Gathering the Threads

by Cindy Woodsmall

  She laughed, but what really struck her was that he was a giver, whether that was running errands for Brennemans’ Perks, helping with this homeless group, or trying to lift people’s moods.

  What did she give unless backed into a corner?

  Ariana’s stomach tingled with butterflies as the tall roof of Rudy’s workshop came into sight. He was an easygoing man for the most part, which had probably been the saving grace in this relationship since her life over the last six months had been one long, wearying storm. He’d lost his temper only once, but that was because she decided to allow Quill to help her get the money to buy the café. A couple of days after her accident, she’d told Rudy what had happened to her in the woods and about Quill coming to the house and her planning to help him with a rescue.

  He hadn’t been pleased.

  Who could blame him? But it’d been nearly three weeks since the accident, and she could still feel the intensity inside her from those moments of seeing and hearing what wasn’t real. Well, it was real. It just wasn’t Quill’s actual voice. She’d been knocked loopy, and she heard what Quill would never say. Or maybe God was saying it for him. She’d had plenty of time to think about what happened, and the longer she thought, the more it felt as if God was directing her path.

  Rudy didn’t want her to go, especially with Quill. He’d asked her to reconsider, and she had. But she needed to do this one last thing, and she needed Rudy to understand it. He could go too. She’d been very clear about that. But his work was overwhelming right now, and she didn’t think he had any interest in doing something the ministers would frown upon if they found out.

  Afternoon sunlight glinted off the murky, dirty snow. Odd how something so clean and pretty as it fell from heaven and covered the earth turned ugly after resting on this planet only a little while.

  She slowed the carriage and tugged on the reins, turning onto the driveway in front of the workshop. The aroma of the meal she’d made for him filled the carriage, and she hoped this gesture would help him take her decision in stride.

  Taking the picnic basket with her, she got out, tethered the horse to the hitching post, and tapped on the workshop door.

  “Kumm,” Rudy groaned.

  She slipped inside, grateful to see he was alone. He was on a ladder, hammering on what looked to be the skeletal walls of a new shed. His brows were knit as he whacked the hammer with determination.

  He and his uncle built backyard sheds, usually on the person’s property, but they had received a huge order for a local garden shop, and they were doing as much prefab work as possible.

  When he stopped hammering, he looked her way, and a tender smile replaced his studious look. “Hallo. Des iss a surprise.”

  “Ya. Iss es allrecht?”

  “Very all right.” He grinned while climbing down. “Gut timing. Ich bin hungerich.”

  “Ach.” She pulled the picnic basket to her side, away from him. “You may be hungry, but it’s not for you,” she teased.

  “Good luck keeping it from me.” He reached for it.

  She hurried toward the door. He came up behind her and lifted her a few inches off the floor so that she was running with no traction, laughing.

  “Say it again, Ariana Brenneman.”

  “It’s yours. All of it.”

  He set her feet on the floor. “That’s more like it.” He peered down at her, smiling. “Hi.” Without any doubt he’d like a kiss, but she placed the basket between them.

  “Kumm.” She moved to a workbench, pulled a clean cloth from the basket, and spread it over the sawdust and dirt.

  “When I said I couldn’t get away for a date tonight, I didn’t expect this.”

  “I’m full of surprises.”

  “I’d say that’s accurate, ya.”

  She quickly put the shepherd’s pie, green beans, and rolls she’d made today on a plate and passed him a fork. Rudy dug in without pausing to pray. He was hungry. She retrieved fresh milk from the container of ice and poured it into a glass.

  “You’re not eating?” He reached for the milk.

  “Not right now.” She was too nervous to be hungry. “How many sheds do you have to build for that garden place?”

  “Twelve of various sizes, and they need them by March eleventh.”

  “Can you have that many done in two weeks?”

  “Ya, it’ll just take effort because that’s not the only order.” He took a few more bites. “Without knowing it, we built a shed for the brother of an owner of garden shops in Pennsylvania, and when the owner went in his brother’s shed last week and saw our work, he compared what we charged to what the factory charged, and he wants us to offer his customers a choice.”

