Fraying at the Edge (23 page)

O
nce 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.”

Brandi smiled. “See.” She touched her own lips. “You voiced your heart. In your own way you told me to back off, and yet we're both still here, neither one broken or vaporized by God. If you want Nicholas to hear you, you have to speak up for yourself.”

But nowhere in the Bible did it say she could do that with her father. She had to honor her mother, but the Bible was much stricter about what could and couldn't be said to her father.

Ariana's head was beginning to ache. “If I can earn the right to see Rudy, will Nicholas let me wear my Amish clothes?”

“We'll talk him into it.” Brandi put a finger through a belt loop and tugged. “But for today can you wear a pair of jeans?”

“I'm not sure God or I approve.”

“You're a tad uptight, girl.” Brandi held her index finger and thumb an inch apart. “I'm beginning to understand why Nicholas put ‘have fun' on your to-do list.” She rested a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow. “What did you used to do for fun?”

“You mean besides going to singings?” Ariana stood. “Being poor is pretty cheerless, I guess. Fun to me was working hard enough that no one went hungry or naked or dirty.”

“I'm proud that's who you are, and I'm sure your Amish family appreciated it, but could you try to relax and enjoy yourself a little now?”

“It's Sunday. I have on jeans, and I'm going to work.”

Part of her reward for doing this today was that Nicholas and Brandi would attend church next Sunday—different churches. But it seemed to Ariana that she had a lot of spiritual lessons and life truths to learn outside of church. She'd judged her parents as sinners while aiming to get them to church. Why? Was it because she cared about them or because she could better tolerate their past and present if they went to church? Or was it because she felt obligated? Where was her love and acceptance? Church existed because of love and forgiveness, not because of man's accusations and disapproval.

“The Amish milk their cows on Sundays, right?” Brandi asked. “I don't see the issue, but the decision is yours.”

“Decisions were a lot easier back home.”

“I can imagine.” Brandi held up one finger. “Hang on. I have an idea.”

God, am I selling out?

Brandi returned and held out a black sweater. “Try this cardigan.”

Ariana put it on, and the bottom came below her backside. “That helps.” But she wasn't sure it was enough.

Gabe came to the bedroom. “How's it going, ladies?”

Brandi turned, a slight smile on her lips. “Good, I think.”

Ariana nodded. Gabe and Cameron had gone for a run. Of late it seemed the whole world made time to run.

Cameron glanced in as she passed, and then she stopped and backed up. She stared at Ariana. “
That
I like. Uh…”—Cameron rubbed the side of her neck—“could I go with you?”

That was definitely the voice of a little sister wanting to tag along. “Not wearing that, you can't.”

Cameron tugged at the hem of her shorts. “Prude.” She sighed. “I'll be right back.” She pointed at Ariana. “Don't leave without me.”

Gabe's eyes met Brandi's, and he raised both brows, as if he couldn't believe what was going on. He looked at Ariana. “Thanks.”

“She may regret asking, but I'm glad she's coming with me. Quill is subdued and quiet, very restrained, and she's stuck on wide open. It should be an interesting day.”

“That's one word for it.” Gabe chuckled. “But I think you have the big-sister bug, and Cameron can feel it.” He gestured toward Brandi. “From what she's told me, she had the mom bug from the moment she heard your heartbeat when you were just a ten-week-old fetus.”

Ariana studied Brandi. That didn't compute somehow.

Brandi tossed the brush onto the bed. “He's right. It took me a month to adjust to the news that I was expecting you, but once I heard your heartbeat, I fell so in love, and despite the stresses of single parenting, I enjoyed it.”

Enjoyed it? Hadn't she wallowed in guilt and shame? Ariana would have. Not only did this new information go against the image Ariana had of how she'd entered this world as an unwanted mistake, but it also made her realize that judging was easy. It came naturally. But not allowing the expectations of society or the church to ruin one's joy had to be far harder. It had to take a strength Ariana was completely unfamiliar with.

A cell phone pinged, and Brandi went to the nightstand and picked up her phone. While she read the text, her phone rang. Barked actually. Her ringtone. “It's Nicholas.” She glanced at Gabe. “A text and a call. I need to take this.” She swiped her finger across the screen and put it to her ear. “Hey, what's going on?” Brandi listened, nodding. “Okay. Yeah, I'll tell her. If it's a problem, I'll call you.” She disconnected the call. “Uh, sweetie.” She reached for Ariana's hand. “Our performance yesterday was posted on YouTube. No one has your name attached to it, but it's live and gaining hits.”