Lovina watched at the doorway of the barn, making sure none of her children came near as she tried to talk to her husband once again about a topic he didn’t wish to discuss. He continued to pick the horse’s hoofs as if that animal’s comfort was more important than hers.
Her desire to remain respectful grew thin as she fidgeted with the flier from the play. “Isaac, please.” Her whisper echoed in her ears, but he didn’t flinch. “We may have raised a child who is planning to leave. And this thing with the flier and Ariana has me terrified. I can’t deal with these things in silence. I need you to talk to me.”
“Don’t borrow trouble, Lovina.” Isaac spoke without pausing or looking up. “Other than a cryptic message from Quill, we have no hint that one of our own is planning to leave. Ariana needs to work through her fears her way, and I understand that, but I will not believe a report that the sky is falling.”
Lovina’s anxiety eased concerning the possibility that one of her children might leave the Order. “That’s a good answer, Husband. Denki.” But a much harder topic for them to discuss was the events surrounding Ariana’s birth. They hadn’t broached the subject often. “But what about the flier and Ariana?”
After wrestling with her fears on her own, she’d shared them with him late last night as they crawled into bed. First she reminded him of the pink blanket without the embroidered feet, but he dismissed that just as he had years ago, saying that in the panicked shuffle to get everyone outside during the fire, the blankets had fallen off the girls, but the babies’ identities were handled carefully. When she explained what Mark had seen and the name Brandi being in the flier, he froze. But then he told her it was nothing to consider, just her imagination running wild. He blew out the candle and rolled over to face the wall, unwilling to discuss the possibility.
She wiped sweat from her brow. “Could you please stop for one minute and look at me?”
Without raising his head, he moved to a different leg of the horse. “This is nonsense. Ariana is ours. God gave her to us, and I won’t question it.”
“Won’t question it? Isaac, you have to talk to me. I feel as if I’m going crazy. My heart has beaten so fast since Mark brought home that flier that I can hardly breathe, and I’ve never been so nauseated in all my life.”
He stood upright and slipped the hoof pick into his pocket. “You won’t like what I think.”
“I’ve got to know.” As desperate as her voice sounded, it didn’t begin to express how she felt.
He blew out a long, steady breath. “I’ve not forgotten the chaos that took place the night the twins were born. The incident with the blankets has bothered me over the years, and I know your fear about the two girls being swapped is certainly feasible. But…”
Her heart seemed to pause, unable to beat until he finished his thoughts. “Go on.”
He pursed his lips, a frown creasing his face. “If God deemed this incident to happen, seems to me that we would be wrong to intervene.”
“What?” she whispered, chills covering her as if she were standing naked in the barn in midwinter.
He said nothing else.
“Isaac.” Was it her ingrained beliefs of how to speak to a husband or the pounding at her temples that kept her voice so soft? “You can’t mean that.”
“I do. Leave it be, Frau.”
He only called her wife when he needed her to remember that her place was not to be the leader. “Just drop it?” She grabbed his arm. “You can’t have thought this through.”
“Since she was little, sometimes I look at her and see a girl who is unlike our other daughters. Not so much physically, but…something is different about her. So for years I’ve thought about what you’re saying. It doesn’t change my stance.”
Did he need a mother’s heart to understand how she felt? “Is it that simple for you?”
“Is that what you think of your husband, that because a decision is hard, he must be a hard man?” His voice shook, the first hint of emotion he’d shown. “It’s eating me up inside! I can’t sleep. I can hardly speak our girl’s name without fear and anxiety choking me.” He looked through the barn door and toward their run-down farmhouse. “I don’t even understand what I’m so terrified of. But it’s in my gut like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, and I know we must leave this alone. That’s what my gut tells me.”
“Which gut feeling? The mankind one that longs to avoid every scary situation? Or the gut feeling that is between you and the Creator?” She stepped closer. “Isn’t it possible that God has opened our eyes to this possibility because He needs us to act?”
