Fraying at the Edge

by Cindy Woodsmall

  The scents of fall filled the air. The leaves had changed from green to reds and yellows, but now, on the last day of October, most of their beauty was muted by brown. Abram pulled his buggy onto Cilla’s driveway, parked by the shed, and walked to the front porch. Before he knocked on the door, she came out of the house.

  Her smile was weaker than usual, and she moved slowly toward a rocker. “Good afternoon.”

  “Hi.” Abram took her hand and helped her to the chair. “You all right?”

  Her gentle smile didn’t falter. “Oh, definitely fine.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  She chuckled, and he heard a rasping noise. “I’ll give you a break, Abram, and pretend you didn’t say that.”

  He grabbed a nearby rocker and turned it to face her before he sat. “You’re working at the café too much, aren’t you? And now you’ve agreed to go shopping with me.”

  “Work has nothing to do with it. I arrive hours after you do and leave hours before. My lungs are giving me a bit of trouble today. That happens regardless of what I do.”

  “Ya, maybe so, but you’re there from the time we open until we close, and work is tiring for those without breathing issues. You don’t have to do so much at the café.”

  “Are you already getting tired of me?”

  He smiled. “Not hardly. I just don’t want you doing too much.”

  “I think overdoing it is going from having a full-time roofing job to working at a café and not having a social life.”

  Abram gestured toward her. “This isn’t a social life?”

  A hint of shyness briefly crossed her face. “Only a person who has never had a social life would have to ask.”

  Abram laughed. “What about you? I don’t see you running around much.”

  “My sister Barbie has enough of a social life for both of us.”

  He’d rather avoid that topic. He studied Cilla. “Are you up to grocery shopping?”

  She put her hands on the armrests and pushed, shakily getting to her feet. “Yep.”

  Abram didn’t know whether to try to help her or not. Sometimes pulling on a person hurt more than helped. “Are you sure?”

  “Ya, I fear what Susie and Martha will have to bake with next week if you shop alone.”

  “Really?” Abram sighed. “I’m concerned about you, and you’re cracking jokes.”

  She held out her forearm. “Not just any jokes. Potshots at you specifically.”

  He took her arm and was surprised by how much support she needed to get down the steps. “Susie gave me a list: bread flour, sugar, salt, coffee…Besides, what’s so bad about my shopping?”

  “You ever shopped before?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “The list says coffee. What kind do we serve?”

  “Uh.” Was this a trick question? “Regular.”

  Cilla laughed. “No, the correct answer is local dark roast, and Skylar requested a light gourmet.”

  He opened the door for her and helped her get in. “Well, luckily, you will be able to keep me straight.”

  Cilla lifted one brow. “Good grief, Abram, no woman has that much energy.”

  He laughed and was still chuckling as he got into the rig on the other side.

  Cilla sat up straight as if trying to expand her lungs. “I’ve been watching Skylar this week, and I think you need to find a way to be her friend.”

  “A friend? She’s not interested in being anyone’s friend. I get the feeling she’s using great restraint to avoid acting like we’re the enemy.”

  “That’s probably a fair assessment. Seems as if she thinks she wants to be left alone to do her own thing, but she’s wrong.”

  Abram thought for a moment. “Wrong in thinking that’s what she wants or wrong to want it?”

  “Yes.”

  No one made him smile as easily as Cilla did. He leaned over and nudged her with his elbow. “You’re a little free with the advice, aren’t you?”

  She teasingly slapped at his arm. “Remember, this relationship started by your coming to me to ask my opinion.”

  “True.”

  “I’m just helping by noticing ahead of time where advice is needed.”

  “Like knowing I’d need you on this shopping trip.”

  “Exactly. My body may be frail, but I can still outshop any man.”

  “Good to know.” He tugged on the reins, slowing as they came to a stop sign. “I’ll make new efforts with Skylar.”

  A beautiful grin stretched across Cilla’s face. “Good.”

