Even after Brady was older, our lives were just so different that it was often hard to relate. I loved him, of course, and it was easy to see he looked up to me, but sometimes it took the first day or two of my visits there just to relax and grow comfortable together again. I knew he enjoyed having his big brother around, and it hit me with new clarity that my life had been made much richer by the aunt and uncles I’d grown up with, all of whom had been like siblings to me.
Since coming here to live, I’d always been surrounded by other kids, but what of Brady? Except when I visited, he was the only child living in their home, which had to be a lonely state indeed—especially given that our father was not one to show emotion unless it involved the acquisition of a new muscle car, the only thing Dad had a passion for outside his former military life. And Liz? She was polite and hospitable, but she always seemed to be on her guard, as if she were hesitant to be her true self. I didn’t know if she was that way all the time or just around me, but if it was the former, then it was no wonder Brady looked forward to having me in the house for a few weeks each summer. There was much he had that I didn’t, but I saw now that that was true in the reverse as well.
When Timber and I reached the stables, I paused at the supply closet to serve up some dog chow and then used the hose to rinse out his water bowl and refill it. After that, I moved the rest of the way inside and turned my attention to Jake, who had obviously been going through his duties at record speed. I was feeling a little more up to conversation by that point, but he was so antsy that we barely spoke. Instead, he finished picking each horse’s hooves while I drained the watering trough, scrubbed it out, and filled it back up again.
Jake had already dumped the grain into the feeding trough before I got there, so as the horses had their fill of water, I opened the broad double doors to the pasture. The animals were usually eager to get outside, but this time several of them hung back, as if they knew Jake was leaving today. The stalls needed mucking out, however, so finally I insisted on taking over, telling Jake to go on back to the house, that he and his mopey animals were in my way.
“Thanks, Tyler,” he said without a hint of his usual sarcasm. He tried to shoo the animals out, but as he patted down the one who lingered, he called out to me a laundry list of things I was not to forget about caring for his beloved horses while he was gone—from keeping an eye on the pasture for a particular invasive clover that was toxic to horses if ingested to checking them daily for bites and sores and rashes. None of it was news to me.
Finally, he headed out, pausing at the doorway to turn back. “You’ll take good care of them for me?” he asked. He’d been a good farrier, and I knew he would become a great blacksmith as well.
“They’ll never even know you’re gone,” I replied, though he and I were both well aware that wasn’t true. He had a way with horses I would never master, no matter how hard I tried.
I managed to finish the rest of the chores by myself, and then I returned to the house for a delicious breakfast of fresh sausage and banana pancakes. That was followed by the reading of a psalm and prayers for the day, and then I headed to the shop.
My morning was spent on finish work to a buggy that was nearly complete. When the detailing was done, I straightened up my work area and then went in search of Jake. I found him in the driveway, beside the family buggy, his backpack slung over one shoulder and a large duffel bag at his feet.
I grabbed the duffel and threw it onto the rear seat of the vehicle as he stepped toward Mammi to give her a hug. Daadi tightened the harness on the horse as the animal lazily chewed on the bit in his mouth.
“There are two sandwiches in the bag for when you get hungry and a slice of coconut cake leftover from the wedding,” Mammi said as she pulled Jake in and squeezed him tight.
“Danke, Mamm.”
Daadi came around to where Jake and Mammi stood, placed a hand on Jake’s shoulder, and bowed his head. “ ‘Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you,’ ” he said, quoting from the book of Second Corinthians. Then he clasped Jake to his chest.
“Danke, Daed.” Jake returned his father’s embrace.
I climbed onto the driver’s seat as Jake said his final farewells.
He stepped aboard, resting his backpack on the floor, and gave his parents a final wave as we moved down the driveway and set off at an easy canter along the main road. A few other buggies were also out and about, some no doubt headed over to the Bowman farm. Only a few cars passed us at first, but the closer to town we got, the more the automobile traffic increased.
I was bringing Jake to a stop on the New Holland line, where he would catch the local to Lancaster then switch over to Greyhound for the day-and-a-half ride to Missouri.
We talked about nothing in particular as we made our way, but when we were just a few blocks from the bus station, his voice took on a more serious tone. “Tyler, are you okay with my leaving the buggy business? I never asked you. And things will be different when I get back.”