by Amy Lillard
Jenna rolled her eyes, but only because her mamm couldn’t see her. She wiped away her tears. “Jah, Mamm,” she called as she fished the two novels out. She shoved them into her pair of old rainboots in the closet. She had outgrown them a while back. She wasn’t even sure why they were still in her closet, but they were. And they made the perfect hiding place for two unauthorized romance novels.
Jenna wiped at her cheeks again and started down the stairs. She was three steps from the bottom when she stopped. She could hear them talking just on the other side of the room. And they were talking about her. They had to be.
“I have been quiet long enough,” Mammi was saying. “I can’t remain silent any longer.”
“You don’t have a say in this,” Mamm shot back.
“She is my flesh and blood too, and as a member of this household I believe I do have a voice.”
Mamm sighed. Jenna didn’t know exactly what it meant, but it sounded a little resigned, as if Mamm didn’t want to listen but knew she was going to have to all the same.
“We came here to Wells Landing together. You and I decided that we all three needed a fresh start. Jenna never wanted to come. She never wanted to be here, but she had no choice. But since we have been here, that girl has blossomed.”
Those words made her warm, inside and out. She liked the thought of blossoming.
“Are you saying I should allow her to run amok all over the district, doing as she pleases?”
“Hardly.” Mammi scoffed, but it was a gentle sound. “But I do think you don’t give her enough credit. She can cook, do laundry, take care of a baby, and clean a house. What more does she need to know how to do?”
Jenna waited for her mamm’s answer, but it didn’t come right away. Jenna held her breath and strained her ears, afraid she would miss it when it did.
Finally Mamm said, “I only want what’s best for her.”
“Me too,” Mammi said. “But sometimes what’s best is hardest for parents to accept.”
* * *
“Are you ready to go to town?” Mammi asked just after breakfast the next morning.
“For what?” Jenna asked. She stacked the dishes in the sink and wrung out the dishrag so she could wipe the crumbs from the table.
Last night she had come back down the stairs and placed the bag of romance novels on the table. Mamm hadn’t said a word, just pleaded off with a headache and went to bed early. The books were still in the sack off to one side, and Mamm still hadn’t come down for breakfast.
“I thought you wanted to apply at Esther’s Bakery?”
Jenna stopped, mid-wipe across the table, to stare at her grandmother. “I do. I did. But . . .”
Mammi waited for her to finish. Both the table and her thoughts.
“I didn’t think Mamm wanted me to apply.”
Mammi nodded. “Jah, well. Your mother means well. Always. Do you know that?”
Jenna thought about it for a moment. What was her grandmother trying to say? “Do you mean that she doesn’t mean to hurt my feelings when she tells me that I have a weak brain?”
Mammi laughed lightly. “Jah, I suppose that’s part of what I mean. She loves you. And almost losing you nearly killed her.”
Jenna’s eyes widened as she dropped the dishrag back into the sink. “Are you saying she almost died?”
“Something like that. Not quite as literal, of course, but she was devastated after your accident. I think that’s why she’s been trying to keep you safe all these years.”
She had to stop and think about that. “Did she try to keep me safe by telling me I have a weak brain?”
“If you didn’t try to venture too far from her, then surely you wouldn’t be able to get so badly hurt again.”
Jenna eased into one of the dining chairs and propped her elbow onto the table, her chin in her hand. “What about Buddy?” she asked. “Why doesn’t she like Buddy?” He was one of the best people she knew.
“Buddy has the potential to take you away from her.”
“By marrying me one day?”
Mammi nodded. “I’m not sure she ever thought you would marry.”
“I guess that would be a lot to accept. If you weren’t expecting it at all,” she added.
“You might have to be patient with her,” Mammi said. “But I know she loves you and only wants the best for you.”
And that gave Jenna a lot to think about all the way into town to put in her job application at Esther’s Bakery.