  They rode in silence until they pulled onto the gravel lot of a small grocery store. Abram set the brake on the buggy and went over to Cilla’s side and helped her down. She wobbled as she walked, and he left his hand on her arm. She smiled and gently pushed it away. “I’m fine.” He nodded, but he didn’t release her until they had a grocery cart for her to lean on.

  The store had hardwood floors and rows of staples. A young Amish woman stood behind the counter. Abram nodded at her, and she returned his gesture with a smile.

  “This is the wholesale store?” Cilla asked.

  “It carries bulk and is within driving distance for a horse and carriage.”

  “This place is bound to be expensive. We probably need to do some research.”

  Cilla guided the cart, using it to steady herself. When feeling well, she seemed to move as freely as anyone her age. But bouts of weakness came on so suddenly it bothered him.

  They discussed each item on his list and found the right ones, and he put them in the cart.

  “Ah, the coffee.” Abram loaded ten burlap bags.

  Then he saw that Cilla looked paler now.

  “We have enough for this trip.” He looked toward the front of the store, thinking he shouldn’t have let her come. “Let’s check out.”

  She gestured at his list. “Let’s finish.”

  “No, I think—”

  “Please don’t do this.” She paused, taking shallow breaths. “We came with a list, and when it’s filled, we’ll head home.”

  He nodded, but as they continued, her breathing worsened. He could hear her rasping even when she was several feet away. By the last aisle, she was leaning against the cart as if it was the only thing keeping her feet under her.

  Abram thought it would be best not to ask again if she was ready to go or if she was okay, because she would give the same answer. How often did her breathing get like this? He didn’t dare ask right now.

  Instead Abram put his left hand on the cart, and Cilla leaned against him. As they walked slowly down the aisles, Abram examined the prices. “The café could get more items for less if we went to a real wholesale store instead of one that just sells in bulk.” He picked up a twenty-pound bag of sugar. “But I’d need an Englisch driver, because there’s no way to get there except high-traffic roads, including the highway.”

  Cilla covered her mouth with a handkerchief as she coughed. “But hiring a driver would cost more than you would save, wouldn’t it?”

  “I didn’t think about that.” Abram paused for a moment. “If I asked Jackson, I’m sure he would take me.”

  “Hm. That sounds an awful lot like friendship.”

  “I’m not following.”

  She smiled. “Sometimes friendships lead to social lives.”

  Abram chuckled. “You’re worried about that, aren’t you?” He checked the basket. “I think we have plenty for the next couple of days.”

  He would call Jackson and ask him to drive him to the wholesale store.

  By the time they paid for the items, Cilla’s coughing spells were growing worse. Did she need to go to the hospital? He put the bagged items in the cart and got Cilla to the curb. “Wait here.” He hurried to the rig and pulled in front of the store. After he helped her into the carriage, he threw the bags in the back.

  When he got in, she was leaning against the headrest, trying to catch her breath.

  “Where to—home or hospital?�
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  She frowned. “It sounds worse than it is. Just take me home so I can get a breathing treatment.”

  He hoped that was true, but clearly she downplayed her health issues. Before they were halfway back to her house, night fell, and the air turned much colder. Cilla’s breathing was short and raspy, and he urged the horse to hurry.

  Something was wrong. Really wrong. In all his years of knowing her, he’d never heard her breathe like this. When they finally arrived at her home, Abram briskly walked over to help Cilla get down. She almost fell out of the buggy, so he scooped her in his arms and carried her up the porch steps.

  He jostled her a bit as he grabbed the doorknob and opened the door. “Hallo?” He saw no one and heard nothing. Cilla’s eyes were closed. Had she passed out? “We need some help,” he called out louder and immediately heard footsteps. Barbie entered first, and her mother trailed quickly behind.

  Barbie hurried to Cilla and unbuttoned her coat. “How bad?”

  Abram didn’t know how to respond.

  Cilla’s mother went to the sink and doused a kitchen towel in water.

  Barbie caressed her sister’s face, rousing Cilla.

  “Seven,” Cilla whispered.

  Barbie darted away.

