Gathering the Threads Read online

  This was the man she’d grown up loving. Kind, helpful, and thoughtful. He loved God, his family, and the Old Ways. Probably not in that order. Apparently the beliefs of the Amish church were more important to him than she had realized, and she’d known they meant joy and peace to him. What she hadn’t known was that he allowed the rules, the laws—and fear—to think for him.

  “I’m okay.” She looked at her hand. “I’ll use the sink in the milk house and wash up.” She couldn’t see one of the guys going into the house and getting a shower because they had gotten messy while milking the cows. Besides, the only reason she was out here was because Daed wanted her near him, mostly so he could talk to her and share his thoughts as they went through their day. He was so hopeful she would give up the phone and become the girl she was before she left. She wanted that for him, but she couldn’t do it.

  Daed nodded. “Ya. Gut idea.”

  She headed for the milk house.

  “Hey, Ariana,” Mark called. He pointed to the back of her coat.

  Daed chuckled. “Washing your hands will do nothing for that.”

  She grabbed the back of her coat, trying to see how much muck was on it while Mark and Daed laughed. This sort of mess happened to them regularly, although not from falling. But she minded the yuck more, and they found her reaction funny.

  She twisted, trying to examine her black coat, as if knowing how bad it was would solve anything. “Ya, well, apparently manure happens.”

  Mark returned to rinsing off udders. “You might be a farmer if…”

  It was an old game, one she hadn’t played in a long time. “You know cow pies aren’t made with beef.”

  “Isaac.”

  Her breath halted in her lungs. She didn’t have to look to know that the gravelly voice belonged to the bishop. Nonetheless, she turned around and smiled in an attempt to be polite. He didn’t return the gesture.

  “Ariana,” Daed said, “why don’t you go inside and get cleaned up.”

  The bishop was here to talk, and she’d been dismissed. That suited her fine, but she’d like to know if Daed was releasing her so he would have privacy to take up for her or to discuss what could be done about her rebellion.

  From inside his small Kentucky home, Quill shoved clean, folded winter clothing for a woman and three young children into a good-size box.

  “I don’t like this plan at all.” Frieda put an ice pack and individual yogurts into a cooler, along with sandwiches and fresh fruit.

  He closed the corrugated box, folding the four flaps so the top would remain shut. “I know. Just breathe, find a distraction, and it’ll be over in a few days.” Even now as he stood on the brink of the most dangerous escape plan he’d ever been involved with, he couldn’t erase Ariana’s face from his mind. It was as if every one of her amazing traits was tattooed inside him. How could she be confused about who she was? It didn’t make sense.

  He’d met with Melanie from WEDV ten days ago. When he’d told Frieda a little about the society and that they were always in need of clothing for women, babies, and children, she started collecting the items.

  Quill had come home a few days ago to tend to personal business and have uninterrupted time to plan an escape for someone named Gia and her three kids.

  Frieda closed the cooler and began putting away all the sandwich fixings. “I don’t understand why you need to be the one to do this. Isn’t this the kind of stuff the police do? Or Child Protective Services? Some organization?”

  “My understanding is the woman turned to two agencies for help at some point in the past, although I’m not sure which ones. All I know is it turned out really bad for her, and she won’t trust them again. But I’m not the only one involved in this plan. There’s a team.” He hadn’t chosen the team or even met them, so he had to trust each one was as good as Melanie said. The older woman had been involved in these kinds of escape plans for three decades, but this one had even her rattled. The ex-husband was well connected to violent criminals and had no aversion to killing anyone who got in his way. So why wasn’t he still in prison? A legal technicality. And once he was out, how he had found some of his most vulnerable victims, also known as his ex-wife and children, no one knew. His abusive and controlling ways were well documented, and yet, ignoring all restraining orders, he had kidnapped them and moved to another state, violating his parole. They could call the police and have him arrested for breaking parole, but with his criminal connections he’d make one call, and his ex-wife, Gia Rice, would then be at the mercy of some other maniac until Rice was released. She needed a clean, untraceable getaway. Her fear was if she didn’t escape soon, he would kill her.

  Quill pulled his phone out of his pocket, making sure he had the addresses and contact numbers of everyone involved in the plan.

  “You’re the one escorting her and the children from the loading dock of the grocery store to your vehicle, Quill. You’re the only one who won’t be behind the scenes.”

  “That’s not actually true. But if all goes well, Rice will think the others are mere bystanders. What do you want me to say?” He touched the Notes app and reread the plan one more time.

  He’d devised the strategy himself, so he had it memorized, but he wanted to assure himself that he’d explained every detail very clearly in the e-mail he’d sent to the others. One weakness in the plan was that Gia had never seen Quill. When faced with putting her children into a vehicle with a strange man, could she make herself follow through? So far their only interactions had been through notes passed to her with her grocery receipts by the cashier, an older woman named Yvonne.

  Quill’s phone buzzed as a text came in. He clicked on it and read a construction-related message from his eldest brother. “Look, I’ve volunteered to do what I’m good at. Yvonne passed her the information about my plan and about me, without mentioning my name. Gia later returned a note to her that said she trusts my plan, but she’ll only follow through if I’m the one carrying it out. Was there anyone else you would’ve agreed to leave with?” His fingers moved effortlessly across the screen as he responded to his brother.