* * *
Buddy opened his wallet and pulled out a couple of folded bills. He started to count them, lost count, and had to start all over again while the driver waited.
He could tell that the man was beginning to get antsy. He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and hummed along with a tune only he could hear.
“Here.” Buddy thrust the bills at him, hoping it was enough, praying it wasn’t too much.
The driver looked at the cash, then back to Buddy, then sighed and started to count.
The man wasn’t one of the normal Amish drivers, but he had promised to take Buddy over to the Lambert farm for half the price the other drivers quoted him. Now he knew why.
“Everything okay?”
Buddy sighed in relief as Titus came out of the barn.
“Everything’s fine,” the driver said.
But Titus continued to come closer until he was standing right next to Buddy.
“How much was the ride?” Titus asked.
The driver quoted him the price.
Titus looked to Buddy, who nodded his confirmation. Then he looked at the money in the driver’s hand. “That looks like plenty with a tip.” Then he shook his head. “Nope, looks like there might be an extra five in there. Want to hand that out? In fact, why don’t you give me the money and I’ll count it for him.”
The driver blew out a breath and handed the money out the window to Titus. He counted it, added a dollar or two to the total as a tip and handed it back to the driver. The money was no sooner in his hand than he started to drive away.
Titus waved a hand in front of his face as he tried to clear the dust from the air. “Nice fella you found there.”
Buddy shook his head. “He wasn’t nice at all.” He couldn’t say he was mean, but he hadn’t been friendly like the other drivers he had been with. “Was he trying to take advantage of me?”
Titus handed Buddy back the rest of the money he had collected from the driver. “I think so. Sorry.”
“Because I’m not as smart as everyone else?”
“Maybe. Could have been because you are Amish. Or he was just one of those people who tries to take advantage of every situation he can. But you’ve got to be more careful. Why are you here with a driver?”
“I can’t bring the tractor, and Dat said I couldn’t drive the buggy and horse all the way over here.”
“So you got a driver.”
Buddy nodded. “I thought it would be a good way to get here.” He turned and looked down the road where the driver had disappeared. “I was wrong.”
Titus laughed. Buddy knew he wasn’t laughing at him, but his words. “Are you going to have trouble getting here every day?”
Buddy started to answer, then stopped. “No. I’ll be fine. I want to work with you. I’ll get here every day. And on time.”
Titus looked at him carefully, as if he was trying to figure out what his skin was made of or something. “Let me ask that another way. Are you going to have to have a driver every day?”
Buddy sucked in a breath and nodded.
“That’s not a good plan.”
“But I want to work here,” Buddy said. “I don’t have another plan.”
Titus propped his hands on his hips and seemed to think about it for a moment. “I might have one for you.”
* * *
“Well?” Titus asked. “What do you think?”
Buddy looked around the room at the setup. There was a bed, a cot really, with a pillow and a
blanket. There was a small table made from two sawhorses and a piece of plywood. A kerosene lantern, a pitcher and a cup, and a vase that looked as if it had contained a flower at one point or another.
“What is it?” Buddy asked.
“How would you feel about staying here?”
“Like living here? All the time?”
“Jah, if you need to. It would keep you from having to pay for a driver back and forth and I could use the help.”
Buddy shook his head. “I can’t afford it.” He couldn’t afford a driver. How was he supposed to afford an apartment? Even if it was a room in the barn that smelled like horses and had a hay floor.
“You haven’t even asked how much it is a month.” He looked back at the space Titus was offering him. It might not look like much to anyone else, but it was beautiful to him. It was independence, freedom. Everything that he had been dreaming of lately. “How much?”
“Free.”
Free? He couldn’t believe his luck! This was the greatest thing anyone had ever given him. Then, like a balloon with a hole in it, his excitement leaked away. Buddy shook his head. “I can’t take charity.”
Titus grinned. “It’s not charity. It’ll be part of your pay.”
“Really?” Buddy could hardly believe his ears. How lucky! How blessed! The Lord was surely looking out for him today. “Thank you, Titus.”
