Quill put his palms on the hood of Dan’s truck, studying the electrical plans that were spread over it. He hadn’t found his copy, in part because the trip to see Nate Lapp had taken longer than he’d planned. Still, the three of them—Nate, Dan, and Quill—had managed to have a good conversation, one worthy of their time. Quill wasn’t completely sure what was going on with Nate, so he would visit again and investigate a little more. But Nate seemed in good spirits, and Quill was leaning toward believing the young man was simply accident-prone.
“So what happened?” Liam McLaren, a gray-haired, broad-shouldered man with a thick Irish accent, gestured at the plans.
“I’m not sure.” Quill studied the plans in front of him, and they didn’t look accurate. If he’d messed up as badly as it appeared, it would take a lot of time and money to fix them. Still, this wasn’t the kind of thing a developer cared anything about. The general contractor usually addressed these types of issues, and McLaren himself doing it stuck out as very strange.
“It’s obvious”—McLaren thumped the plans—“that you didn’t order or install the right-sized electrical panels.”
“I agree that’s how it looks.”
The new phase of building had begun about the same time as the upheaval in Ariana’s life. His time and attention had been spread very thin at that point as he’d tried to do right by her and help her get the café—for all the good it’d done either of them. Had he missed seeing the changes in the plans for the new phase?
“That’s all you have to say?” McLaren asked.
Quill looked up, studying McLaren, and the hairs on the back of Quill’s neck stood up. This man had more on his mind than Quill’s mistake. “Maybe I overlooked the info in the new plans. I would need time to locate my plans and go over my notes.” He wasn’t sure how much experience this man had with the construction process. “The project manager updates the plans as needed, and he’s responsible for adding a new date, sealing it, and writing superseded on all the old plans.” Quill pointed to each part of the plan as he talked about it.
“So it’s Sanders’s fault?”
“I’m not saying that. It may be completely my fault.” All the information on this set of plans was right. But what did the information say on the plans he couldn’t find? And where was the set of plans he’d used to order and install the panels and wiring for all those homes?
While trying to sort through possible solutions, the private cell phone in his jeans pocket buzzed. McLaren would be furious if he took a call now, but Quill wouldn’t take the chance of missing a call from Ariana. What if she needed his help? He pulled it from his pocket and saw a number he didn’t recognize. “Excuse me. I’ll be brief, but I have to take this call.”
McLaren slammed his hand on the hood of the truck. “I’m talking to you, Schlabach!”
Quill held up his index finger. “Hello?” He heard nothing. Was anyone there? “Hello?”
“I…I can’t do this.” The husky whisper sounded nothing like Ariana at first, and she was sobbing.
“Whatever it is, I’ll help you. And not just me. You have my brothers and sisters-in-law who would do anything. You’re not alone, Ari.” When he’d left the Amish, the one overwhelming feeling was loneliness. He’d been confused, angry, sad, and a lot more, but loneliness was what dragged him under time and again.
Her breathing was labored. “No. No one can fix this.”
Chills ran up his spine. Whatever was happening, she was overwhelmed, and the way she’d twice said this stuck out like a warning flag. “What can’t you do, Ari?”
She cried harder, and Quill ached for her. She’d had the same desire her whole life—to have the Amish dream: the simple life of faith, family, and hard work.
“Ari, it’ll be okay. We’ll find solutions. Just talk to me.” He could only imagine the demands being put on her. He waited, and even though she said nothing, he heard her brokenness. “Ari, what can’t you do?”
She said nothing, but the short, ragged breaths continued.
“Ariana, what’s happened?”
She hesitated and stammered. “I can’t say it. I can’t tell anyone,” she finally whispered.
Panic unleashed within him, and he fought to temper it. What new thing had happened to put her in this state?
He needed to look her in the eyes and will her to get control and find the strength to work through this transition no matter what it dished out.
He dug in his pocket for his keys before remembering he’d come with Dan. He walked back to where Dan was. “Tell me what you need, Ari, and we’ll work on it together, just like we did when we were kids.”
“I have to get home, Quill. I have to.”
“Okay, then we’ll make that happen…somehow.”
Could they find a way to convince Nicholas to release her without suing Rachel?