  “No,” Frieda whispered. “Only you. But if we’d been caught, they’d have only used words to keep us from leaving, things about going to hell and such. At no time did we fear for our physical safety.”

  He lowered the phone and looked at the young woman who was like a sister to him. Because she had needed protection from her father and the church leaders, she’d had to walk away from her siblings, which broke her heart in ways she’d yet to recover from. The idea that something might happen to him, the one who’d made her escape possible and who was like a brother to her, was unbearable.

  He slid his phone into his jeans pocket and gently clutched her shoulders. “I’ll be fine.”

  Frieda slid her arms into her coat and grabbed the cooler of food. “You will text me every hour.”

  He picked up the box of winter clothes and headed out the front door. “Well, maybe not every hour. It’s much more unsafe to text and drive than it is to steal a maniac’s kids and former wife.”

  “Was that supposed to be funny?” She paused on the front steps while Quill locked his house.

  “Yeah, it was. I guess it fell short.” They went toward his car, snow underfoot. For the most part, Kentucky got less than half the snow Pennsylvania did, but every winter since he’d moved here three years ago, it had seemed more than ample.

  He opened the car’s back door and set the box inside before taking the cooler from Frieda. “You do know that if I text you every hour, I’ll be sending messages while you’re asleep.”

  “But that way the text will be there when I wake up, and it’ll assure me everything is okay.”

  Quill suppressed a sigh. “Sure, I can do that.”

  “I’m a terrible person.”

  Quill knew where this was going without her saying anything else. “You’re not. You had your life ripped apart, and you’re healing.”

  “By leaving w
ith me when you did, you gave up a life with Ariana.”

  “No one knows if that would’ve worked out. She was a fifteen-year-old kid with a crush on someone five years older. I’m just glad I never let her know how I felt. But seriously, what were the chances of that relationship actually working out?”

  “Remarkable. You had a remarkable chance. I was her best friend, and I know.”

  “Okay, you’re not helping.”

  “Sorry. I’m just trying to be honest with myself and you.”

  “Here’s the bottom line. She will marry Rudy, and they’ll make Mamm a grandmother at least seven times over.”

  “Berta isn’t even related to Ariana.”

  Quill shrugged. “Family can be whoever you choose. Ariana and Mamm are bonded in ways that make them feel as if they’re related, but—”

  “But it’s way past time for me to go see Berta face-to-face, and I think I’m ready. Ariana too, if she can meet me somewhere other than her house.”

  “Okay.” He was glad to hear it but cautious. She’d made this kind of proclamation a few times over the last couple of months. Would she really follow through this time? “When you’re ready, let me know. I think it’s safe to say that Ari would gladly meet you at her café after hours and after dark.”

  “That’s a good idea. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “It takes genius-level thinking.” He grinned and opened the front passenger door. “Let’s get you to your place, and I’ll be on my way.”

  Pausing a moment before moving to the next table to be folded, Abram looked up and saw Cilla across his living room. The Brennemans were hosting the Sunday meeting this week, and their home was full with the community’s Amish.

  The window behind her bathed her in the dim mid-January light as the wind swirled the falling snow outside. He wanted to soak in the moment and appreciate how healthy and vibrant she looked these days. But he couldn’t, because Saul Kurtz had moved in beside her. It wasn’t Saul’s first time to take an opportunity to sidle up near her and start whispering and joking about things.

  Heat ran up the back of Abram’s neck and inched up his face.

  The service and the family-style meal were over. The current goal was to get as many benches and benches-turned-tables dismantled as possible and ready to slide onto the bench wagon so this small area had enough room for everyone to relax and visit.

  Abram folded the legs of another bench table, and two men picked it up and took it toward the back door. He then moved to the next table to do the same. He flipped the bench over and reached to fold the legs, but they didn’t move. He wiggled the hinge and shook the crisscrossed legs, but they didn’t budge.

  “Need a hand?”

  Skylar’s voice startled him. Last time he saw her, she was helping Mamm and the girls clean up the kitchen.

  She crouched and ran her fingers over the table’s hinge. “It’s bent.”

  “Skylar,” he whispered, “stand, please. You can’t do that.”

  She pulled her hand back and slowly rose. This was Skylar’s first time to attend church, and she was only here because it was taking place in their home and their parents told her it would be inappropriate for her not to come downstairs and join the meeting. He couldn’t imagine how boring three hours of church in a language she couldn’t understand must have been.

  She rubbed her fingers together. “Why? Is there some type of oil or residue on it that’s harmful?”

  “No. All work is divided by gender, and you can’t step in to help the men. It’s how things are done.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “Can we talk about this later?”

  Skylar huffed at him. “The men pitch in to help the women.”

  “You mean to carry boxed dishes and such? That’s because the items are heavy.”

