by Amy Lillard
“No, puppy.” Buddy tried to take the stick from the dog, but PJ pulled back, growling as a game of tug-of-war started. “Puppy,” Buddy admonished.
Mamm picked that moment to walk into the room. She took one look at the puppy and shook her head.
Buddy hadn’t thought it a big deal. He wanted a puppy, so he went and got one. But when he had arrived back home with the beast, his mother got mad. Real mad. She accused Buddy of going behind her back and sneaking off with Jonah to get this puppy without “further consulting her.” Thankfully Jonah had stayed behind and talked to Mamm with him. Buddy wasn’t sure if it was Jonah’s steady presence or his dat’s eventual interference that caused her to drop her arguments. Whatever it was, she stopped fussing outright but made disapproving noises every time she saw the dog. Still was.
Jonah promised that it was only a matter of time before their mother fell in love with the dog just as he had, but Buddy wasn’t so sure. His mother wasn’t the lovey kind.
Now why did Jenna’s face pop into his mind? But suddenly he wanted to know if she was the lovey kind. If her mother was loving that way. Or her grandmother. If only he could talk to her. It was one of the many things he would ask her.
Buddy scooped up the dog and plopped him into his lap, belly side up where he could scratch him. It seemed to calm him down most times. Buddy had spent a lot of time rubbing his belly in the two days that he’d had him.
In those two days he had also learned that Jennifer Abigail Burkhart had moved to Wells Landing from Kansas. She had come with her mother and her grandmother to get a fresh start. No one had said from what. And since Buddy was getting the information by listening in on conversations that he wasn’t expected to participate in, he couldn’t just ask. So he had waited to see if someone would eventually say. So far no one had.
He had also learned that Jenna was “simple.” He didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he had a feeling it was something like “special.” When people said it they tended to shake their heads sort of sad-like. Then they said it was a shame. And talked about how pretty she was. That was something he could understand because Jenna Burkhart was the prettiest girl he had ever seen.
His mother gave the dog one last disapproving look, then went back into the kitchen where she and her sisters had gathered. They said they were getting a jump on canning, but since nothing had come in yet but the strawberries, he had a feeling they just wanted to visit.
That was okay with him. The longer they visited the more he learned of things no one thought to tell him. Like where the church service was each week and that Jenna Burkhart was simple.
This week wasn’t a church week, but since the weather had turned good, he figured they’d go visiting somewhere. It was just what they did. Well, he and Prudy and his mother and father.
Prudy was his younger sister. She had just started school the year before and was ready to take over Wells Landing. He had asked what it meant when his mother had said it. Was Prudy going to become mayor or something? But Mamm had laughed a bit, patted him on the cheek, and said that it meant Prudy was a handful and would most likely be something big when she grew up.
Buddy often wondered what that might be. She couldn’t be a minister or a bishop, seeing as how all of them were men. And she wouldn’t know if she was going to be a bishop’s wife or the like until she was older and already married, since the church leaders were chosen by lot. The only thing he could think of was a teacher, but that didn’t seem quite big enough. So he had settled himself to watching and seeing what his sister would be when she grew up. He didn’t mean to wish her life away, but he could hardly wait to find out.
“I’ll do it,” he heard Mamm say, and he perked up to hear what it was.
“That’s good of you, Gert,” one of his aunts said. He wasn’t sure which one. He hadn’t been listening close enough.
“Well, it’s just the neighborly thing to do. Since they just moved here and all.”
He could just imagine his mother, in the kitchen washing a mess of strawberries while another one of her sisters cut the green part off. Another sister would be slicing them and tossing them into a big cook pot.
They had to be talking about Jenna and her family. They were the only ones who had recently moved to Wells Landing.
Another of his aunts said something but he couldn’t make out the words. His mother’s reply came to him crystal clear. “We can take a picnic lunch since the weather’s turned.”
