Dan stood and walked to the fireplace. “So you’ll be her best friend until the right man comes along and she falls in love again?”
“That’s about the gist of it. Look, I never expected the future with her to be easy. And I’ll say this one last time, so hear me: after everything is said and done, I don’t believe she could leave the Amish any more than I could cope with joining them.”
“Have you asked her? Have you told her how you feel?”
“No, and I won’t. Our volunteer work is valuable. Her contributions to the Amish are not any less important than me getting women and children out of violent situations. The strides she’s making to open minds and hearts to truths the people in Summer Grove have never known or considered are incredible. If she leaves for any reason, but maybe especially if she left to be with me, an iron door will close.”
Mamm knelt beside him, looking deep into his eyes. “Quill, you getting a chance to build a life with Ariana is why I’ve stayed. It would’ve been so much easier to move back to live with my relatives in Indiana or even to leave the Amish and join you boys in Kentucky. But when you left with Frieda, and I was silently nudging you to do so, I came to realize how deeply Ariana loved you. She was young, and I thought that at fifteen she was only capable of a crush and she’d be over it in a few months. But I was wrong. She grieved hard for two years. When she came of dating age, she couldn’t stomach the idea of going out with anyone for a while, and then she started dating a lot in order to put behind her what she felt for you. So when I saw how much you loved her, I decided to stay. Not interfering or nudging you two together in any way. Just being here so you could run into each other. But you’re not even going to ask her out or anything?”
“I knew you were the best Mamm in the world.” Quill plunked his mug on the table and looked at Dan. “Finally we know why Mamm wouldn’t leave. What you’ve given Ari and me is incredible. The healing of past hurts I caused her is complete. She respects why I left. You did that, Mamm. Your sacrifice gave me the incredible friendship I have with her. But, Mamm, we can’t let all these wonderful freedoms the new bishop is allowing cause us to forget that in her heart she’s Amish and in my heart I’m not.”
Mamm nodded. “I wanted to do more. I wanted to make up for wrong steps, wrong—”
“You know what, Mamm?” Quill clutched his hands around hers. “We love you so much for all you’ve done. Look around this room and absorb it. Please don’t dip regret out of yesteryear’s pool based on what we know today. If only we’d known this, we could’ve done that. I felt the same way after talking to the detective. But we didn’t know. We can’t rewind the clock. What we can do is stand in faith, trusting we have the strength for each new day. All of us are here, in your home together on Christmas Eve. That is an act of God, so let’s celebrate that miraculous gift.”
Mamm smiled, nodding. “Okay.”
Quill helped her stand. He offered her his chair, but she didn’t sit.
“I have food to fix and presents to wrap.” She walked toward the kitchen but stopped.
Quill sat again.
Dan scratched his head. “Then what can we do to help if this no-win love affair continues across the decades?”
“Dan, stop,” Regina scoffed while shifting Gavin on her hip. “All this endless talk of how things might go, and you, dear husband, are ignoring the fact that every concern you’ve expressed over Quill’s future could unravel with one strong tug by the gatherer of threads herself—Ariana.”
Quill’s heart thudded at the thought. He couldn’t ask her to leave the Amish for him, but at the same time, he knew his will to leave her Amish life intact would come undone if Ariana fell in love with him. “You understand that even under the new ministers, her leaving would cause a difficult division between her and her family. They love her, and that won’t change, but their contact with her would be considered a bad influence on the family and the community as a whole.”
“But they allow Skylar to come and go,” Regina said.
“That’s different. She was raised Englisch and came to them as a drug-addicted mess. They helped her. The Amish ways got her on the right path for her. That’s a positive story. Skylar was an outsider from the start, but Ariana was raised Amish. If she turns away, she won’t be invited to weddings or births or birthday parties or holidays or even to a meal or to sit by the fire in the backyard and visit. They would have no choice but to consider her lifestyle as a poison she could pass on to others, especially those who haven’t joined the faith. The adults would come to her place to visit, bring a dish, and stay for coffee, but she’d never again be welcome to join at will any family event. Come on, Regina, you know how this works. It’s a divorce, and Ariana would lose custody of everyone who’s Amish. We are all back in Mamm’s house after years of battling, in part because she has no young Amish relatives that we could have a bad influence on. But could we go into any other Amish home to visit?”
She shook her head. “No. But love doesn’t yield to facts. It doesn’t fade because of obstacles or because there’s pain that will have to be carried for a lifetime. Love bears all things and keeps thriving.”
Quill didn’t want that kind of loss for Ariana. But if she offered to leave the Amish for him, he would accept it. Still, it was too much for her to give up, even for a man who loved her more than life itself. His hope was that love would bear them remaining friends and nothing more. That’s what was best for everyone involved, especially her.
“Knock, knock, knock.” Ariana’s voice echoed through the house, and a moment later she was standing in the doorway of the living room, her arms filled with presents. “Merry Christmas!”
His family welcomed her, and Dan lifted the gifts from her arms. Her eyes met Quill’s, and she raised an eyebrow while grinning. “That’s your deep-in-thought position.”