  Steam rose from the towel in her mother’s hand as she laid it over Cilla’s chest, soaking her dress. “Can you carry her to her room?”

  “Ya. Where?”

  Emma led him up the stairs. “She needs to be fully on the bed but sitting upright.”

  “Okay.” By the time Abram eased Cilla onto the bed, Barbie was already on it, a breathing mask in hand.

  “Will she be all right?” he asked.

  “She’ll be fine.” Barbie eased the mask over Cilla’s nose and mouth. She then cupped her hand and hit her sister’s chest again and again.

  Emma moved tubes and cords out of the way, and Abram noted the electric cords went to a small adjoining balcony where there was apparently some sort of generator. “She won’t be able to work for a few days.”

  Guilt almost knocked his feet out from under him. Had working done this? Had going out today made it worse? “I never thought…”

  Barbie glanced at the machine and then went over to it and turned the knobs, making it beep. A mist entered Cilla’s mask.

  Cilla sucked in air. “Barbie—”

  “Sh.” Emma sat on the side of the bed, reaching for her daughter’s face. “Save your oxygen.” She brushed the back of her fingers across Cilla’s cheek.

  Abram hadn’t realized any of this. He’d known she was sick, but she had a generator to operate medical equipment and set methods for getting relief?

  Emma stood. “We need some privacy now, but she’ll be herself next time you see her.”

  Abram clutched Cilla’s hand. “I’m sorry.” Those were the only words that came to his mind.

  Cilla’s eyes reflected sadness, but she gave a weak smile and squeezed his hand.

  Once again Ariana stood in front of a full-length mirror, tugging at clothes that didn’t feel right. She wasn’t sure Brandi and Gabe’s bedroom was any more comfortable than the dressing room at the mall. She had on blue jeans because Nicholas said her day wouldn’t be a true experience in shadowing Quill on a construction job site if she wore a dress. His logic was sound, but it didn’t ease her conscience. Yesterday she’d performed onstage, and today she had on jeans with the intention of working on a Sunday.

  Her need to see Rudy was undeniable, but how many boundaries would she cross to win that victory? Singing at the fund-raiser had been intimidating, but once she was halfway finished with the song, it hadn’t felt wrong. Daunting, but not wrong. And ultimately the experience had landed her parents and her in a really good place, a healing place. But this? What would Rudy want her to do?

  Sitting in a chair beside the bed, Brandi leaned forward, nibbling the inside of her lip. “Those were mine when I was your age. My favorites. But you were three months old before I could fit into them again, and it was a tight squeeze at the time.”

  What a weird feeling to know that. Brandi had gained the weight while carrying Ariana, and yet Skylar was the baby in her care as Brandi returned to her former figure. It was a bit unsettling to think about, but Ariana couldn’t let the emotion derail her goal. She tugged at the seams along her thighs.

  Brandi leaned forward. “You have at least two extra inches around the waist and in the thighs. You’re smaller than I was back then. I say they’re not too tight. But even with the shirt not tucked in, you still don’t like them, do you?”

  “Women aren’t supposed to wear pants. That’s men’s clothing. And I can’t wear this. It’s just…immodest and unacceptable.” Ariana turned one way and then the other, studying the look before she lifted her eyes to Brandi’s. The moment their eyes met, she realized what she’d said. “Sorry, these were your favorite jeans, and that was rude of me.”

  Brandi got up and stepped behind Ariana, looking at her in the mirror. She stroked Ariana’s long ponytail. “Listen, kiddo, if we’re going to make this relationship work, you have to let what you’re feeling about me form into words.” Still behind her and looking into the mirror, Brandi put her hands on Ariana’s shoulders and gently squeezed. “You were disappointed to learn about your father and me. But I’m not easily offended, so stop bottling up what you think and feel.” She traced her fingers down a curly wisp of hair that dangled along the side of Ariana’s face. “I am your mom, and as great as being together onstage was, it would mean even more to me if we could move past where we are right now. I think the only way for that to happen is for you to say what you think. If you need to call me names, do it, and let’s get it out in the open.”

