his feelings.

There was five years' difference in their ages, and before she was old enough to ask out, he had to make a decision concerning Frieda. Ariana had never professed her love, but he knew how she felt. He left anyway, keenly aware that he was destroying the love she had for him. He had no choice. With the deeply ingrained principles his Daed had taught him and his Mamm's hushed but steady nudges, Quill took Frieda and left, burning all his bridges behind him. After a five-year absence, he had the opportunity to rebuild the bridge to Ariana's life. It took both of them to build it, and it was really important to him. Then he watched it burn. It wasn't anyone's fault, not really.

He and Ariana were different people now. And despite wanting to be her friend, he knew that getting along with her was nearly impossible. Temporary truces ended with deeper and wider fissures between them.

Dan said, “Amen,” and his brothers dived into eating.

If given the chance, Quill would rekindle the friendship. Still, Ariana was Rudy's girl now, and Quill was grateful. He wouldn't change that if he had God's powers to do so. She and Rudy were a good match; she and Quill were not. They didn't view anything similarly—not faith, not politics, not the meaning of life. She was honest and open; he was indirect and locked away.

Leaving the Amish life had brought more heartaches than just his brokenness with Ariana. The complications of his mother not having any children who'd remained Amish was one. But the hardest part was Ariana. Always Ariana. He prayed for her, but she'd been clear—he was to leave her alone. He had lied to her for years. About seven years, actually. It had been easy to justify his lies when she was a teen and he was trying to protect her from knowing the ugly side of life. And he still wanted to protect her from that knowledge.

Erastus gestured toward Quill's plate. “Is there something we need to know about the food?”

Quill's stack of pancakes had one bite out of it, and his brothers were halfway done. He'd been lost in thought again. “Very funny.” He dug his fork in and took a bite.

“I disagree.” Elam gave a lopsided, sad smile. “You find nothing funny these days.”

Leon removed the glass of apple juice from his lips. “And you do, Elam?”

“All right.” Dan leveled a look at the two. “No one here finds anything funny, not right now. Drop it and eat.” He poured himself some more juice. “We'll get through this most recent upheaval with the Amish just like we have all the other times.”

“But it's not like the other times, is it?” Elam shoved away his almost-empty plate. “Seems like we ought to admit that and let Quill admit it.”

Just what Quill wanted, to air his feelings to a room full of brothers. “I'm fine. Change the subject.”

“Who's going to look after Mamm now that Ariana's gone?” Erastus took a swig of juice.

Quill couldn't think of any Pennsylvania Dutch words they still used other than
Mamm
and
Daed.
But from the time he and his brothers had learned to speak, they had called their parents by those names and probably always would.

“Maybe some of the other Amish will step up,” Erastus suggested.

But Quill knew better. The Amish usually looked after their own, but none in the community were quite sure about Mamm. When Quill's parents first married, they left Indiana and moved to Summer Grove, Pennsylvania, where they had no relatives. Then they had five sons. Once grown, four of them left, one by one, over a twelve-year period. Not out of rebellion against their parents or God but because of an unwillingness to conform to the
Ordnung.
Their Daed was faithful to the Amish beliefs, but he was also an analytical, independent thinker who taught them well. He believed that staying was the right thing for Mamm and him, and his goal was to bring some reform to the Old Ways, where shunning scarred a person's reputation for life and yet did nothing to stop an abusive alcoholic or a mentally unstable head of a household.

When Quill was eighteen, his Daed died of a heart attack while trying to get justice for Frieda. Quill hadn't understood all the circumstances that led to Frieda's leaving Ohio and moving in with them two years prior, but he learned about them soon after his Daed passed. When there was no justice or protection for her, Quill knew he had to finish what his Daed had begun. So at twenty years old, he disappeared with Frieda, making everyone in the community, including Ariana, believe he'd run off with her to get married. The community would let her go if she was married, but if she wasn't, they would hunt for her and try to force her to return.

Poor Mamm was caught in the middle. Her husband and sons were gone, and the community treated her as if she were contagious, as if she could infect them with her tragedies. When several offspring leave over time, the church leaders become stricter with the ones who remain. The greater supervision isn't to punish them but to make sure the children of other family members understand the hardships facing both sides—those who stay and those who leave.

Some thought his Mamm had committed a secret sin that caused her to be alone. But Quill knew the truth. Mamm was innocent. However, she had given birth to four mavericks. Then her fifth son had left for different reasons, and now he was a maverick too. Maybe he had been all along, but the desire to be present and to provide for his Mamm and his desire to build a life with Ariana had kept him from considering leaving.

“I've been thinking,” Elam said. “We sank all that time and money into preparations for Salome and her family to leave the Amish. Since Salome has now promised Ariana to stay, at least until Ariana returns, maybe we could ask Salome to help Mamm the way Ariana used to.”

After years of prayer Ariana's oldest sister and her husband had decided to leave the Amish, taking their children with them, of course. But like others who wanted to leave, they needed help to do that, including places to live until they could support themselves. That's where Quill and his brothers came in. They provided funds and temporary homes. Even if Ariana spent a decade among the Englisch, he doubted she would ever agree with him about helping Amish people to leave.

“No.” Quill glanced at each brother. “Ariana's family is off-limits.”

“Salome and her husband owe us. We've invested time and money…” Elam hushed when Dan gave him a stern look.

“Quill's right,” Dan said. “Besides, no one asked Ariana to help Mamm. It was voluntary. Since having contact with us is not allowed, if we ask someone directly, we're asking them to disobey the bishop. So the whole community is off-limits.”

Ariana had gone by their Mamm's place at least once a day for five years, often staying for hours. Neither Ariana nor anyone else in the Amish community had any idea that the brothers took turns secretly visiting their Mamm. If Ariana came during one of their visits, the son would slip out and hide in the barn or the shed until she left.

“We have to do something,” Leon said. “If Ariana hadn't been looking after Mamm two months back, she would've died from simple dehydration because of that virus.”

“But that was a fluke. Mamm gets lonely, and everyone could use a little help with daily chores, but she's generally healthy, right?” Elam asked.

“Sure, but another fluke could happen at any time, and she could be dead before anyone checks on her,” Leon said.