A picnic lunch? With Jenna? His heart flip-flopped in his chest. Just the idea of seeing her again made his breathing faster. And the thought of spending the afternoon with her, eating with her? It was more like a dream come true than a neighborly chore. Much more.
“You hear that, puppy?” Buddy cuddled the dog close to his face and kissed him on the top of his little puppy head. “We’re going to have a picnic lunch with Jenna Burkhart. You are going to love her.”
* * *
“It’s the neighborly thing to do,” Mammi was saying. Someone had invited them to visit on Sunday. Mammi wanted to go, but Mamm wasn’t so sure.
Jenna had spent a near miserable week wondering when she would be able to see Buddy again. It didn’t seem that she was going to make it into town anytime soon so she could read about Down syndrome, so her only hope was to ask Buddy himself.
Once the idea came to her it seemed so natural. Why hadn’t she thought about it before? He was the one person who would be able to tell her about his condition and what it meant. After all, she was the only one she knew who could talk about what it was like to have a weakened brain. But the more she thought about it, the more she had no idea what she would say. If she asked Buddy what it meant to have Down syndrome and he asked her about her brain, what was she supposed to tell him?
“I think they’re being nosy.” Mamm sniffed in that way Jenna had heard before. It meant her mother was feeling prideful and hurt. Despite all the preachings she had heard in her lifetime on the perils of pride, the Amish often fell short of their goal to remain humble. Some missed the mark more than others.
“We’re all nosy, Charlotte. The best thing is to meet this head-on. Go to the Millers’ for this picnic. You’ll be able to find out just as much about them as they can about you. More if you’re really clever.”
The Millers had invited them to a picnic? How many Millers were there in Wells Landing? Plenty, she was sure. But it had to be Buddy’s family. Somehow she just knew it. And if they didn’t go to this picnic Mamm and Mammi were talking about, then Jenna would have to wait another week until church to be able to talk to him. And she might not get to see him at all. What if he got sick and didn’t make it to church that week? He surely wouldn’t be at any singing. What would she do then?
Jenna hopped to her feet and rushed into the living room where her mother and grandmother sat.
“The Millers?” she asked.
Her mother shot her a strange look. “Jah.” She turned back to the crocheting she held in her lap. Soon it would be too warm to work on and Jenna knew her mother liked to get as much done in the spring as she could, that way the things she had made would be ready when fall came around again. “Why do you want to know?”
Jenna tamped down her excitement. “No reason. We met them at church.” That part was true, even if the first part wasn’t. “I want to go. I think it will be fun.”
Her mammi smiled. “See? Jenna knows that it’s good to get out.”
“To make friends.” Jenna smiled and hoped she didn’t look too excited. If they were going to be at the Millers’ house, then surely Buddy would be there too. If it was the same family, she would be able to talk to him. Find out more about him, what it meant to have Down syndrome, what it was like living in Wells Landing. Funnily enough, the more she thought about it, the more excited she was to find out more about him and living in Wells Landing. Nothing else seemed as important.
Chapter Four
“Ivan Dale! Get in here and get this dog!”
It was no secret that Mamm didn’t want a dog around, especially not in the house, but Buddy brought him in every chance he got. The real problem came when the pup wriggled away from Buddy and went in search of the one person he could make squeal.
“Now.” Mamm’s voice was firm.
“Jah.” Buddy picked up the wriggling puppy and hauled him outside. The whole while he kept his head down so his mamm wouldn’t see his grin.
He wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, but it was funny to him. And his mother didn’t seem to smile enough these days. It had gotten worse after Jonah had married Sarah Yoder. Though she would never admit it, Buddy knew that Mamm didn’t like Sarah. Buddy didn’t know why; he liked Sarah, a lot. Almost too much, he thought at times. But Sarah had always been kind to him.
