Loving Jenna

by Amy Lillard

  Jenna’s stomach clenched, but she wasn’t going to give in. She wasn’t sure why it was important for her not to, but it was.

  “Jenna Gail,” Mamm pleaded. “Let’s talk this out.”

  “I don’t want to talk it out.”

  “You think you know things. You think you’re grown-up and that you’re in love, but there’s more to what goes on between a married couple than what you see at church and what you might have learned from books at the library.”

  “What if I am in love?” What would she do then? And the chances of Jenna actually being in love were great. Buddy was more than she could have ever asked for. He had gotten her over her fear of water. He told her she was pretty, and he never once told her anything was a shame.

  “There’s more to it than love. There are bills to pay and kids to raise. Where will you live? What will he do for a job?”

  “Maybe I’ll get a job.”

  “Jenna Gail, think about what you are saying. I believe that you are wonderful and bright, but your brain . . .”

  “My brain is simple, I know. But it’s the only one I have and it’s working for me now.”

  “You have no idea what you’re saying.”

  “Maybe not. But I love Buddy and he loves me.”

  “It will never be enough,” Mamm said.

  Even as she told herself not to allow the words to get to her, they did. Her stomach flipped over with a feeling most like dread. Like what was going to happen would happen and there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Leave the girl alone, Charlotte.” Mammi picked that time to jump back into the conversation.

  “But she—”

  Mammi shook her head. “She’s almost twenty-one years old. It’s time you let her grow up.”

  * * *

  Jenna didn’t think Sunday would ever get there. Maybe because she wanted it to be Sunday more than anything. Church meant at least a little time with Buddy. She didn’t know if he would be at the singing. She hadn’t even asked her mamm if she could go. Then again, maybe she shouldn’t ask at all. She could just go and see what Mamm would do. Probably hit the ceiling, maybe even for real, but she would be upset. Jenna didn’t want to purposely upset her mamm, but she wanted things . . . and love. What was wrong with that?

  She had been thinking about it a lot lately. Ever since she had held Baby Holly for Caroline. She was good with children. She was a natural mother. She loved keeping house, and she loved Buddy. All that seemed to point to marriage.

  She pulled in her thoughts. She was getting ahead of herself, but she couldn’t help dreaming. The dream of a family of her own, husband and children, had died with her on the banks of that river. She had been brought back, but the dream was no longer there. Could she dare to hope?

  She used a cracker to scrape the cup cheese from its little Styrofoam cup. She popped the cracker into her mouth, then tossed the cup into the trash. She loved cup cheese, but her favorite way to eat it was in a sandwich . . . with peanut butter spread.

  “Hi, Jenna.” She whirled around at the sound of the unexpected greeting that came from behind.

  “Buddy.” She smiled, then covered her mouth with her hand. It was still full of cracker and cheese.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She nodded and did her best to hurry up and swallow the food. One hard swallow and a gulp of water later, she was fine. “I was looking for you.”

  “I was talking to the guys.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward a spot near the barn. There was a group of younger men gathered there, all just standing around talking in the early afternoon sun. A couple of them still held plates, but most had already finished their meal while sitting at the bench tables set up for that purpose.

  “How did your parents act after we left?” Jenna asked.

  “You first.”

  She shook her head. “My mamm always is the same. I’m not old enough in the brain to handle things, and I don’t know what’s good for me. Every time it’s the same. You?”

  “Pretty much just like that. Dat told me that I couldn’t support a wife and a family. I don’t have a job and we couldn’t live there.”

  “Wife?” The one word sent joy to her heart and tears to her eyes. “You want me to be your wife?”

  He looked at her like she had lost her mind. “Of course. Surely you know that.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Well I do, and you’re supposed to say ‘and stop calling me Shirley.’”

  It took her a minute to piece the joke together. But she laughed when she did. “That’s funny.”

  He gave a shrug, which was more or less the shift of one shoulder and a small tilt of his head to that side. “It’s just something we say. Me and my brothers. Mostly Jonah.”

  She hadn’t spent a lot of time with Jonah. Barely any, truth be told, but he seemed like a good man to her.

  “I wish I could touch you,” he quietly said. “Hold your hand or something. Maybe a kiss.” His voice had a hopeful upturn.

  Her heart started a wild pounding in her chest. “I wish you could too.”

  “I have to find a job.”

  He smiled at her that wonderful bright smile that she could never get enough of. “Maybe after that we could, uh . . . talk to the bishop.”

  “I’ll get a job too,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I want to provide for you.”

  “No. I mean, that’s sweet and all, but we have to show our parents that we can do this. The more money we have, the better we’ll be.”

  He couldn’t argue with that, but Jenna could tell that he wanted to.

  “Lots of wives work,” she told him. “Caroline Fitch and Esther Fitch. Most of the Kauffman girls.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, jah, I got it.”

  But saying Esther and Caroline’s names reminded her of something. “I’m going to apply at the bakery,” she said. She had no idea how she was going to get there, but she was going first thing tomorrow. If she had seen one pregnant woman in her life she had seen dozens. And Caroline Fitch was pregnant again. Jenna just knew it. And a pregnant bakery co-owner with three children meant a part-time job for someone, and she intended that someone to be her.

