The back door swung open, and Brandi and Gabe hurried inside, followed by Cameron and her friend. Brandi had on shiny, skintight pants that came just below her knees, Gabe’s sleeveless shirt was as tight as his wife’s clothing, and Cameron had on something that hardly covered her underwear. What was wrong with these people?
Such thoughts made Ariana uncomfortable, but they came nonstop from morning to night. Would she get used to the sentiments or figure out how to stop them? A reprieve of thirty minutes would be greatly appreciated.
Gabe grabbed the phone. “Hello?”
Cameron stood in the doorway and studied Ariana. Now a week after they first met, she apparently still hadn’t decided whether Ariana was friend or foe, animal or human, slow witted or intelligent.
“We went for a run.” Brandi’s eyes were wide. “Are you all right, honey?”
Ariana nodded. “I’m fine. I…think I may have set off a couple of alarms.”
“Ya think?” Cameron glanced at her friend, looking smug, before she moved to the stove. After confidently pressing a couple of buttons, Cameron silenced the useless thing. But another alarm, a much louder one, was still shrieking throughout the house.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Brandi again looked Ariana up and down.
She wasn’t okay. She never would be again, but she nodded.
Gabe said a few words, answering questions for whoever was on the line. His eyes centered on Ariana. “Hold on, please.” He lowered the phone to his chest. “It’s the security system people. They said the emergency button inside the house was pushed. Is everything okay?”
“I…I guess.” Ariana shrugged. “As far as I know. I was trying to turn on the stove, and…”
“The stove?” Gabe repeated.
“Dad,”—Cameron rolled her eyes—“tell the guy all our secret code stuff, convince him the house hasn’t been invaded by body snatchers, and let him get back to the people who aren’t trying to figure out how to use electricity.”
While Gabe wrapped up the call, Cameron went to the plastic box Ariana had been at a few minutes earlier and pressed some buttons, and silence reigned. Cameron pointed at it. “This is a control panel for the security system. Because Dad and Brandi feared the apocalypse would take place while you were here alone, they set it.”
Ariana looked Brandi in the eyes, and the realization of just how much they favored each other made the walls around Ariana’s heart quake. Brandi’s blond hair and green-blue eyes were a darker shade than Ariana’s but very similar. Brandi had a willowy, hourglass figure, almost identical to Ariana’s. She didn’t want to be like this woman, to embrace her in any way, and yet the reality was staring back at her. “Until just now I didn’t realize you weren’t home.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. You’ve hardly slept all week, so I thought—”
“I was in my room awake, studying the driver’s manual while trying to stay quiet so I didn’t wake you.”
Cameron went to the back door and closed it. “My guess is that while Dad was disarming the alarm so we could come in, it caused loud beeps inside, and you pressed some buttons trying to make it shut up. And, voilà, just like that we had a perfect storm of chaos.” Cameron motioned from her friend to Ariana, shaking her head. “Disney’s Giselle lives, and I’m sharing a house with her.”
The girl laughed, opening her eyes wide and blinking, probably mimicking the character.
“Cameron!” Brandi pointed at her. “You be nice.”
“I’m only teasing.” Cameron shrugged and pulled a wide red band of some type off her wrist. “It’s a whole new world for you, isn’t it, Princess Jasmine?”
“That’s enough, Cameron.” Gabe spoke softly as he put the phone back in its cradle.
“What?” Cameron’s eyes were wide. “You don’t think I’m being nice either? She and Toto aren’t in Kansas anymore. Is anyone in this house surprised by that?”
