Fraying at the Edge (9 page)

“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.

Q
uill'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.”

“So whatever we do, we'll walk slower and lighter than usual.” Quill returned the newspaper clipping to Dan. “Did you catch where the article says he's accident prone, and yet an unnamed family member used the word
suicide
?”

“I saw it. Followed by ‘said Nate's twelve-year-old cousin.' We can't stick our foot in the door based on something a kid said—not to mention the severity of the word
suicide.
” Dan clicked his tongue. “And you know if Ariana got wind that you're even thinking of dabbling in—”

“Dan. Good grief. Breathe, man.” He picked up the envelope and dropped it on the table in front of Dan. “First, you're jumping way ahead. All we'll do is get some idea whether Nate is accident-prone or trying to take his life. If he has tried to end his life, it doesn't mean we'll get involved. He could have the best of homes and be mentally ill. We won't touch this request if that's the case. Second, I would do anything to help Ariana, but I can't and won't stop being who I am.”

“That gotta-be-me comment may be directly linked to your don't-ever-date singleness.”

“Good.” Quill went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water. Despite his quip to his brother, maybe Dan was right. Maybe the two things were connected, but he didn't think so. His inability to put effort into building a relationship with someone seemed directly connected to the baggage and emotional ties between him and Ariana.

After he opened the bottled water, Quill returned to the kitchen table and again looked at the newspaper clipping. “I know this kid. He used to come to Summer Grove with his family every other year. He's a second cousin to the Brenneman family.”

“Great. Your looking into this ought to help you and Ariana make peace.”

“Can't be helped, can it?” Quill knew he sounded flippant. That's not where his heart was, but his calling, if one could describe it that way, was to help any Amish person who needed him. Most Amish were good, loving, faithful souls, but when one wasn't or a family wasn't, there simply were no safety nets to help the victims, no safe harbor to run to, because the closed system allowed limited knowledge of who to reach out to and how to get help.

Even his love for Ariana couldn't make him turn a deaf ear to those who needed help. He pulled out his cell and, using the information on the bill, called the hospital. After a couple of transfers, a nice woman confirmed that Nate was still there, and she gave Quill his room number. He thanked her and disconnected the call. “Let's make an upbeat visit, walking lighter than helium.” He peeled out of his T-shirt. “I can be ready in fifteen. You?”

“How? We're going to sneak into a hospital room, unseen and unnoticed in broad daylight? And then we're going to ask this kid questions without him realizing what we're asking?”

“That's about the size of it. Where's your sense of adventure?”

“I don't have one. Never have.” Dan gestured toward the stacks of paperwork he needed to organize. “The meeting with McLaren is at four.”

“It's barely nine, and we'll be back in five hours with, at the least, a gut feeling about Nate and, at the most, some solid answers. That puts us back before three, plenty of time to make the meeting.” Quill went down the hallway to the bathroom. This kind of visit was much better if two people went. It was usually strained if two strangers tried to talk, but throw a third person into the mix and have the two who know each other talk about their Amish childhoods. Then the third would chime in, and the ice was broken.

“What if he has relatives there?” Dan asked.

“Don't know. We'll figure it out as we go.”