  “Are you going to the singing tonight?” he asked.

  “I was planning on it.”

  “Your mamm agree?”

  Jenna tossed her head and thrust out her chin. “I didn’t ask,” she said. “Nor do I plan on it. I’m almost twenty-one years old and I can decide without her whether or not I want to go to a singing. Are you going?”

  “Jah,” he said. “But I can’t take you home.”

  Her happy heart sank like a stone. “Why not?”

  “Our parents don’t want us to be together. If we’re going to make this work, we have to stand our ground, but not on every little thing. Jonah taught me that. So we let them think that they are running everything and then bam! We hit them with the news of our jobs and our wedding plans.”

  “That’s smart.”

  Buddy nodded. “Jonah’s smart.”

  It was a good plan. Now they just needed to find jobs.

  * * *

  Buddy moved away from Jenna and went back to where his brother and the rest of his group were standing. He had wanted to at least touch Jenna, maybe hold one of her soft hands in his own, but he knew that wasn’t possible. Not yet. But soon they would have a lifetime of touches and hand-holding ahead of them.

  “I’m telling you,” Titus was saying. “Y’all laughed at me for the camels, but camel farming is booming.”

  “What does that mean?” Buddy asked.

  “It means it’s doing good,” Jonah explained.

  “Real good,” Titus added.

  “I still can’t believe people pay that for a gallon of camel’s milk,” Obie Brenneman said.

  “Englischers,” someone else added.

  Titus shrugged. “I don’t make the market. Camel milk is a hot commodity.” He s
hook his head. “And a lot of work. I had just about gotten Abbie willing to milk them, then the baby. Then one baby turned to two, and I don’t think I’ll ever get her back into the barn.”

  Buddy had almost forgotten. Titus’s wife, Abbie, had just given birth to twins earlier that year. They were tiny little things at first and had to be in the hospital for a long time. Then they finally got to bring them home but had to have extra care there as well. Hannah had gone over and sat with her several times. He wondered how they were doing now. Sometimes mamms took their babies upstairs and listened to the preachings through the floor, but most had their babies with them downstairs as long as they weren’t crying. It seemed Abbie and Titus’s twins were always crying because she was never down in church.

  “I’ll milk them,” Buddy said. He hadn’t even thought about the words before they slipped from his mouth. But he would.

  “Thanks, Buddy.” Titus clapped him on the back. “I need more than just a little help.”

  “Like a farm hand?” Buddy asked. That was even better.

  “Jah.” Titus nodded.

  “I want the job.”

  Titus looked to Jonah.

  His brother shrugged.

  Titus looked back to Buddy. “Have you talked about this with your folks?”

  Buddy puffed out his chest. “I don’t need to ask them. I’m almost twenty years old. Most everyone here that age is married.”

  Titus looked around the yard where the church members milled around, still talking, snacking, and drinking what was left of the lemonade. He didn’t say the words, but Buddy could see it in his eyes. Titus saw what he was saying. Almost everyone there over twenty had been married at some time or another.

  “I could use your help. And I can pay you a fair wage,” Titus said. “But I would feel better if one of us talked to your father.”

  “I’ll do that.” Buddy didn’t want anyone else handling his business. If he was going to prove that he was grown-up enough to have a job, a wife, and maybe even a couple of kids, then he needed to start now.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “No.” Mamm shook her head and pushed up from the table. She stormed to the kitchen as if she had heard enough.

  Buddy looked to his father. “I’m going to work for Titus.” The more he thought about the idea, the more he liked it. Working with animals and not just cows and pigs, but camels. That was something you couldn’t say every day.

  His dat’s expression was blank, and Buddy thought maybe he was hiding his true feelings behind a mask of indifference. He didn’t look like he cared one way or the other, but Buddy knew his dat well enough to know that he had feelings on the matter. He just didn’t want Buddy to know what they were.

  “If you’ve got your heart set on it, I guess we can do without you here.”

  Buddy didn’t do near around the farm what his brothers did. He always wanted to do more, but it seemed as if every time he stepped up to take on more responsibilities, someone came right behind to help him. Most times he didn’t need the help. He just needed for everyone to get out of his way and leave him to it.

  “This is something I really want to do.”

  “Eli,” his mother called from the other room. “Can you come here, please?”

  There was one moment when Buddy thought his dat might protest, then it passed. “One sec,” he told Buddy, then pushed up from the table and followed his wife to the kitchen.

  Buddy sat at the table and traced the pattern of the wood grain as he waited for his dat to return. He could have gotten up and walked to the door to listen, but that wouldn’t have been the mature thing to do. So he waited. At any rate, it wasn’t long before their voices could be heard where he was sitting. Maybe not all that they were saying, but a little. Absolutely not! came from his mother. While We have to let him grow up sometime came from his father.

  Buddy hated that his parents were fighting about him, but it couldn’t be helped. He had to be allowed to grow up sometime, and that time was now.

  A little while later his father returned to the table and sat back down in his seat at its head. “How are you going to get to work, son?”