“Don’t thank me now,” Titus said. “You haven’t seen the work yet.”
* * *
“We keep eight females nowadays,” Titus said. He led Buddy into a strange paddock with high fences and a weird chute that made him think of the bull riders he had seen on the TV in Walmart one time. If he remembered correctly, that chute wasn’t quite as big as the one Titus had built, but it was tall and wide.
“You only have ninety seconds to milk a camel. And we do it all by hand.”
“No milking machines?” Buddy asked.
Titus shook his head. “It would take half our time to get the milking machines in place and doesn’t seem to be any more efficient.”
Buddy nodded. How different could it be from milking a cow? “They only have four teats, right?”
“Of course.” Titus laughed. “Abbie’s father used to help, but he’s getting down in his back. If we want to get all the product, we have to milk with two people, one on each side.”
“That’s why you have the chute?” He pointed to the large wooden box at the edge where the two pastures met.
“Jah. It makes them feel secure.” He gave a small shrug. “We milk twice a day. The rest of your time will be taken up with care of the animals and selling the milk. Most people come by and get it, but we are looking into freezing the milk to enable us to ship it directly to the customers. So far it hasn’t proven cost-effective, but we aren’t giving up yet.”
“And people really drink it?” He looked out into the pasture where the camels grazed no differently than Holsteins and Jerseys.
“They say it’s good for a variety of things, but a lot of Englischers buy it for their autistic kids.”
Buddy nodded. “I’ve heard of that.”
“They say it helps.”
He liked Titus, despite some of the rumors he had overheard. They said Titus killed Alvin and another boy in a car wreck a few years back. But looking at the man before him and knowing what he did about him, Buddy wouldn’t believe it was anything other than an accident. Titus had even spent time in prison. That was before he came back and got into the milking-camels business.
Buddy tugged on Titus’s shirt sleeve. “Do you think it will help me? Camel’s milk?”
Titus laughed. “There’s no hope or help for you at all.” Buddy joined in, and for once felt like one of the guys. He was going to like this job.
* * *
Esther Fitch looked at the paper Jenna handed her, then over to Caroline. But Jenna couldn’t tell what kind of look it was. It might have been a What are we going to do with this girl? or a How do I tell her no? look. She just wasn’t certain.
“I’ll do any sort of work,” Jenna said. “I don’t mind sweeping floors or washing pans or bowls. I do that sort of thing at home all the time. Everything I bake comes out yummy.” She thought of the terrible cupcakes she had made for Buddy. “Most times.”
“Oh, dear,” Esther said. She held the paper to her chest. “I would love to have you on my team, Jenna Burkhart, but we’ve already got all the help we need.”
Jenna couldn’t hide her disappointment. “I thought with the new baby coming . . .”
Caroline smiled. “That’s something else. How did you know about that?”
Jenna shrugged. “Somehow I know.”
“She probably senses it,” Esther said by way of explanation.
“I guess. The only person who knows besides Andrew and Esther is Andrew’s sister, Lizzie.” She turned back to Jenna. “That’s why we don’t need help. I’m sorry,” she said. “Lizzie’s coming down from Missouri to stay with us and work at the bakery.”
All her plans fell apart in that one instant. “I needed a job,” she said. She didn’t want to be heartbroken, but that was exactly how she felt. Her heart was breaking in two. How were she and Buddy ever supposed to show everyone that they were grown-up enough to be together?
“Say,” Caroline mused. She had one arm around herself and the other raised so her fingers touched her cheek. “You want a job helping with babies?”
“I would love that,” Jenna said. “Whose babies?”
“Titus and Abbie Lambert.”
Jenna thought she might have met them at church, but she couldn’t remember. She had met so many people. She shook her head.
“They have twin girls. I guess about two months old, now,” Caroline said. “It’s been hard for them. The babies came too early. But they’re home from the hospital and doing well.”