He lifted his arms from the chair, looking at how he was sitting. “Is it?”
The sound of thunder rumbled through the house, and he knew the children were running. A moment later they hurried into the living room, laughing. Lexi was bouncing along with them as if she was part of the pack.
Ariana pulled a pair of ice skates off her shoulder and passed them to Quill. “You needed new skates. These are used, but they’ll fit and work. Midnight. At the pond. Ya?”
Before he could answer, she melted to the floor, talking to his nieces and nephews about what they hoped to get for Christmas.
She didn’t need for him to respond. There was no other answer but yes.
He knew they would skate and laugh and talk until he would barely be able to keep from pulling her into his arms.
April
Steam rose in Abram’s face as he stood over the grill, bacon sizzling on one side and six buttermilk pancakes cooking on the other. Martha was beside him, scrambling eggs and making toast. He glanced out the pass-through, seeing the new help as well as three of his sisters—Ariana, Skylar, and Susie—hustling to keep up with the Saturday crowd. Cilla was somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t see her.
It was hard to believe that Ariana and Rudy had broken up more than a year ago. But after a couple of months, she’d seemed perfectly fine with it.
The low rumble of the café made him smile. It had closed for a week last month while a construction crew tore down a wall to the building next door and connected the two spaces. Ariana had bought that building too. That area now had seven couches, eight love seats, and three coffee tables scattered throughout, along with a dozen regular café tables with four chairs each.
He worked only on Saturdays now and on snowy or rainy days when roofing was at a standstill. Other than that, he and Jax were a team again, working long, productive hours on construction sites.
The café had become like an extension of the family’s home, a place where they gathered to have special meals or to sample Ariana’s newest recipes. Sometimes Ariana made anniversary dinners for their siblings and served only that one couple. Tonight she was serving Mamm
and Daed a special meal here, but since it wasn’t their anniversary or either of their birthdays, Abram wasn’t sure why.
Cilla came through the swinging door, giggling about something. “Is the newest batch of chocolate croissants almost done?”
Martha put scrambled eggs on two plates that already had toast and bacon. She set them on the line. “Table two, please.” She seized the pot holders. “I’ll check the croissants, but the timer says they need three more minutes.”
Cilla grabbed the plates, paused in front of Abram, and winked. September, the month they would marry, could not come soon enough for them. Every person who intended to join the faith would begin instruction classes next month. Abram returned the wink, and Cilla left the kitchen, causing the swinging door to swoosh back and forth.
He gripped two warm plates and set them on the counter and then stacked three pancakes and three pieces of bacon on each. “Table four. Order up.” He moved the plates to the line.
Susie came into the kitchen, looking content and confident. She was still seeing Levi, the young Amish man she’d begun dating about nine months ago. He was really nice, two years older than Susie, and lived a few districts outside of Summer Grove. “Denki.” She wasted no time taking the plates to table four.
All the café work would draw to a close for Abram and Cilla come fall. Once they were married, they would spend their Saturdays going through the process to become foster parents, and after they were licensed, they’d be busy caring for the foster children given to them. It had taken Cilla only a few weeks to be absolutely sure that she and Abram were meant to marry and, after talking with a nearby foster family, that they were meant to provide a home for foster children. Maybe one day God would allow them to become the forever parents to a few of those children.
Skylar’s understanding of the foster-care system had been very helpful in getting them started.
Ariana swooshed into the kitchen just as the timer rang.
“How do you do that?” Abram asked. “You always waltz into the kitchen the moment the timer is going off for the croissants.”
She grabbed pot holders. “Could be because it takes two days of prep to get them just right, and every part of me knows when they’re ready.” She removed the large pan from the oven and set it on the cooling counter. “Or it could be because I keep a timer in my apron pocket set one minute earlier than this one.” She held up the timer from her pocket, chuckling.
“How did I not know that?” Abram looked at the orders on the rail to see what he needed to fix next.
“Guys.” Skylar walked into the kitchen, hair in a ponytail, wearing jeans and a lacey pink tunic and holding a pot of coffee. “The hot plate for the coffee is cold. The generator seems to have cut out again.”
Abram passed Skylar his white apron. “I’ll see what’s going on.”
Skylar put the apron on and took over his place behind the grill. He grabbed his toolbox and went outside.
Ariana put on a sweater and walked out with him. “I refilled the tank before we opened.”
“Ya, I know.” Abram jiggled things, checked the tank, and tried to start it. The engine didn’t turn. He got a Phillips screwdriver out of the toolbox. “There is no reason for this thing to act up. It’s April, decent weather and everything,” he mumbled while removing screws. “You know what you need, Ari? An Englisch partner so we can get approval to have electricity in the café. Skylar would agree to be that person, so why not ask her?”
Ariana moved to the small set of steps that led to the back door of the café. “I don’t want to put her in an awkward position. She’s here now, living in the loft and working at will, but if she becomes a partner, it would come with responsibilities and some weird dynamics to be DNA Amish and lifestyle Englisch. Besides, I…I have a plan to solve the issue. I just need a little more time.”
“Ya?” He removed the cover. “Sounds good. What kind of plan?”