“I had to remove my prayer Kapp, wear Englisch clothes, read and study Englisch things, but I kept holding on, thinking that I’m still me. Thinking that somewhere beyond all these changes, I’m still the same girl who grew up in Summer Grove…but I’m not her at all.”
“Ari, where are you?” As soon as he asked, he pushed Mute on his phone. All he heard was her crying. “Dan, give me your keys.” He held out his hand. “I have to go.”
Dan reached into his pocket.
McLaren pointed. “You’re kidding me!” He slammed his hand on the hood of the truck again.
Dan passed him the keys and grabbed the plans off the truck.
“Look.” Quill fumbled with the keys until he had the right one. “If the mistake is my fault or if there is no evidence saying otherwise, I’ll make it right, working however many hours are necessary to get the homes rewired in time for their closings. And the cost and time will be covered by Schlabach Home Builders. Okay?”
McLaren’s bushy eyebrows knit, and he glared at Dan.
“He’s right. He has the full backing of Schlabach.”
Quill hopped into the truck, leaving the door open as he started the engine. “Dan, call the family. Get everyone praying.” He closed the door and pressed the Mute icon again so Ariana could hear him. “Ari, please, tell me where you are.”
Neither her sobs nor her breathing had calmed. “Did you know?”
Before she learned she’d been swapped at birth, he was familiar with every tone in Ariana’s range of emotions. Whatever this was, he didn’t recognize it. What had she found out?
“Focus on your future, Ari.” The truck wheels screeched as he pulled out of the job site. “You’ll return home to Rudy, join the church, marry, and have lots of babies. That’s your dream, and it will happen. Today will be a distant memory.”
“Rudy…” She sobbed even harder.
Why? His name usually brought her immediate hope and peace.
She finally took a deep, jerky breath. “He’s as good as gone already. He just doesn’t know it.”
Quill prayed not. If Ariana could come away from this mess with Rudy waiting for her, she would weather everything else. “He loves you.”
“He loves a woman who doesn’t exist.”
“That’s not true. You are you no matter what—the kindest, gentlest, strongest, and most honest and loyal woman I’ve ever known. Nothing that’s happened can take that away.”
“Did you know?” she asked again.
He hoped he wasn’t about to get caught in something else he hadn’t revealed to her. It had destroyed their friendship when she discovered that he’d known she wasn’t a Brenneman and that he’d kept it from her while getting to know Skylar. He’d seen it as a necessity. She’d seen it as a betrayal of her trust. “What I know is that Rudy’s love is deeper than you’re giving him credit for.”
“Quill.” Her firm whisper hinted at her exasperation with him, but at least the weeping had slowed. “Did…you…know?”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“That…that…I’m a bastard.”
His heart plummeted, but that explained why she was in such a state. All she’d been taught for twenty years gave this news the power to push her to the edge. “I didn’t know. I…I had some suspicions. That’s all. But how you were conceived doesn’t mat—”
“Ya, it does! My father was married, and I’m the result of adultery. I’m just an inconvenience. Even the term love child doesn’t fit because my parents hate each other. I have no siblings, no Amish heritage, and adulterous parents!”
“You are a gift, a miracle. You were the godsend that held me together when my Daed died and my life shattered. You are the cement that has held the bricks of the Brenneman family together time and time again. You are half of my mother’s heart, and you watched over her as if she were your own. You are among the best that this earth holds for a little while, and Rudy knows it.”
“That’s how you want me to see myself. But who I am is a—”
“Ariana Grace,” he spoke softly, “stop. Do not use that b word again.”
“Why, because hearing it offends you? It’s who I am!”
Despite her anger she was calmer than at first. Talking would help, especially with someone who could absorb her deepest hurt and angriest blows.
“The word is derogatory and belittling. There isn’t a person alive who couldn’t be described with some ugly narrative. And you’re saying it as if it’s the most significant thing about you.”
“The Amish ways are built on the life and times of Jesus. In His day when a woman was discovered as an adulterer, she was stoned to death, and I would’ve died with her, never seeing a day of life. If I’d been born before her sin was discovered, we both would’ve been stoned.”
Ariana’s Achilles heel was her legalistic, unrealistic view. It was her nature to be obedient, to figure out what God and her parents expected of her, and to give a hundred percent effort. “Jesus changed that, remember? He said, ‘Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.’ And he wanted children—all children—honored and protected.”
