Fraying at the Edge Read Online Free

was indirect and locked away.
    Leaving the Amish life had brought more heartaches than just his brokenness with Ariana. The complications of his mother not having any children who’d remained Amish was one. But the hardest part was Ariana. Always Ariana. He prayed for her, but she’d been clear—he was to leave her alone. He had lied to her for years. About seven years, actually. It had been easy to justify his lies when she was a teen and he was trying to protect her from knowing the ugly side of life. And he still wanted to protect her from that knowledge.
    Erastus gestured toward Quill’s plate. “Is there something we need to know about the food?”
    Quill’s stack of pancakes had one bite out of it, and his brothers were halfway done. He’d been lost in thought again. “Very funny.” He dug his fork in and took a bite.
    “I disagree.” Elam gave a lopsided, sad smile. “You find nothing funny these days.”
    Leon removed the glass of apple juice from his lips. “And you do, Elam?”
    “All right.” Dan leveled a look at the two. “No one here finds anything funny, not right now. Drop it and eat.” He poured himself some more juice. “We’ll get through this most recent upheaval with the Amish just like we have all the other times.”
    “But it’s not like the other times, is it?” Elam shoved away his almost-empty plate. “Seems like we ought to admit that and let Quill admit it.”
    Just what Quill wanted, to air his feelings to a room full of brothers. “I’m fine. Change the subject.”
    “Who’s going to look after Mamm now that Ariana’s gone?” Erastus took a swig of juice.
    Quill couldn’t think of any Pennsylvania Dutch words they still used other than
Mamm
and
Daed.
But from the time he and his brothers had learned to speak, they had called their parents by those names and probably always would.
    “Maybe some of the other Amish will step up,” Erastus suggested.
    But Quill knew better. The Amish usually looked after their own, but none in the community were quite sure about Mamm. When Quill’s parents first married, they left Indiana and moved to Summer Grove, Pennsylvania, where they had no relatives. Then they had five sons. Once grown, four of them left, one by one, over a twelve-year period. Not out of rebellion against their parents or God but because of an unwillingness to conform to the
Ordnung.
Their Daed was faithful to the Amish beliefs, but he was also an analytical, independent thinker who taught them well. He believed that staying was the right thing for Mamm and him, and his goal was to bring some reform to the Old Ways, where shunning scarred a person’s reputation for life and yet did nothing to stop an abusive alcoholic or a mentally unstable head of a household.
    When Quill was eighteen, his Daed died of a heart attack while trying to get justice for Frieda. Quill hadn’t understood all the circumstances that led to Frieda’s leaving Ohio and moving in with them two years prior, but he learned about them soon after his Daed passed. When there was no justice or protection for her, Quill knew he had to finish what his Daed had begun. So at twenty years old, he disappeared with Frieda, making everyone in the community, including Ariana, believe he’d run off with her to get married. The community would let her go if she was married, but if she wasn’t, they would hunt for her and try to force her to return.
    Poor Mamm was caught in the middle. Her husband and sons were gone, and the community treated her as if she were contagious, as if she could infect them with her tragedies. When several offspring leave over time, the church leaders become stricter with the ones who remain. The greater supervision isn’t to punish them but to make sure the children of other family members understand the hardships facing both sides—those who stay and those who leave.
    Some thought his Mamm had committed a secret sin that caused her to be alone. But Quill knew the truth.