“I am.” Ariana’s words were more of a growl than anything else, and she grabbed the eggs and cheese and all but threw them back into the refrigerator. She wasn’t cooking anything for anyone. “I’m totally surprised by it. Shocked. Miserable. But it’s just funny to you, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Ya, you did, Cameron. You like poking fun and comparing me to movie characters because I can’t call you on exactly what your rudeness implies. I had siblings, good ones, even a twin. But like that”—she snapped her fingers—“no more. Now I have you.” She fluttered one hand toward a window. “And Nicholas’s two stepsons. And none of you are actually related!” Ariana opened the pantry and tossed the french bread onto a shelf. “Tell you what. You learn Gabe isn’t your dad at all, and trade him for someone as difficult as Nicholas. You give up your comfortable life and put yourself, by yourself, in, I don’t know, maybe the Middle East, where the culture is totally disrespectful of you and all you’ve been taught to believe. Then we’ll talk about how nice you’ve been, okay?”
Cameron stood there, eyes narrowed and locked on Ariana as if she was about to unload on her.
What is wrong with me? How could she stand in her birth mother’s kitchen and yell at Cameron, or anyone, really? Nevertheless, Ariana snatched the driver’s manual off the countertop and shook it in Cameron’s face, daring her to speak up. “Today I have to give up my Amish clothes. Is that funny too? I’m being forced to wear Englisch ones because the irony of Nicholas being disgusted by Amish rules while he burdens me with his decrees somehow goes over his head. And I have to change my hairstyle. And when that’s done, I get the fun of trying to pass some Englisch test to get a driver’s license. None of which I ever planned or wanted to do, but, you know, that’s okay as long as my life is fodder for you and your friends. Do you know why I’m agreeing to those things, Cameron? Has it dawned on you that this isn’t just about the joy of learning I’m not Amish?”
Cameron looked at Gabe and then Brandi. “I…I never thought about it.”
“Because if I fail to please Nicholas, an Amish midwife who is probably the age of your grandmother will go to jail. So, ya, I’m here, and everything about me is hilariously out of sync with this world, only nothing about it is funny.” Ariana turned and hurried up the stairs, no longer hungry or caring if she and Cameron ever got along.
She closed the door behind her, leaned against it, and fought for air. God, what are You doing to me? Life seemed so unfair. Skylar had magically inherited wonderful parents and nine siblings. She was Abram’s twin, not Ariana.
Ariana had lost everything and gained nothing.
Nothing.
The only thing that had been hers that still remained hers was Rudy, and she missed him so much. He wouldn’t have a lot of advice for how to cope with going from the Amish world to the Englisch one as Quill might, but Rudy was the one she longed to talk to. Thankfully her new status as the only daughter of Brandi and Nicholas hadn’t changed Rudy’s love for her. He was spending this time with his parents in Indiana to save money so they could start a life together after she returned to Summer Grove. All she had to do was survive, be obedient to her biological parents, and return home.
Well, she also needed to avoid Cameron as much as possible.
“God,” she whispered as tears fell, “when I do finally return home, will Mamm, Daed, my sisters, and my brothers still consider me family?” Or would everything change after a year of pondering her non-Brenneman status and the natural shrinking of the hole her absence had made?
Ariana shuddered.
She needed to talk to someone about all this craziness that weighted down her shoulders like the yoke of a workhorse. Who could she talk to? Brandi? Nicholas?
Quill.
The idea of calling Quill annoyed her. Angered her actually.
“Ariana.” Brandi tapped on the door.
Ariana wiped the tears off her face. “Just a minute, please.” She stood upright, willing the tears to stop as she drew a deep breath and moved away from the door. “Com
e in.” Ariana went to the window seat and sat looking out at the neighborhood.
The door eased open, and Brandi stood in the threshold. “Hi.” She stepped inside and closed the door. “You okay?”
Ariana opened the learner’s manual, giving herself something to look at other than Brandi. “I’m sorry for losing my temper. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I know. Your world’s been stripped away, and Cameron isn’t a parent you feel you have to be respectful to, and then she trounced on your last nerve. A perfect storm, as she would say.”
“I guess.” Ariana flipped some pages, catching glimpses of road signs.
Life had a new and unfamiliar weight to it. She’d thought she was reasonably tough after being raised poor, and in some instances that was probably true. But she was no match for the weight of worldliness. And loneliness.