He froze, staring at her for what seemed like forever. He then walked the horse to its stall and put her away. “Until just then I was holding on to the thought that He doesn’t need our help.” He closed the gate behind the horse and remained there. His hands trembled as he removed his straw hat. “But He uses people every day to help others, to keep others safe from harm. When He gave us children, He made it our responsibility to watch after them. But…”
How self-centered was she, doubting that her husband cared. His emotional upheaval equaled hers. It simply revealed itself differently. He wanted to deny their responsibility, hoping it was God’s will to leave the situation alone. “Husband, what if we have a daughter out there who needs us? Will we stay so focused on the blessings God’s given us that we won’t inconvenience our lives to seek truth?”
He rubbed his forehead with the back of his wrist. “What will it do to Ariana?”
“Our love for her cannot be dampened by this any more than it would if we welcomed another baby into the fold.”
“This is different, Lovina. You’re not seeing it for what it is. If she’s not ours,”—he gestured at their home—“she’s not related to anyone of this household.” Tears sprang from his eyes. “What would that do to a girl like our Ariana?”
Shame dripped its hot wax onto her aching heart. She hadn’t thought of it in those terms. All she knew for sure is her heart screamed out for the child she may have given birth to—the one raised in an Englisch world by a stranger. “Ariana’s faith is strong. Her character is strong. Whatever the truth is, she will not be undone by it. I know she won’t.”
“Ya, she has a lot of inner strength.” Isaac went to the doorway and stared at their home. “A thought came to me earlier today. Perhaps it is from God.”
Lovina moved to his side. “What is it?”
“If parents could give their children all they needed, if we could prevent all pain, lack, or confusion, none would need God.”
Lovina mulled over his words, struck by the powerful truth, but its meaning and timing terrified her.
His shoulders slumped. “I guess I need to trust that regardless of what the truth is, it will only draw Ariana closer to God.”
Lovina placed her arm on Isaac’s, and he took his cue, engulfing her in a reassuring hug. How many times in their years of marriage had his broad shoulders and strong arms felt like all she needed to get through any storm?
“Daed?” Their youngest called out, and Isaac turned toward his voice. “Water is going everywhere again!”
Isaac released her and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Turn it off at the main, and I’ll be inside in five.”
John waved and nodded.
“Where do we begin?” Lovina didn’t like pushing Isaac to talk, but she had to know the truth.
“With the midwife.” He rested his hands on her shoulders.
That did make sense. “Rachel may remember something so specific it will put our minds at ease.”
“Ya.”
“Today, then?”
“Nee.” Her husband’s hands slowly moved to her neck and he held her face with his thumbs. “If we take off tonight, it’ll raise questions, and we’d have to come up with excuses. We can’t let our actions alert anyone.” He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. “Besides, there are pipes to fix and children to feed.”
“Isaac, I need to talk to Rachel soon.”
“I know, but let’s be cautious.” He put his forehead on hers. “Maybe when we do talk to Rachel, we’ll find out that our fears are nothing.”
“Ya. Maybe so.”
But he didn’t believe that. She could see it in his eyes and feel it in the trembling of his hands, and it made her insides churn with a sickening nervousness.
Standing on the sidewalk, holding on to the brass key, Ariana peered through the streaked window of the abandoned café. After Abram’s weeks of overtime, she needed only $6,270 more.
Only?
Reality tried to grab her ankle and pull her under the choppy waters of discouragement, but she broke free. She wasn’t giving up, even though they had just thirty-six days left to get it. Maybe the real-estate agent could give her an extension for the closing. Her breathing tightened with thoughts of how much more money she would need to make a go of this diner, funds that she didn’t know how to obtain. This place no longer felt like a dream. It was a necessity. Hearts were at stake, and she could spare her loved ones so much pain if she could keep Susie from leaving.
“Ariana?” Standing next to her, Rudy tapped on the grimy window. “Hello?” Confusion shone in his dark-brown eyes. “What’s going on? You haven’t been yourself at all since I picked you up at Berta’s house.”