“I don’t recognize myself, Quill. I thought I knew who I was, but I have no love or compassion. I can’t stop judging people for even a minute. Cameron was out of line, and I told her off, screaming like an outraged teen. In all my years of living with my Daed, I’ve never talked to him with hints of sarcasm and anger the way I do Nicholas. It’s been a tough week, and now there’s illegitimacy to contend with.”
Finally she was letting him in, allowing him to know what was going on inside her. He’d traveled some of this same path, the one that went from Amish dreams to Englisch brokenness. “It gets easier, and you’ll get stronger.”
“My hair, my clothes, my way of life can be just right—and none of that matters. I’m an illegitimate, judgmental mess.”
Quill merged onto the highway, pushing the speed limit a bit. “We can’t get life right enough. You’ve known that, and you’ve lived by His grace, Ari. The only thing that’s changed is now you feel a deeper sense of unworthiness.”
“I can’t imagine having to tell Rudy I exist because of an affair.”
In a few minutes Quill would ask again where she was, but he was headed toward Bellflower Creek. She couldn’t be far from there. And right now she was calm and talking. He needed another thirty minutes to get there. “Rudy will not care. He sees you—the one and only woman who will make his life a thousand percent better just by being in it.”
She sniffled, and he knew she’d started crying again. “I miss him so much, and I can’t even talk to him.”
“There are acceptable ways around every demand Nicholas has made.”
“Scriptural ways?” She sounded doubtful. “ ’Cause I don’t need you tempting me to disobey my parents. Rudy wouldn’t want that either.”
“We can talk about this later.” It made no sense to tax her right now by introducing a different way to look at the scripture on obedience to parents. An exit sign with the words “Bellflower Creek” directed him to merge right. “So where are you?”
“In a car in the parking lot of a brown clapboard building called Long Shots. Why?”
“You’re outside a bar.”
“Am I?”
“With that name I’d give it a ninety percent chance of being a bar. Ten percent chance it’s a gun range. You’re in a car by yourself?”
“Ya.” She sounded disgusted. “I got my license today.”
He knew she wouldn’t want him to congratulate her. “After driving a horse and carriage, it feels weird, doesn’t it?”
“It feels as if Nicholas has managed to strip away another layer of my Amish life.” She seemed to be fighting tears again. “I doubt getting your license distressed you.”
He passed a slower car. “True, although I wasn’t planning on leaving the Amish at the time. Still, I didn’t mind going outside the Ordnung.”
“I do. Nicholas says I’m afraid to live.”
Quill had no decent response for that.
“You agree with him?” Her voice quivered as if tears were too close to the surface. “He is determined that I face my fears, and he’s given me a list of challenges. He called it a bucket list.”
The term bucket list sounded about right. Her biological dad would consider her life over when she returned to the Amish.
“So what’s on it, Ariana?”
“Hundreds of things I don’t want to do.” She listed some of the options Nicholas had provided.
“He’s given you choices. That’s good. A little adventure might—”
“You’re going to take his side?” Was she crying again?
“No. I didn’t mean—”
“You do agree with him, don’t you?”
“He seems to be going about this wrong, but his desire for you isn’t all bad. He’s giving you room to make decisions. Dan and Regina do that with their children all the time. It’s a good method. Rather than telling their children no or insisting they do as they’re told, they give their kids two options each time. So if my brother needs to walk across a parking lot, he gives his children a choice—hold his hand or be carried.”
“So in this scenario I’m the child.”
“What? No. I wasn’t saying that.”
“I called you crying, so I guess I deserve to be called a kid.”
“Ari, come on. My point is he may be trying to be a good parent. He wants to draw you out of your Amish shell, and afterward you can return to it.”
“My Amish shell?”
The phone beeped three times, as if the call had dropped. But it could also mean she’d hung up on him. That was more likely.
“Great, just great, Schlabach.” He sighed and pressed the button to dial the number she’d called from. “Go right ahead and share your opinion no matter what the cost. It’s a brilliant plan, really.”
The phone rang, but she didn’t answer. When it went to voice mail, a computerized message gave the phone number and said to leave a message. “Ari, we were disconnected, or maybe you hung up. Either way, would you call me back?”