“You want to talk?” Brandi sat down a foot away from her.
Ariana’s throat started to close again, and she knew tears were close to the surface. “Thanks, but no.”
“Nicholas and I have really botched this. I was hoping by some miracle we’d do things right, but I guess that’s beyond our parenting skill set.”
“It’s fine.” Ariana dog-eared a page, opening and closing the tiny triangle. “We’re all three trying to cope and adjust.”
It’d been a long, tough week, one in which Nicholas had spent a lot of time teaching her about things she’d never heard of as well as teaching her how to drive. When Officer Barnes had brought her home, Nicholas and Brandi were visibly less hostile to each other. They apologized for their argumentative behavior and said they had worked out a lot of their plans and they wanted to compromise with her on things she strongly opposed—like wearing pants and sleeveless tops. She’d won that battle.
“Do you feel ready for the driver’s test?”
She’d spent a lot of time behind the wheel, either with Nicholas or an instructor. A lot of time. “Probably.” Her Daed had started teaching her the rules of the road at fourteen. He had her driving everything from rigs on the road to a team of horses in the fields. A vehicle with power steering and brakes seemed pretty easy after that.
“I know you’re not happy, but it’ll get better, and I’m determined to do better.”
“Ya, me too.”
She’d thought God let her be raised in an Amish home and then brought her here to lead Nicholas and Brandi to faith, but now that seemed naive of her. She’d spent a week splitting time between Nicholas and Brandi. He wasn’t absent of faith. He had plenty of it, but none of that faith was in God. He was well schooled in why her faith was misleading and was based in fear. How did one explain faith to a man who was an atheist because of his vast knowledge of things she’d never heard of? What was the Higgs boson? She wasn’t even sure what physics was.
“If it helps any, Skylar didn’t get along with Cameron either.”
That didn’t help at all. Ariana was supposed to be skilled at bridling her tongue and turning the other cheek.
“I need to jump in the shower,” Brandi said. “As soon as I’m dressed, we’ll go to the mall. We won’t have time to shop until we drop, but we’ll do some good damage before it’s time for you to meet Nicholas at the Apple Store.”
The mall. Nicholas demanded that Ariana couldn’t leave it until she had four dresses, a new hairstyle, and an iPhone. Once those things were accomplished, he would take her to the DMV so she could get her license.
“Any chance Nicholas changed his mind about letting me wear my prayer Kapp?”
Brandi looked sympathetic. “No. But I’ve been thinking about that. You know, a lot of Bible scholars feel the passages about a head covering are meant to be taken as symbolic, not literal.”
Nicholas had already explained that line of thinking to her. “Okay.” She forced the obedient word to leave her mouth and held up the manual. “I’ll be ready when you are.” That wasn’t completely true. She would never be ready for the changes being forced on her.
Halfway to the door, Brandi turned. “I wanted to show you some of my favorite cafés. Going to different ones is sort of a hobby of mine, and we’d have time to go by the closest one before going to the mall. They have pumpkin spice coffee and donuts this time of year.”
“That sounds nice. Thanks.” She wasn’t sure she could see someone else’s café without tearing up, but she would try.
Quill’s feet hit the ground with precise pacing as he ran, and his breath was as frosty as the ferns along the wooded path. He focused on the rhythmic beat of his steps, the swaying trees overhead—red maple, box elder, and white ash—and the brown leaves falling like snow.
Why can’t Ariana just call?
He tensed at the thought and refused to dwell on it. He put his eyes on the path in front of him and took note of the late October air. It smelled of hydrangeas and forest dirt.
But five minutes of decent conversation would help both of us…Okay, maybe only me.
Quill picked up his pace. If running ten miles on a Saturday morning wasn’t enough to shut out thoughts of her, he’d do fifteen—and push even harder.
His phone rang, and he almost tripped over his own feet. He dug the cell out of his fleece pants and glanced at the screen. His brother. He slid his finger across the phone. “Hey.”