When she didn’t answer, he set the cover aside and took a seat next to her. “Want to talk about it?”
“Ya. I’ve wanted to for a while, but it seemed right to talk to Mamm and Daed first.”
“Ah, the reason you’ve made plans for just them to come here for dinner tonight, a private place to talk openly.”
She stared out across the field. “Everyone did so much to get this café running while I was away, and you’ve never wavered in your love and respect, but…”
“You aren’t joining the faith.”
“I’m sorry.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. He’d been fairly sure this was coming, but there weren’t any words to describe the feeling. He was both disappointed for the loss it would mean and elated that she would be true to her heart and not follow the expectations others placed on her. “Mamm and Daed won’t be as shocked or as hurt as you think.”
She turned to look at him, and her eyes reflected hope that he was right. “I thought it was the right thing, the only thing, to remain Amish. I’ve been convinced God’s purpose for me is that I use my knowledge of the worlds I know—Englisch and Amish, atheists and believers—to open minds and usher in truth and faith on all sides. But…”
“Now you’re choosing not to go through instruction to join the faith.”
She nodded.
Abram rubbed her shoulder. “I’m behind you, Ari. No one can fix all the ramifications of your decision, but I think with some time most of the Brennemans will learn to respect your decision, and I know Mamm and Daed will.”
May
Ariana put the finishing touches on the oversize birthday cake, staying on task when what she longed to do was walk across the Schlabach kitchen, cradle Quill’s face, and kiss him. It was fully possible she’d accomplish more if she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. He was steadfast in friendship and stubbornly pretending there was nothing else between them.
Kerosene lamps burned as voices echoed off the walls. For the first time since Christmas, the whole gang of Schlabachs was at Berta’s again, as well as Frieda and the young Mennonite man she was dating, Ryan. It was an evening set aside to celebrate every adult birthday. The Schlabachs and Frieda drew names and would exchange gifts after dinner. It was both a practical and memorable way of doing adult birthdays.
Ariana wasn’t part of the family gift exchange, but Berta had asked her to help fix the meal and cake. Even if Berta hadn’t asked, Ariana would still be here rather than with her Brenneman family. This was where she wanted to be. The more time she spent with Quill, the more time she wanted. Her feelings for him were driving her crazy. There was something so deep between them that it defied description.
“Hey.” Quill’s soft voice came from behind her, startling her. “Where are you?”
She realized then that Berta had called to her moments earlier. “Oh.” Ariana glanced at the set table filled with food and surrounded by people. “We need to talk.”
Last month when she’d told her parents she wasn’t joining the faith, they had taken the news much better than she’d expected. But Daed had asked her to wait before officially coupling with Quill, not that they’d used the term coupling. He felt the family needed time to adjust, to talk about it openly. Her Daed asking for time to embrace the concept wasn’t something he’d have done or even known he needed a year ago, so she’d agreed. Today was a month later, and her Daed had given her a gift to bring to Quill.
Quill’s eyes were glued to her face. “A good talk or a bad one?”
“Good.” She longed to grab him by the collar, pull him close, and tell him how she felt. “Really good.”
Quill’s smile warmed her heart. “Then what are you waiting for?”
“Hey, guys?” Regina called. “Very restless kids. Let’s eat, please.”
Ariana winked at Quill. “It’s time to eat.”
“I don’t want to.”
“That’s a first.” She set the decorating bag on the counter. “We’ll talk later, after cake and presents and cleaning up the kitch
en.”
“Just torture a man, Ariana Brenneman.” He talked while making his way toward his chair. “Anything else you need us to do first. Maybe milk the big herd at your Daed’s place or something?”
She chuckled and took a seat. As Quill moved to the opposite side of the table, she could feel his eyes on her. After the prayer they passed the food around, and conversations flowed easily.
“So,”—Frieda passed her a bowl of mashed potatoes—“we think we’ve found a solution for where to live…after our July wedding, of course. I’d like to move within easy driving distance of here.”
Schlabach Home Builders had a huge construction site not too far away, and the brothers had their homes in Kentucky up for sale. They intended to move about twenty miles outside of Summer Grove, far enough away they weren’t bumping into Amish constantly, but close enough to visit Mamm more easily. Quill had yet to decide what to do. It made little sense to keep a place in Kentucky when their work for the next five years or more would be in Pennsylvania.
“About fifteen miles north of here, we found a cute home to rent that would work nicely. It’s about halfway between Berta’s place and Ryan’s parents. I would just need to learn to drive.”
The Schlabachs rumbled with approval. She’d met Ryan at a Mennonite multichurch event, and they seemed perfect for each other. And Quill, his brothers, and sisters-in-law had wanted her to get up the courage to learn to drive for quite a while now.
Ryan held out the bread to Frieda. “And I’m not teaching her. Apparently I make her nervous.” He smiled at her in a way that was clearly flirting.
Dan cut a piece of steak. “Ariana picked up on driving pretty quickly, right? Maybe she could take you for a spin and show you a few things. You’d have to jump on that fast, though. Mamm, didn’t you say that instruction begins during church tomorrow?”
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