She ran her fingernail along the jagged edges of the key. Sliding a key into a lock could open anyone’s life to new experiences—even if one was going home to family after a day at work. She longed for Susie to let this door be unlocked for her, not the door to living in the Englisch world.
Rudy placed his warm hands over hers. “Talk to me. Please.”
She noted how well his hands covered hers, so strong and protective. Her ability to carefully choose what she shared with him evaporated. “How much do you want to know?”
“From ninety-something percent of the people in my life, as little as possible. From you, I want to know anything you’re willing to share.”
“I’ll try to make sense, but our time before the agent arrives is so limited.”
“Then I will tell her we need to reschedule.”
The fact that anything Ariana had to say came ahead of keeping the appointment with the real-estate agent told her a lot. He cared more about her than about how breaking the appointment would look to the agent. Rudy seemed like a perfect mixture of strength and kindness. Looking at him in contrast to Quill, she realized how very likable her beau was. Steady and caring.
What was wrong with Quill anyway? First he left, taking Frieda, and now he intended to take her sister—all the while acting as if Ariana’s feelings and well-being mattered. How had she ever been so foolish as to care for him?
Not married. Quill would never know how disgusted she was to learn he was single. It was evidence of just how deep his deceit went. He’d never said directly that he intended to marry Frieda, but it was implied. If Ariana had known the two hadn’t married, she probably would’ve helped the leaders try to find her.
Rudy squeezed her hands gently. “Are you…tired of seeing me?”
“What?” She blinked, coming back to herself. “No. Just the opposite.”
“Gut. I like your shocked response and absolute firmness about it.” He clutched his chest, sighing relief. “Denki.” He meant his thank-you to be humorous, but nothing was the least bit funny right now.
He took her hands again, waiting on her to say something. When she had said she didn’t want to talk about what took place that rainy night at Berta’s, he’d accepted it. When he picked her up earlier today and she was seething with anger, he left her alone while she smoldered in silence. Was he as perfect for her as he seemed?
He motioned to the curb, and they sat down.
She wrapped her arms around her bent legs, thinking back on dozens of memories. Her first memory of Quill was when she was five or six, and he had been kind and patient with her, treating her like a real person rather than the pesky little sister of his friend Mark. When she struggled to learn to write, Quill was encouraging, and he injected humor, making her realize it wasn’t the end of the world to be unable to hold a pencil correctly. She had frightened easily in those days, and he seemed able to stare down a rattlesnake…and make it crawl off. But despite his deceitful nature, she was sure he’d benefited from their relationship too. He used to get balled up inside himself with thoughts and feelings, and she was able to help him sort out how he felt and why.
When she was twelve, she’d told her Mamm that she intended to marry Quill Schlabach, and she never wavered in that thinking until the day he disappeared with Frieda.
No wonder she didn’t want to tell Rudy. It was embarrassing how foolish she’d been when it came to Quill. Sometimes in the still of the night when she woke, she recalled her feelings for him so clearly it seemed as if some part of them still existed. But they didn’t.
“Remember once asking me who my first crush was?”
“Ya.”
“Well…” She began sharing, telling as little as she knew how and yet enough for the journey to make sense.
Rudy intertwined his fingers with hers. “He’s returned for your sister?”
The way he asked made Quill sound like a monster from the deep.
“Ya.”
“You should use the church leaders more. It’s what they are here to do—protect us from those who want to cause division and strife. You can’t continue to protect him.”
“I’m not trying to protect him. Berta needs me to keep everything quiet. If the church leaders realize he’s been visiting all these years, she’ll be held accountable. All I have to do is find a way to change Susie’s mind about leaving, and nothing Quill has done so far matters.”
“I get what you want to do, but I see a lot of caution flags. You’re taking on responsibilities that aren’t yours. Why do you feel it’s your place to protect and take care of Berta? Why are you trying to build a life Susie is willing to stay in?”