It wasn’t that people in Wells Landing were mean to him. Oh, no, everyone in town was much too nice for that. Even Maddie Kauffman. Maddie was about the grumpiest person he knew, and she was still very kind to him. Maybe because her youngest son Daniel had a weak brain. Buddy didn’t know if that was the best way to describe it, but Daniel didn’t have Down syndrome like Buddy did. He was more like James Riehl, though James was kicked in the head by an ornery milk cow instead of being born that way. James had been like everyone else until a couple of years ago. Maybe four or six. Buddy couldn’t remember.
He set PJ down in the yard and leaned back against the edge of the porch. The busy puppy immediately ran to the chicken coop and started barking at the chickens. They squawked and flapped their wings from safely inside the wire cage.
Buddy was on his feet in an instant. He loved the soft, sweet dog, but he was starting to get tired. Not of the dog, just in general of trying to keep him out of trouble. He wondered if his mother ever felt that way about Prudy.
“Stop,” he hollered. He took his hat from his head and shooed the pup away from the chickens. It took three times, but PJ gave up barking at the chickens and instead started toward the cow pond at the edge of the woods.
Buddy plopped his hat back on and shook his head at his dog. He loved the beast. PJ had chosen him, just like they said, but sometimes Buddy wondered if his dog had a weak brain. He learned, but it took time, and Buddy had to constantly be watching him to keep him out of mischief.
Never before had he thought so much about weak brains and who in Wells Landing had one. Maybe because it had never come up before. Not since Jenna Burkhart.
With the dog safely chasing wild ducks around the small body of water in the pasture, Buddy headed back inside. He was supposed to be cleaning out his closet and seeing if he had anything that his mamm needed to mend. She didn’t trust him to bring those things to her when he noticed them, so she made him do this twice a year. Once in the fall and once in the spring.
It was May in Oklahoma and most around here considered it to be summer, even though there were still a couple of weeks before summer actually started. It was warm enough to be early summer. According to the thermometer outside the barn, the temperatures were reaching toward the nineties. But he was spring cleaning his closet for Mamm. He had tried to talk her out of making him do it this year, but she had insisted. He wanted his independence almost more than he wanted anything, but he knew—because Jonah had explained it to him—he needed to be choosy about the things he dug in his heels over. Dug in his heels. That was another one of those sayings that almost meant what it really said, but not quite. It meant stand firm. And he was going to do that soon. Just not over cleaning his closet.
He let himself back into the house. At the last minute he caught the screen door and closed it slowly, careful not to let it slam. His mamm hated that. Buddy sort of liked the sound, but it bothered Mamm. If he was going to prove to her that he was growing up, almost a man, then he had to remember things like not slamming the screen door.
“I’m not sure what her problem is,” Mamm was saying as he turned to go upstairs to his room.
He didn’t know why, but his feet stopped. He paused, wanting to hear what she said next and to whom she was saying it.
“She doesn’t have a problem, Mamm.” His sister Hannah.
Hannah had just had a baby and liked to come over when she could to let the baby “visit” with its gross eldra. As far as Buddy could see, Hannah did much more visiting than the baby, but when he had said as much, both his mamm and his sister had fussed at him.
He lingered there at the bottom of the stairs and listened for what they would say next. He wanted to visit with his little niece, but he didn’t think Hannah would let him hold her. She rarely did. And when she did say it was okay, she made him wash his hands clear up to his elbows and use that smelly sanitizer to kill all the germs. Buddy didn’t like the sanitizer. He didn’t like how it made his hands sticky or how it smelled. He wanted to hold the baby, but most times he didn’t think it was worth all the trouble she put him through.
Fancy Amish.
That’s what everyone said about Hannah with her fancy house and fancy clock in the front room. She and her husband had fancy tastes. Buddy didn’t see what was wrong with all that. But he sure hated the sanitizer.
“Call it what you will,” Mamm was saying, “but the girl isn’t normal. She’s weak in the brain.”