  “That’s really good.”

  “Ya, for us too.”

  She meandered around the shop while he ate. Memories of her years with Quill in his Daed’s cooperage filled her mind. They’d worked and laughed, and she’d adored him. Any girl who’d been around Quill would’ve fallen for him. He was smart, fearless, and endlessly patient—a lot like his Daed, and Eli had been a good man. His early death had left a huge hole in Berta’s and Quill’s hearts. Hers too. He’d been like a second Daed, and if he were here, he’d have one of his quiet talks with her Daed about letting her return to the café. The district lost a solid voice of reason when Eli passed, a role Quill could’ve taken if he hadn’t felt compelled to get Frieda out. What had happened that Frieda needed medical help and the ministers balked? They didn’t usually meddle when it came to a person’s health. Although they had opposed Salome getting skin grafts for Esther because they felt their poultice method was tried and true. Poultices for burns were part of the Old Ways. But Frieda hadn’t been burned. Whatever the reason, Quill felt it was too personal to tell Ariana the whole story, and despite the numerous texts she and Frieda had shared while Ariana was living Englisch, Frieda never told her.

  She saw Rudy gazing into the picnic basket. “Something on your mind?” she teased.

  “I smell something sweet.”

  “You do.” She returned to the basket and pulled out a plate of fresh-baked chocolate croissants. Removing the cloth, she said, “Voilà.”

  He took one and bit into it. “As gut.”

  “I’m glad you like them.”

  He’d told her earlier in the week he wouldn’t be able to go out tonight, and she hadn’t come here to be a needy girlfriend who couldn’t be away from him on a date night, so she should tell him her decision and let him get back to work.

  She poured him some more milk as he took another bite of the croissant. “I’ve decided to help Gia and her children.”

  Rudy’s hand was halfway to his mouth when he stopped cold. He stared at her. “What?” It wasn’t as much a question as an outcry of anger. “I thought this dinner was your way of saying you wouldn’t go. That you’d chosen to do as I wanted.”

  “I know this isn’t what you were hoping for, but it’s only for one specific thing, not an ongoing issue.”

  He tossed the croissant onto the workbench. “What could Quill possibly need your help with?”

  “I told you. There’s an Englisch woman with three children in Camp Hill, and they’re caught in a really volatile situation.”

  “He’s helping a woman leave her husband?”

  Ariana had talked to him about all this weeks ago. Apparently he’d been more preoccupied with work than she’d realized.

  “An ex-husband who isn’t allowed to have unsupervised visits, and yet he’s moved in with her against her will. He keeps her moving from rental to rental, which keeps him from getting caught and arrested. It’s very complicated, and all of it is worse because she’s afraid to turn him in. If he kills her, the children will be raised in fear and violence, moving constantly to keep him from getting caught. Or if he leaves them behind, they’ll be raised by the state. I don’t understand all the intricacies, but I know he only lets her out of his sight once every four weeks while she gets groceries and he waits for
her in the car outside the store.”

  “He doesn’t work? No other time she could slip away from him?”

  Ariana shrugged. “My understanding, which could be very different from the facts, is when he leaves the house, he has a brother watch her, making sure she doesn’t leave. I don’t know if that’s true, but it probably doesn’t have to be. She’s terrified of trying to get away, which is where Quill and I come in.”

  “Not the words I ever wanted to hear from you again once you returned home: ‘Quill and I.’ ”

  “I know, but—”

  “This is absurd. I don’t know how to make you see that. It’s dangerous, and I don’t want you to be a part of it.”

  “I understand.”

  “And yet you’re going anyway.” Rudy crossed his arms, studying her. “Is he still baby clothes to you?”

  “What?”