“Would you have done any less?”
“Everyone has to do less than you aim to, Ari. It’s not good to run around trying to make everything okay for everyone else.”
“But…God asks us to carry one another’s burdens. Like with Berta and Susie.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he nodded. “Even if by some miracle you get this restaurant and Susie agrees to stay because of it, how long before she regrets giving her word? Jobs get old quickly. What if you go into debt up to your ears trying to open this restaurant before you’re financially ready, and then she decides in a few months that she still wants to leave? Are you aware that restaurants are the number-one small business to go under?”
Maybe she was too wrung out from her earlier encounter with Quill, but instead of finding words to share how she felt, she leaned her head on his shoulder. “I have to try. Please tell me you understand that I have to try.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and sighed. “Sure, I understand. I don’t necessarily agree, but it takes someone like you to care this much about a little sister. Wherever and whenever you need help, I want to be at your side. I wish I could help financially, and maybe I can later on, but right now my money is tied up in the family business back home.”
Even after growing up poor, she was just now beginning to understand how hard money was to come by. “I just appreciate that you understand my position.”
“I get it.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Any idea how you’ll come up with enough money to go to closing?”
“Marry someone with money?”
He chuckled and rubbed her shoulder. “I can see why the idea might momentarily sound appealing.”
She sighed. “You mean the money would be attached to a real person?”
“Afraid so.”
They shared a laugh, and she remained snuggled under his arm. “Is begging door to door an option?”
He smiled down at her. “Maybe we should give it a little more thought. Any siblings besides Abram who might be willing to help?”
“Mark and Susie are the only others who earn money and don’t have children, but they pooled their money to buy a horse and carriage for Mamm and Daed a year ago.”
Rudy whistled. “That set them back.”
“Ya, I imagine they don’t have a thousand dollars between them.”
“There will be a Labor Day event here in town. If we set up a booth, you could make some money over that long weekend.”
“Ya. Maybe so. I would need to check into the specifics of permits and such.”
The real-estate agent pulled her shiny red car into a parking space near them and got out. The thirty-something woman wore a navy-blue dress that molded to her pregnant body. She carried a folder of papers. “So, Ariana, do you have some good news for me today?”
Ariana swallowed hard while standing up. “I was hoping you could renegotiate exactly what it will take for me to open this shop. Maybe I could rent it for a while before needing the full twenty percent to go to closing. See, if I can use the money I’ve saved to get it operational, I can make money. Then I can buy the place.”
“I don’t think we’re seeing this in the same light.” She ran her manicured hands over her belly. “Mrs. McCormick, the owner, gave you a verbal agreement, one that I didn’t think was advisable. She wants you to have this place, and if it were solely up to her, she’d be more flexible. But her children are pushing me to find a serious buyer with the money to go to closing. And there are some interested parties. You and Mrs. McCormick have a special bond since you cleaned her house and cooked for her for years before she moved into the retirement home. She would give you the moon if she could, but I think you should release her from the verbal agreement.”
The clippety-clop of a horse caught Ariana’s attention. Susie waved as she pulled the rig across several parking spaces to find enough room for it.
Ariana’s mouth was dry. This wasn’t the meeting she’d been hoping for. Rudy knew business. Couldn’t he think of an alternative to buy Ariana some time? She studied him, waiting for him to rescue her with some sort of plan, but he shrugged.
Ariana held the key firmly in the palm of her hand. “I’m sorry it’s inconvenient for Lila’s children, but she said she would give me until October first.”
The agent nodded, looking more perturbed than disappointed. “If that’s how you feel, I’ll let the family know. But I can assure you that you won’t be given one day more.” She headed for her car.
“Hey.” Susie hopped down. “Why such hush-hush stuff about meeting you here?”