“Something came Priority Mail Express, and it’s addressed to Mr. Quill.”
Whoever sent it obviously didn’t know him well. So how did the sender get the address for the temp house in Mingo? “Dan, the whole idea of my going for a run is to put life on hold for a while.”
“Then don’t take your phone.”
Quill kept the phone with him 24/7 in case Ariana called, which meant that he stayed keenly aware she wasn’t calling. His brother was right. “I’m at the Y in the road. I’ll be there in a minute.” He ended the call and turned left at the fork in the path, heading out of the woods and toward the trailer rather than taking the three-mile loop again.
Dan was at the mailbox, shoving the phone into his pocket and holding a Priority Mail Express envelope.
Quill slowed, breathing hard.
“Sorry.” Dan walked toward him, closing the gap. “I saw ‘Mr. Quill’ on the envelope, and I forgot about your preference for solitude when running.” He passed him the envelope.
“Not a problem.” He’d just leave the phone in his bedroom next time. As Dan and he walked toward the trailer, Quill peeled back the perforated strip on the thin cardboard envelope. A quick glance at the contents revealed a newspaper clipping of maybe two hundred words, three invoices of some sort, a photo, and a note. He opened the folded note.
Dear Mr. Quill,
He needs your help before it’s too late.
Sincerely,
Jake
The note appeared to be written by someone young, maybe under twelve. So who was the “he” and who was Jake? As he skimmed the short newspaper article, Quill followed Dan up the small steps and into the trailer. The key person in the article was Nate Lapp, who’d been found unconscious after falling from a hayloft.
Lexi lifted her head and wagged her tail, but she didn’t budge from her spot on the couch. She’d run with him the first three miles, but then she started lagging behind, and he brought her home before hitting the trail again.
The kitchen table had an array of business papers spread out, ones that hadn’t been there when Quill left for his run. “Been busy?” Quill looked at the many items on the table as he unfolded the invoices from the envelope. Love might make a person’s world go round, but paperwork made the business world go round.
“Yeah.” Dan tapped a yellow legal pad that had a long list of items, most with a red check beside them. “Trying to get all the work orders, plans, bills of sale, and memos in order for today’s meeting with McLaren. Speaking of which, I can’t find the electrical plans you used for the new phase of the development. I searched the storage bin in your room, and they aren’t there. Could they be in your car?”
>
Quill looked at the three invoices. “Maybe. I don’t think so.” He passed the newspaper clipping to Dan. “Read that.”
“Quill.” Dan snapped his fingers. “I need you to look in your glove compartment and trunk and under the seats before the meeting. Okay?”
Quill glanced up. “Yeah, sure.”
Dan didn’t look convinced and for good reason. Quill would dump paperwork and receipts in his car for a year or more before sorting through everything, which often meant getting a garbage bag and throwing it all out. He hated paperwork.
Dan dropped the topic and read the article while Quill studied the invoices again. They were bills from trips to an emergency room for Nate Lapp.
“Nate Lapp.” Quill mulled over the name while looking at the postmark on the envelope. It had come from Glen Rock, a town about forty miles west of Summer Grove. From where he was in Mingo, Quill could drive there in less than two hours. “Why do the names Nate Lapp and Glen Rock sound so familiar?”
“Because Glen Rock has a lot of Amish, and you must know a dozen Nate Lapps.”
“True.” Quill studied the info, trying to draw a memory to the front of his mind.
Dan turned the short article around to face Quill. “This is completely outside our abilities.”
“Maybe.” Quill took it back and looked at the picture. A scrawny kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen, was asleep in a hospital bed when someone took this picture, and he was as thin and frail as an old man. Something about the kid looked familiar.
“There’s no maybe here, Quill. We don’t offer to help anyone this young, and for good reasons.”
“Frieda was this young.”
“Totally different. Daed brought her to live with you and Mamm. You were able to see all the puzzle pieces and know what was really going on. We can’t know those things about this person’s life.”
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