Fraying at the Edge

by Cindy Woodsmall

  Just one of the million things she’d never considered before being removed from her home.

  “I want to be fair,” Nicholas said. “But you have to be reasonable, Brandi. I won’t give in. You know I can outlast you.”

  “Give me a break. Who doesn’t know what a loudmouth you are?”

  “I’ll split the time with you equally.” Nicholas held out one palm and then the other, as if each represented a home. “But for the first time I’ve taken some family leave. I have two weeks off and then some extra time here and there over the next six months. Let me use next week to get her feet under her and get her started on some goals. A bucket list of sorts.”

  “Good name. One of your bucket lists might just kill her.”

  “That’s absurd. Stop fighting me, and give her and me some space. She’ll have fun. I promise.”

  Maybe Brandi was right about the culture shock. Ariana simultaneously felt like a loose helium balloon and feed corn being run through a grinder. Clear thought seemed impossible, but she knew Nicholas was wrong to use the word fun. Fun was being home and spending time with Rudy. Fun would be running the café she’d finally purchased a few weeks ago. This was miserable. But she would learn to cope, because if she didn’t, Nicholas would take legal action against Rachel, the Amish midwife and family friend who’d known for twenty years that she and Skylar might have been swapped when she delivered them back to back before a fire engulfed the birthing clinic. Ariana hadn’t known a person could be sued for negligence. If she left here, would Nicholas stop at suing the midwife, or would he also sue Mamm and Daed? Within a few days of her birth and Skylar’s, her Mamm and Daed had a hint that something might be amiss. The blanket Ariana went home in differed slightly from the one Rachel swaddled her in following delivery.

  “You listen up, Nicholas. She’s not ready for all that.” She pointed at the stack of books on the kitchen table. “Good grief. On Saturday she stepped out of her world, a world that more closely resembles the eighteenth century than the twenty-first.”

  Gabe, Brandi’s husband, nudged her and opened his eyes wide, as if asking, “Seriously?” Brandi glanced at Ariana and gasped. Apparently in the heated exchange Brandi had forgotten for the moment that Ariana was standing there.

  Brandi smiled, her eyes holding an apology as tears filled them. Ariana supposed Brandi missed Skylar as much as Ariana missed her Mamm. This whole mess was so new to all of them. Brandi and Nicholas had no idea Skylar wasn’t their biological daughter until four weeks ago.

  “Look.” Nicholas took a deep breath. “I don’t want to fight with you like this, but I’m not backing down. I have one year to…”

  Their voices faded as Ariana slipped into memories of last Saturday when Rudy kissed her and held her tight, promising to wait for her return. Neither of them had ever desired life outside the Amish. Then she learned she wasn’t at all who she’d thought herself to be. When she first heard the news, she feared telling Rudy. He had felt sympathy for her heartache and hated being separated from her for a year, but he hadn’t minded that her DNA was Englisch.

  All she had to do was live here for a year, and then she could return to Rudy and her café and her family that wasn’t actually related to her. Would they love her just as much after they’d had a year to ponder that the ties of blood had been broken?

  “Ariana?” Gabe spoke softly.

  Ariana seemed to float down from the ceiling and return to herself. The stack of books in the center of the table still looked overwhelming, but the fury radiating from Brandi and Nicholas was the most disconcerting. She tightened her grip on the edge of the kitchen table, hoping to remain on her feet.

  Gabe held his hand toward his wife and snapped his fingers. Within seconds the room fell silent. He angled his head. “Can you tell me how you’re feeling?” His calm voice brought a bit of peace.

  She should be fine—a little rattled maybe, but nothing more. What difference did this short time of upheaval make? Her life was back home, and this mess was just a slight detour. So why did her skin feel as if it were on fire? She wanted to ask if divorced people always argued like this. They didn’t understand. Not one of them. She’d spent a lifetime having ingrained into her every thought that all these things—from divorce to higher education, from nail polish to television—were wrong, and now she was living in the middle of them. If she could get her mind to slow, to absorb what was happening. “A…a little confused.”

  “Yeah. I imagine so.” His eyes radiated gentleness.

  “Could…I mean…Would it be okay if I went for a walk?”

  Nicholas moved forward. His face was so unfamiliar, and yet she recognized the parental concern. “We shouldn’t have…I’m sorry, Ariana.”

  She managed a nod.

  He drew a deep breath. “You’re right. Some fresh air would probably be good for you. What if one of us goes with you?”

  “Nee.” The word came out fast and sharp. “I mean, no thank you.”

  “Okay, but it’s a confusing subdivision, laid out strangely. So don’t leave this block, and you’ll be fine. If you go around two or three times, we’ll have a plan when you get back.”

  Did that mean they would know where she would sleep tonight—here or at Brandi’s? That’s what began the argument. She’d slept at Brandi’s Saturday night and here last night. Brandi had come to pick her up, and Nicholas said no. Then the argument shifted to everything concerning Ariana, including her clothes and hair. The threat of Nicholas suing her loved ones is what kept her here. Otherwise, she would walk out and never return.

  Ariana pointed at the stack of books. “I can do this.”

  “Yeah?” Nicholas sounded hopeful. He’d been disappointed to discover he had a daughter with an eighth-grade education, but surely he knew she could read. He picked up the thinnest book. “Do you think you could learn to drive?”

  If that’s what it took to cause peace, she could. “Ya.” That wasn’t the right word. She was used to floating between Pennsylvania Dutch and English at home, but here the wrong language kept slipping out. “Yeah.”

  He motioned from Ariana’s head to her feet. “Look at you. I told your mom you’re a smart, capable girl.”

  Then why do I feel like a prized horse? she wanted to ask. If her sister Susie were here, Susie would ask.

  Awash in embarrassment, she walked past them and out the front door.

  She looked to where the horizon had been her whole life, but it wasn’t there. A multitude of huge houses covered every inch of the horizon, and there was barely the width of a lawnmower between them.

  So many homes. Yet the emptiness Ariana felt was overwhelming, and the thought of calling Quill came to mind again. Nicholas had said she could reach out to Quill because he had left the Amish to live as the Englisch did. That’s what Nicholas hoped she would choose to do by the end of her time here—leave the Amish and live Englisch. She would return home, but a year without anyone to talk to who knew or understood her was a very long time. Still, she wouldn’t call Quill, no matter how bad things got.

  The cool fall air felt good. Autumn meant a lot to the Amish—a time of refreshment, a season when life without electricity was easy. Spring also had gentle weather, but it was filled with planting and tending crops. In contrast, fall was a season of relative ease and weddings.

  I want to be there, God. Or at least be allowed to reach out to my family, friends, and, maybe most of all, Rudy. You have a reason for all this, right, God?

  She felt no stirring of God in her spirit, only loneliness. Before learning she wasn’t really a Brenneman, she’d never understood the pain of being alone. How had Quill’s mother withstood her older boys leaving one by one? Then, a couple of years after her husband died, Quill, her youngest son, left the Amish, taking Ariana’s good friend Frieda with him.

  What kind of person did that?

  A car stopped abruptly, and she realized she was crossing a street. It was dark? She supposed she’d known that, but
it hadn’t actually registered. It was also rather cold. How lost had she been in her thoughts? How long had she been gone?

  “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

  Quill 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 pr
obably 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.