  She stared as if he had slipped into Pennsylvania Dutch. She had on a dress, but it wasn’t an Amish cape dress. It was something she’d picked up at a secondhand store. Vintage is what she called it. When she came downstairs this morning in the dress, their parents told her how great she looked, probably because it was the first time they’d seen her in anything except blue jeans. Blue jeans were forbidden at all times for the Amish, men and women. How Skylar had gotten away with wearing them for three months was a bit of a mystery to him.

  “So am I allowed to stand here and talk to you?” Skylar asked.

  “Ya, sure. It might be frowned on if I wasn’t your brother. The Sabbath is intended to honor God. It is not for selfish desires like flirting.”

  Abram glanced over at Cilla and Saul. If they were talking and laughing now when it was frowned on, how much were they doing that at other times? He wouldn’t feel so jealous about her talking to Saul except Susie had told him a few days ago about a couple of funny incidents that happened between Cilla and Saul. He could discount a single funny event, but two or three? Were the two spending time together?

  Only a few weeks ago, after Cilla received a miraculous doctor’s report, she’d told Abram that she longed for them to go out and that she dared to dream that love and marriage might follow. But along with her elation over the great report, she was distressed because the doctor told her that a woman with cystic fibrosis and her particular issues shouldn’t have children. Her health was fragile, and having children would be life threatening.

  Abram couldn’t hold her responsible for that outpouring of emotion. They’d been on the sidewalk outside the doctor’s office at the time. Now, with a new lease on life and new medications making her feel and look better, she seemed to feel differently toward Abram.

  “What about singings?” Skylar asked. “Those have to involve some flirting since they’re all about singles gathering.”

  “Okay, I should’ve clarified.” Abram pressed his foot against the crisscrossed pieces of wood that served as legs for the bench. “The first part of Sunday, especially church Sundays, is for focusing on God. The men and women, whether married or single, stay divided during church, mealtimes, and for a while afterward. The rules relax as the day proceeds, but even singings are divided—girls on one side and boys on the other.”

  “Really? Did I know that?”

  “I’m not sure, but if you attended, it would be imprinted on your brain, and you might see how well it works.”

  “No one wants me there, although from what I’ve heard of the Amish singing, you people could use someone who knows music to point out a few helpful tips.”

  “Skylar, sh.” Abram glanced around, hoping no one had heard her. “The youth would like the help, and they could teach it to their parents. But I doubt the adults would go for it. The men lead all the songs.”

  She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. “When can I retreat to the bedroom?”

  He wanted to ask if she had seen Ariana but second-guessed himself. There had been tension, lots of it, between Skylar and Ariana this past week.

  “In an hour or so, I imagine. It’s a little different with the visiting church group here. But people will begin to thin out soon, and the expectations will continue to relax as the afternoon wears on.”

  Hopefully he could locate Ariana in a few minutes and talk her into rejoining the church crowd. If she didn’t, it would only make things worse for her. Nothing had gone well with or for her since she’d returned home last weekend from the B&B.

  Today was the first time Cilla’s district had joined Abram’s for church. There was a visiting preacher from Maryland here for just this one Sunday, so the districts combined. During the service the bishop, preacher, and deacon had each given a short message, as they did every church Sunday, but all three sermons zeroed in on Ariana. They railed against those who left the community and returned willful and disobedient, but more than that, they preached against specific things that had happened in Ariana’s life. At least the visiting minister’s sermon hadn’t been directed at Ariana.

  How had she remained on the bench with the other single girls while the me
n preached a sermon that was clearly aimed at her and the Brenneman family? He’d expected her to dart from the house at any time, but she hadn’t. When the service was over, she helped get the food on the tables, doing as the women instructed, while too many men and women whispered every time she turned her back.

  He’d thought she returned to Summer Grove looking a lot different than when she left, but today, after the three preachers spoke directly about certain things in her life, she looked nothing like herself, which meant she felt nothing like herself. The bishop had agreed to her leaving the community, even encouraged it in order to avoid legal trouble with Nicholas. Now he protested the changes—even perceived changes—that happened to Ariana while she was out there. Was he that misinformed or just a hypocrite?

  Unfortunately there was no freeing themselves of him. The church lines of each district were clearly drawn, and no one could leave one church to become a member of another. Being under the authority of any bishop, preacher, or deacon had to be accepted as God’s will, and the only correct response to God’s will was to submit.

  “So…,”—Skylar gestured toward Cilla and Saul—“if you don’t mind me asking, what’s the deal?”

  Saul put his hand on Cilla’s arm as she laughed about something.

  A thousand tiny daggers of anger stung Abram as if he were walking in a sleet storm. “Not sure.”

  Cilla’s eyes met Abram’s, and she offered a faint smile along with a shrug and a shake of her head, all while continuing the conversation with Saul.

  Abram had managed to whisper to her about fifteen minutes ago, asking where Ariana had gone. Cilla had whispered back that she would look for her.

  Apparently she hadn’t found his sister.

  His brother-in-law grabbed one end of the bench, and they walked to the back door and stacked it near the others. With enough of them collected, he and Emanuel put on their coats, preparing to haul the benches to the bench wagon. It was more their job than the other men’s because that’s the way it worked when it was a family’s time to have the church meeting in their home.