The words stuck Buddy’s feet to the floor. Jenna. They were talking about Jennifer Abigail Burkhart. Jenna wasn’t weak in the brain. She had a weak brain. It was almost the same thing, but different. Weak in the brain made it sound like she couldn’t make good decisions or wasn’t smart. But a weakened brain seemed to say to him that she might take a little longer to get to where she needed to be in making a decision, but give her enough time and she would get there.
Jah, he liked a weakened brain a lot better.
“She isn’t soft in the head,” Hannah said. Apparently his sister agreed with him. “She just has brain damage. From a swimming accident.”
“Who told you that?”
He could almost hear his sister’s shrug even if he couldn’t see her. He had seen it enough times to picture it in his head without any help. “Maybe Sadie.”
“Sadie Kauffman?”
“Sadie Hein,” Hannah corrected.
His mother made that harrumphing sound that meant she either didn’t like something or she didn’t agree with it. “Married to a Mennonite.”
Buddy didn’t know why his mother disapproved of Mennonites so much. She claimed she didn’t, but it sure seemed that way to him. She hated that Sadie Kauffman had gone and “married up with a Mennonite.” Buddy didn’t care. Hadn’t they all been Amish at one time? Or maybe they had all been Mennonite. Anyway, there had been a time when they had all believed the same thing. So why were they so far apart these days? He didn’t understand.
Besides, he liked Sadie. She was always nice to him. It was probably because of her brother Daniel, and she understood that not everyone had a brain that worked like everyone else’s. Daniel’s didn’t. He went to special school and everything. Buddy hadn’t gone to special school. He’d just taken a little longer to finish up. Or maybe Sadie didn’t believe that just because a person’s brain didn’t work like everyone else’s that they should be treated any differently.
But he liked Sadie. She had married a Mennonite man by the name of Ezra Hein. Buddy supposed that it didn’t have anything to do with being Mennonite, but Ezra owned an exotic-animal ranch between Taylor Creek and Wells Landing. He had all sorts of animals there. Bison—those were what people mistakenly called buffalo, but they were really bison—deer, elk, and all sorts of cattle. Year before last he had a few camels, but when Titus Lambert came home from prison, Ezra had sold him the camels so he could milk them. Buddy thought that was weird, but amazing. He had never tho
ught about milking anything but a cow or a goat, but he supposed any animal who gave birth to live young could produce milk and therefore be milked. He had just never thought about it much before then.
Hannah ignored their mother’s mention of Mennonites and continued. “She was perfectly normal up until then. I heard it was a terrible tragedy for their family. Jenna being an only child and all.”
Buddy held his breath as his mother tsked. “Sometimes God’s will is hard to understand.”
He didn’t know what to think about that, so he paused his thoughts and simply listened to them talk. There had been a time when Jenna’s brain had worked just fine, but then she’d had an accident and it stopped working the same. Like James Riehl. But not like him. Buddy had been born with his brain working the way it did. Him and Daniel Kauffman.
Jenna’s family had been aggrieved over her change and had pressed on until Jenna’s father died. They’d continued to live in Yoder until a few weeks ago when they came south to Wells Landing.
Hannah didn’t say why Jenna and her family had moved to Wells Landing or why they had chosen Wells Landing over all the other places they could have moved. Buddy hadn’t heard anyone say that they were kin to the Burkharts. Had it simply been part of God’s plan that they moved to where he lived?
He smiled at the thought. He loved when God’s plan came to light. It was like a ray of sunshine burning through a rain cloud. Things were dim and cloudy, then all of a sudden . . . everything was clear! Yes, God’s plan. He liked it. He liked it a lot.
“What are you doing?” Jonathan appeared at the top of the stairs, staring at Buddy as if he had forgotten where he lived.
Buddy sputtered. “I’m cleaning my closet.”
Jonathan shook his head. “You can’t clean your closet it you’re standing at the bottom of the stairs.”
“Can too.” Buddy gave a firm nod, daring Jonathan to say different.
“Fine.” Jonathan made his way down the stairs and brushed past Buddy.