While Rudy tethered Susie’s horse, Ariana motioned for her sister to come with her. “I think it’s time you see my dream. You may fall in love with it.” Ariana unlocked the door and showed her through the old building. Dust hung in the air, making the room look like fog bathed in sunlight. Strange and yet beautiful. She prayed for the right words. “We could make it a success, Susie, and the rest of the family could work here as money from the café and their schedules allow. Just think, the two of us as the owners of a thriving café in town.” Would Susie like this old building? Or would she find fault where Ariana saw beauty in the jagged brick walls, slanted wood floors, and filth. “It needs elbow grease.”
“Oh, you poor, delusional thing.” Susie laughed. “That doesn’t begin to cover all it needs.” She looked skeptical, but her interest seemed piqued. After years of taking care of difficult employers, Susie had to be a little intrigued with the idea of owning a café. In addition, being the poorest family around was embarrassing, and this place could change that for the whole family. But her little sister was a smart cookie, and she would know that this plan would be really labor intensive. Would its potential be enough to keep her from leaving?
Susie pointed to the wide stairs with a beautiful banister. “So where do the steps lead?”
“To sort of a storage-room loft.”
Susie’s eyes lit up. “As in…could it be a place for me to sleep? You know, a girl’s own bedroom without the need to share it with her older and younger sisters?” She grabbed Ariana’s hand and ran up the stairs.
The space was filled with old boxes, and Ariana had calculated it was the only place to store nonrefrigerated supplies for the café. Still…
“I don’t have all the financing lined up, but if I can buy the café and if you want this space as your room, it’s yours.”
“You mean you wouldn’t claim this as your own?”
“Not if you were willing to stay…Amish.” Ariana wouldn’t add any other stipulation, like the need to work in the café or keep the loft decently straight. She wanted only one promise from her sister.
Susie nibbled on her bottom lip, looking thoughtful. “Stay Amish…” She rolled the words slowly off her tongue before weaving between the boxes and walking to the railing that overlooked the café. “The way the loft is built, no one has a view from below, but it still doesn’t offer a lot of privacy.”
“If I get the place, I intend to open around seven. But we’ll close at two in the afternoon. After we prep for the next day, the whole building will be as private as you like.”
Susie waggled her brows in unison, almost fluttering them. “Now this is worth talking about. You’re a good big sister and all, but, oh, what I would do for a room of my own. Do you think Daed would let me live here?”
Having a little independence from the family was much more important to Susie than Ariana had realized. How had they shared a room all these years without discussing something this critical to her little sister?
Ariana’s insides were quivering. “I think we could talk Daed into it if you agreed to things like a curfew and no boys without supervision, and you still attending church meetings.”
“A place of my own and a café.” She grinned. “The Brenneman Brew.”
Ariana laughed, and tears of hope tried to break free. “Well, I’m not quite sure about that name. I know you mean coffee, but there’s a beer-brewing place a few blocks from here.”
“Are you sure I meant coffee?” Susie staggered as if she’d been drinking.
“Susie,” Ariana corrected, suddenly sounding like their mother. No wonder her feisty sister was desperate for a room away from Ariana.
“Okay, fine. I’m sure the idea of brewing one’s own beer is overrated anyway. Hmm. What about Brennemans’ Perks?”
“Not bad.” Ariana dragged her fingers across the top of a filthy box. “So…what do you think?”
Susie looked around, contemplating the question.
Ariana was offering a plan she might not be able to follow through on, but there had to be a solution concerning the money. God had planted the desire to save for this café in Ariana and Abram years ago. Then He let Ariana know that Susie was making plans to leave, giving Ariana an opportunity to change her mind. If Susie agreed to stay, surely God would show Ariana how to earn the money.
Susie thrust out her hand. “We have a deal!”
Ariana ran toward her sister, tripping over a box before she engulfed Susie in a hug. “Perfect!”
“Ari,” her sister rasped, “Susie can’t breathe.”
Ariana released her. “Oh, sorry.” Ariana wrapped her arm around Susie’s shoulders, and they went down the steps.
Now all Ariana had ahead was the simple trick of pulling thousands of dollars out of a hat.