  “The tractor?” he asked hopefully.

  Dat shook his head.

  “The carriage.”

  “I don’t believe the carriage will be a safe means to get to Titus Lambert’s every day.”

  “I guess I’ll get myself a driver.” He had to do something. He was supposed to be at work first thing on Wednesday morning. He had Tuesday to find a way there.

  “You know it’s going to eat up everything you make,” his dat warned him.

  But Buddy would not be dissuaded. A man had to do what a man had to do.

  * * *

  Jenna wiped her hands down the sides of her dress and made her way into the kitchen.

  Her mamm sat at the table with Mammi, hulling strawberries and getting ready to make jam.

  “Can I talk to you for a little bit?” she asked.

  “Of course.” Mamm didn’t look up from her task.

  “I need to go into town this afternoon.” Whew! There! She had said it. She had been practicing in her mind ever since the idea had come to her. She needed to get into town, and since the farthest she had ever traveled alone was over to Buddy’s house, then she was going to need help.

  “Oh, jah?” This time Mamm did look at her but only to make eye contact then look away again, back down at the large bowl of strawberries sitting in front of her.

  “Yes,” Jenna said with more confidence than she felt.

  “And why is that?”

  “I need to go into town and apply for a job at Esther’s Bakery.”

  Mamm’s knife clattered against the side of her bowl as her fingers turned loose. Mamm didn’t even look to see where it landed. She stared at Jenna, eyes wide and mouth partially open. “W-what?”

  She had to say it again? She supposed she should have seen this coming, but she hadn’t. She had wanted this to go smoothly, but Mamm was so involved in every aspect of her life that Jenna should have planned for her not to take these changes in stride.

  “I need to go into town,” Jenna said.

  “I understood that part.” Mamm waited, almost as if daring Jenna to repeat what she had said earlier.

  “I want to apply for a job at Esther’s Bakery.”

  “How do you even know Esther has any positions? She may be completely staffed.” She looked at Mammi, but her grandmother kept her head down over the bowl. Jenna couldn’t blame Mammi. She didn’t want anyone to think she was interfering. Mamm had accused her of that before.

  “Caroline Fitch is going to have another baby.”

  “Caroline Fitch already has a baby.”

  “She’s going to have another,” Jenna insisted.

  “How do you know?” Mamm asked.

  “She just knows,” Mammi said. “Her aenti was the same way. She knew before anyone else, even the mother.”

  Mamm scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. And I will not let you go into town spouting off about nonexistent babies in order to get a job.”

  All of a sudden the truth hit. “You don’t want me to have a job.”

  Mamm scoffed. “You don’t need a job. You have everything you need right here.”

  “I don’t have Buddy.”

  “You don’t need Buddy Miller.”

  But she did. She needed him like the air that she breathed and the water she drank. “I do.”

  “Go on up to your room, Jenna Gail. Gather up those ridiculous novels you got at the library and bring them to me. There will be no more of this nonsense in this house.”

  “Mamm!” she protested.

  But her mother was not hearing it. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Now, Jenna Gail.”

  Jenna remained stock still, just waiting for her mamm to change her mind. They stood that way, gazes locked, neither one budging.

  “Now, Jenna Gail.”

  With a low growl of frustration, Jenna
whirled on her toes and flounced toward the stairs.

  There was nothing wrong with those books. Not if you were an Englisch person and that was your life. They had a few kissing scenes in them, but nothing else. The men were so handsome, and the women so desperately wanted their independence but not at the sacrifice of love. What was wrong with that?

  As she gathered the books, her tears started, tears of frustration, anger, and sadness, mixed with the hopeless ones. How was she ever going to convince her mother that she was old enough to do more for herself? That she deserved love? Didn’t everyone deserve love?

  She held one of the books in her hand, but the cover blurred until it looked like one of the paintings on the wall of the library. Jenna had asked the librarian what it was a picture of. She said it was a picture of whatever she wanted it to be. To her it looked like splotches of golden brown, shades of green, and even more blue. She decided that it was a picture of a harvest. The blue was the sky, the green the parts the farmer wasn’t harvesting. Or maybe winter wheat. The golden brown was the corn that had to be gathered. Well, it might have been if it had been upside down. That way the blue would have been on the top where she thought it belonged. But she hadn’t said as much. Now as she gathered the books that had once meant so much to her, these covers changed and blurred like the lines on that painting.

  What did she want them to be about? They were about love. There was one about a girl in a wheelchair. She put it in the sack. Another about a girl who was deaf. She placed it in the sack on top of the other. The cover might be blurry through her tears, but she could see the cover of the one about the girl who was blind. This one a single mother, that one older because she had spent her entire life raising her siblings after their parents died in a tragic car accident.

  But they had one thing in common—all these women, they deserved love. All of them. And the same could be said for her. She might not have the strongest brain, but she had someone who cared for her and he loved her just the way she was. In fact, he even liked her. That was worth gold, as far as she was concerned. She shoved the last one between the mattress and the box springs with the other one she hadn’t yet finished.

  “And don’t forget the ones you hid between the mattresses.”