  “Last fall when you accepted his help in figuring out a way to earn money to buy the café, I objected, and you said he was baby clothes—things people pull out of storage and feel nostalgic about but they would never want to return to that time. You said Quill was like baby clothes to you. And you said you could never be drawn to a man who was in staunch rebellion to the Old Ways.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond. Since that time she’d slowly changed her staunch, uncompromising belief system. It had broadened but strengthened. During her time with the Englisch, she’d come to see life and Quill very differently. In the past she had to work to cope with their differences, but now they felt and thought similarly in many areas.

  Stand in front of Rudy, take him by the hands, and tell him what he means to you. But she didn’t. Instead she put the dirty dishes back in the basket. “It was rude to call him baby clothes. But this trip isn’t about any personal feelings toward Quill. I know I’m supposed to help him get that woman and her children out.”

  “This situation you’re talking about is ridiculous. I don’t want you involved in it in any way, especially not with him.”

  “It sounds dangerous. But the man will never see me, and I’ll only need maybe ten minutes with the woman. Once she agrees for her and the children to go with us, we’ll go out the back of the store, where the loading docks are, leave in a rented vehicle, and head for the airport. I’ll drop them off and go to my dad’s house for the night.” She was leaving out a lot of details, including that taking them to the airport wouldn’t work if the woman didn’t have her ID and her children’s.

  “Nicholas’s house?” Rudy’s voice got louder every time he spoke.

  “Ya. I’ll park the rental in his garage. He’ll bring me home in his car, and Monday afternoon he’ll return the rental.”

  “How did you work out all of this since meeting Quill that Sunday evening?”

  “My phone.”

  His face matched his reddish-brown hair, and anger flashed from his eyes. “I didn’t sign up for this, Ariana.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  “Are you serious?” He picked up his hammer and flung it across the room. “That’s it? You’re sorry?”

  Other than the one time he’d lost his temper with her, he’d supported her in every way and through every single thing. She prayed God would help them once again. The outbursts didn’t bother her. She cried when upset and could talk the hind legs off a mule while working through things. Rudy yelled, pounded one fist into the other, and apparently threw hammers across the room.

  “Maybe I should repeat what I told you when I explained all of this. I feel God is asking this of me. I could be wrong. Who can know the mind of God? But I have to follow what I think He wants. I know this is hard on you, Rudy, and you’re right to be weary of the constant challenges to our usual quiet way of life, but my world, my dreams, are here with you. It’s just that I have to do this one thing that’s really outside of normal. If you think about it, the Amish do outreach like this from time to time.”

  “Not without the blessing of the bishop and never alongside someone who’s left the Order. Why you? Why would Quill be willing to put you in this predicament?”

  “Because I asked. I need to do this. When it’s over, I’ll leave Quill at the airport with Gia and the children, and I’ll tell him good-bye. After I return to Summer Grove, you have my commitment that I will have very limited contact with Quill. And to be fair, you did sort of sign up for this, ya?”

  He frowned and sighed, but a few moments later a hint of a smile came through. “I knew the moment I saw you that you weren’t like any other woman I’d ever met, Englisch or Amish. I was right, and I’m glad. I really am.”

  “Gut. Because right now that not-like-any-other woman really feels a deep need to do this. And Quill has a good plan.”

  “No secure, detailed plan of Quill’s will keep you out of trouble with the bishop if any of the ministers find out. There will be no coming back from it. Forget regaining your reputation.”

  Her heart pounded in her ears, and her chest hurt for all she was putting Rudy through, but she was confident she was supposed to do this, whether for Quill or God or herself she wasn’t sure. “I think it’s the right thing to do, Rudy.”

  He slumped onto a barstool. “I have no argument for that.”

  She went across the room, picked up his hammer, and held it out to him. “Just keep working. I’ll be back Sunday.”

  “It’s a church Sunday.”

  “I know. Nicholas said he can have me home in time.”

  “And if he can’t have you here in time, what then? Are we supposed to lie and say that you’re sick?”

  “No. I…I’ll be back in time.” She nodded. “I will.”