  Call her names? Ariana swallowed hard. What she thought and what she said were rarely the same when it came to Brandi and Nicholas. Did both of them know that about her? “I want to be okay with everything.”

  “Wanting to be okay with things is a good start. Unlike Nicholas, I grew up in church, and it took me years to learn how to be okay with what I had let happen. I did eventually forgive myself and find peace with my past. So it’s okay for you to take some time to adjust to the truth of that dirty little secret.”

  Brandi’s lack of offense over Ariana’s struggle not to judge her helped a lot. “Do you mind telling me some of what happened, like how you and Nicholas knew each other?”

  Brandi moved to the bed and sat. “I was his star voice student, and he was my professor. I fell head over heels. It was all very cliché.”

  “You were in love?”

  “I was.” She patted the bed and waited until Ariana sat beside her. “I thought he was too, but probably not. I believed his marriage was a mess. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. But later I understood that the state of his marriage didn’t matter, and whatever shape it was in was no excuse. But all I knew at the time was what I wanted.”

  “And after he divorced, he didn’t offer to marry you?” That kind of marriage would also be considered adultery for the Amish, but if his being married didn’t stop them from being together, what had?

  Brandi fidgeted with Ariana’s hair. “Whatever love or attraction we had between us just disappeared. By the time his marriage fell apart, Skylar was a toddler, and we resented each other so much that we couldn’t be in the same room without a war breaking out. And before you were born, I had determined to prove I didn’t need him or my parents or the judgmental church I’d grown up in.” Brandi paused, studying her. “I hope you can relate to some of those emotions—the overwhelming desire, resentment, and a need to stand on your own two feet.”

  “I’ve had some of those feelings.” Ariana hesitated to say what came to mind. The Amish didn’t talk about such things. But right then she knew the best way to stop judging Brandi was to bond with her, to be open and honest and real, because that was love, and love would banish judgment. “The strongest of my feelings is an overwhelming desire for Rudy.” Heat rose from her core and moved to her face
.

  “Rudy must be quite the young man.”

  Ariana nodded. “He’s perfect.”

  “The words of a woman in love.” Brandi chuckled while grabbing a brush. She removed the elastic from Ariana’s hair and began brushing it. “How did you two meet?”

  “It’s sort of a long story.”

  Brandi continued to brush her hair. “I’ve missed twenty years of your life. I would love to hear the long version.”

  Ariana explained about not dating until she was seventeen. “I went to the homes of various cousins outside of Summer Grove. At first I was just looking for a distraction because I was sick and tired of thinking about what Quill and my best friend had done a few years earlier.”

  Brandi paused. “What had they done?”

  “They ran off together.” She rolled her eyes. “They did me a favor. I know that now, but they were my friends, and their betrayal was every bit as difficult and instrumental in changing my future as learning I wasn’t a Brenneman.”

  Brandi began brushing her hair again. “That’s saying a lot.”

  “It is. Anyway…” Ariana talked on and on about Rudy and her.

  “Do you think I could meet him one day?” Brandi looked at her in the mirror again.

  In that moment Ariana saw a mom looking at her—her mom. “He’s very Amish.”

  “More than you?” Brandi wound the elastic into her hair again.

  “We are equally yoked in that.” Or they were. According to the mirror, she wasn’t sticking to the Old Ways very well.

  “I’m not going to hold his extreme Amishness against him, but you’re concerned how he’ll feel about me.”

  Ariana found Brandi’s honesty very disconcerting. “A lot has gone on that he doesn’t know about yet—about me—and I’m unsure how he’ll feel when he finds out.”

  “Ah, I’m not so sure Mr. Perfect is all you’re hoping for if he expects everything about you to be perfect.”

  “What’s happened in my life over the last couple of months has nothing close to perfect in it. It’s been a mess, and he’s not complained once. So if some of the information is too much, it doesn’t mean he’s a bad person or the wrong guy for me. It just means it’s too much for him.”