“And she needs help?”
Caroline nodded. “Abbie’s mother lives there with them. And her father too, but they aren’t in the best of health. She was asking me the other day if I knew anyone.”
“Abbie,” Jenna repeated. “Short for Abigail?”
“I have no idea. Everyone just calls her Abbie.”
Still, it felt a lot like a sign, a beacon to show her what she needed to be doing. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to go talk to them,” Jenna said.
Caroline wrote the address down on a piece of paper and handed it to Jenna. “Just tell her that I suggested you come by.”
“Okay. Thank you.” Jenna folded up the piece of paper but held it in her hand. “And keep my application. In case something happens.” She gave a small shrug as if to say you never know. Then with a small wave she headed out the door to where her grandmother waited.
“Well?” Mammi asked as Jenna climbed into the buggy.
“She’s got family coming in to help.”
Mammi nodded.
“But she thinks the Lamberts might need me.” She passed the piece of paper to her grandmother. “Do you know where this is?”
Mammi read it and shook her head. “But I know someone who does.” She pointed, and Jenna followed the line straight to the mailman. “They know where everybody lives.”
Sure enough, his directions took them the shortest route to the Lamberts’ camel farm. She seemed to remember Buddy saying something about it. How someone else had owned the camels, then sold them to Titus Lambert who was . . . milking them. No, that couldn’t be right. Cows and goats, that’s what people milked. Maybe she heard wrong, or he had been teasing her. But why else would a person want camels? They were strange creatures.
“I’ll wait here,” Mammi said.
But Jenna shook her head. “Come too, please.” The bakery was different; this was someone’s house and she felt the need to have her grandmother at her side when she knocked on the door.
Jenna could hear the baby crying before she even raised a hand to knock. Crying was a nice word for what was coming from the house. Wailing was more correct. Whoe
ver was making all that noise was unhappy, for certain.
She knocked, but the sound was hesitant, and she wasn’t sure whoever was in the house could hear it over the terrible cries. She knocked again, this time louder, this time stronger, and she held onto her doubts until she heard movement from behind the door.
Suddenly it opened and a woman stood there. She was petite and blond with pretty blue eyes framed with dark, dark circles. Her dress looked as if she had been wearing it for a couple of days. Not because it was so dirty, but it was wrinkled. The material most Amish women used to make their dresses seemed impossible to crease and yet this dress looked as if it had been wadded up for a year or so before she went to put it on. The kerchief on her head was a little crooked and she could definitely use a dab of baby lotion to smooth down the wayward sprigs of hair that stood out wherever her kerchief had slipped out of place.
“Jah?” She rocked one baby gently in the crook of one arm but otherwise made no acknowledgment that the pink-swathed baby was anything less than a happy, gurgling infant. Truth was she was red-faced, screaming, and seemed to have been at it a while. The second baby, in one of those Englisch carriers that looked like a baby backpack but in the front, was more or less in the same mood. Though Jenna couldn’t tell right off if it was more or less.
“I’m—” Jenna started, but the babies’ cries kept her from hearing her own voice. “Caroline—” she tried again but had to stop. She wanted to put her hands over her ears and block out the sound so she could speak, but that wouldn’t help the babies.
Without thinking she reached out and plucked one of the twins from the woman and cradled her close. She gently shushed her, making soothing noises and saying made-up words that meant nothing. It took only a few moments, but with her tiny little head nestled in the crook of Jenna’s neck, the baby stopped screaming. She rooted and grunted and found a spot to suckle, kind of like a puppy searching for his mama.
The woman in the house stared at her with disbelieving eyes. “How did you do that?”
Jenna shrugged. “I have a way with babies.”
Once one was settled down, the other stopped crying as well, and with only one baby to hold at a time, the mother placed her arms around the baby’s bottom and supported her through the carrier. Somehow that looked more comfortable to Jenna than the wildly dangling baby legs of a few moments before.