  Sitting on her side of the bed, Lovina sewed a button on Isaac’s shirt. The kerosene lamp burned bright. He was next to her, restless and looking through his Bible for answers. Even though it was a Friday night, their offspring were home and getting ready for bed. The café opened early, although that didn’t explain why Ariana and Rudy weren’t out tonight. Lovina glanced at her husband, praying a conversation could open between them.

  Isaac tapped the open Bible. “It clearly says that we need to submit to the authority over us. And the bishop and other ministers feel strongly that we’ve done the right thing by applying pressure about her phone and keeping her here instead of allowing her to go to the café.”

  Her fingers trembled as she worked the needle through the hole in the button. She wanted to stand up and scream how wrong she thought he was. “The bishop doesn’t have to live with the fallout, does he?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Umpteen years ago the bishop told you it was God’s will for disease to take so many head of cattle that we couldn’t make ends meet. When his son lost cattle five years ago, he said it was God’s will that people pull together and give him more than he had before the disease struck.”

  “Lovina, tread lightly.”

  “There are many good bishops among the Amish. Most, even. But this one makes decrees that aren’t fair, maybe because he doesn’t have to live with the fallout. But we do. You and Ariana were as tight as any Daed and daughter I’ve ever known. There was a special bond, no?”

  “I thought so.”

  “Will the bishop lose anything by demanding she give up what he would never demand his own children to give up?”

  “His two oldest have phones for business, but we don’t know that the others do.”

  “We know. We saw it on the bishop’s face when Mark offered to gather all the cell phones in the community.”

  “There is no proof, Lovina.” Rubbing his whiskers, he closed his eyes. “It’s not enough that Ariana has defied me to my face? You are against me too?”

  “When I was unbearably distressed about my negligence concerning the girls and then rushing to make them switch places, you comforted and encouraged and forgave me. I want to be there for you in that same way. But my mistakes had already happened. We are in the middle of this, and perhaps we could change the course of things if
we talk honestly before more horrid mistakes are made.”

  “Then talk.”

  “When Ariana returned, I think maybe you weren’t braced for all the weird, overwhelming feelings that were a part of adjusting to her being so different, to her having a mom and dad out there that she also listens to. It’s like we were in a carriage going downhill too fast, and when we ran off the road, we overcorrected the horse’s movements. And now we could lose all control if we don’t relax the reins.”

  Isaac fidgeted with the thin pages of his Bible. “Ya, I fear the same.”

  Lovina was grateful to know he was rethinking his position. He’d been so quiet about everything since Ariana returned. She stuck the needle into the shirt and reached out to hold his hand. “Your goal concerning her is God centered, but it’s not working. Actually, it may be working in reverse. She’s calmly accepted her lot in not going to the café, as if she’s settled in, ready to wait you out. She clearly met Quill privately somewhere before he arrived here asking to speak with her.”

  “Am I to free her to have contact with her godless parents and whoever else she met while draus in da Welt?”

  “She is free. Out of love and respect for you, she’s staying where you’ve told her. She hasn’t moved in with Berta. She’s not going to her café. But she’s an adult. She has money and regular income. She has two Englisch parents who would welcome her back. She has a biological dad and could easily say, ‘God has made him my head, not you.’ But she hasn’t. Not yet.”

  He pulled free of Lovina’s hand and clutched his head. “We sent her out there. And then I held her accountable for getting the dust of the world on her feet. But I thought with a bit of pressure from me, she would shake it off, as Jesus said to.”

  “This world you refer to is her family. She returned to us, ready to be true to a life she wasn’t born into, but that wasn’t enough. Why?”

  “I thought it was my duty to bring her back in line. Still do.”

  “Something’s not right about how well she’s accepted your refusal to let her go to the café, and that scares me. Ariana said she and Brandi had gone to lots of cafés while she was with them. They gathered recipes and practiced them in Brandi’s kitchen, all in preparation for Ariana coming home to her café. You take it from her, and she hardly says a word?”