Portrait of a Sister

by Laura Bradford

  A rustle of movement was followed by a funny sound from Hannah. Her head spinning, Katie turned in time to see the man pull a stack of money from his wallet. “My wife and I discussed it and we’re willing to pay a thousand dollars if we can walk out of here with it tonight.”

  “A thousand dollars?” Hannah echoed.

  The man looked at his wife and, at her nod, plucked a few more bills from his wallet. “Okay, how about fifteen hundred? Would that work?”

  Hannah’s eyes widened as they came to rest on Katie. “Katie? What do you say? Will fifteen hundred dollars work for Mary’s picture?”

  Mary’s picture . . .

  Katie turned back to the drawing, the memory of that long-ago summer morning tickling the senses her pencil couldn’t draw. The soft mews . . . The sweet purrs . . . The occasional giggle that coincided with the peace claiming every inch of a young Mary’s face—

  A shame unlike any she’d ever experienced moved from her stomach, to her throat, and into her cheeks, propelling her backward and away from her sketch so fast she nearly fell over her own two feet.

  “Miss? Is everything okay?”

  Reaching out, she steadied herself against the wall, her gaze seeking and finding Hannah’s just as Hannah stepped forward. “Katie? Is something wrong?”

  “Is something wrong?” she half shrieked, half sobbed. “Are you really asking me that?”

  “If you think it’s worth more, Katie, just say so and—”

  “It is worth everything, Hannah.”

  Hannah closed the gap between them only to draw back as Katie held up a hand in warning. “Don’t you dare come any closer, Hannah.”

  “Why? What’s wrong? You were fine a minute ago.”

  “Twenty minutes ago . . . before I came into this room . . . things were fine, as you say. Good, even. But that was before I knew what you had done—what you always do.”

  Hannah moved her hands to her hips. “And what is it that I always do, Katie? Care about you? Believe in you? Want the best for you? Because, yeah, I can see why that would be so upsetting . . .”

  “You always try to run my life. My life, Hannah. Mine. Not yours.” Katie slid her thumb underneath the front edge of her kapp, yanked it off her head, and threw it at a clearly stunned Hannah. “Only this time? You ruined everything.”

  Chapter 18

  She knew people were staring. She could feel it just as surely as she could the heart-pounding anger that propelled her forward, her destination the only certainty in her world at that moment. All her life she’d known Hannah to be willful, dominating, and even a little selfish, but it had never been at Katie’s expense.

  Until now.

  And now, well, she had no idea what to do. Assuming anything could even be done . . .

  “How could you, Hannah?” She hissed as she circumvented the crowd of people waiting to cross the last street. “Those were my pictures, my memories, my—”

  “You have both the eye and the talent to really go places, Katie.”

  Talent.

  It was a word that didn’t belong in her world—a world where no man was above another. Yet in the few short days she’d been in the city, she’d heard it in reference to herself and her drawings several times.

  She didn’t want it to feel good, didn’t want it to excite her, but it did. Pretending otherwise might be what was expected of her, but it wasn’t truthful. Two different people had liked her drawings enough to want to buy them, and Mr. Rothman had wanted to display the rest of her work.

  That part she liked, loved even.

  But it was wrong.

  And now, because of Hannah, she stood to lose everything if Dat or anyone in Blue Ball found out about her—

  “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you had wheels on those boots with the speed you’re moving.”

  Startled back into the moment, Katie looked over her shoulder and stopped. “Eric . . . Hello. I didn’t know you were behind me.”

  “That’s because you haven’t looked up since you stepped onto the sidewalk back there.” He pointed over his own shoulder toward Fifty-Ninth Street in the distance. “I called your name a few times, but you obviously didn’t hear me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He closed the remaining gap between them as his gaze left hers and traveled upward. “I wondered what your hair looked like underneath your kapp.”

  “My . . .” She reached up and, at the feel of her hair against her hand, gasped. “My kapp! Oh no . . .”

  “Hey, I didn’t say that to stress you out, I’m just not used to seeing you without it is all.”

  “That is because I always wear it.”

  His smile brought with it a single dimple in each cheek. “I won’t tell.”

  “It does not matter because I know.” She took in the people walking by, the sun as it peeked out at her from between the buildings bordering the park to the west, and then made herself look back at Eric. “I threw it at Hannah on the way out of the gallery.”

  “I take it, it wasn’t a friendly throw?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Ahhhh, okay, so that’s why you didn’t hear me. You were angry.”

  Ashamed, she dropped her focus to her boots. “Yah.”

  At his answering silence, she looked up to find him studying her with an expression she couldn’t quite read. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I don’t want to burden you with such things,” she whispered.

  “It’s not a burden. Trust me.” Setting his hand against her lower back, he guided her across the pathway and over to a park bench beneath a large oak tree. “So talk to me. What happened between you and Hannah?”

  Katie took a deep breath and released it slowly through her lips. “She came home from work this afternoon and told me she had a surprise. I didn’t know what it was about, but she promised it would make me happy.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “At first, she was right. I didn’t know such a place existed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She swiveled her body so that she was facing him rather than the pathway in front of them. “Mr. Rothman’s gallery. It is filled with paintings.”

  His smile was back and so, too, were his dimples. “I see Hannah made good on her promise.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You said she promised her surprise would make you happy, right?”

  “Yah.”

  “Well, just now? When you mentioned the gallery and the paintings? Your eyes absolutely lit up.”

  “It was . . .” She stopped, swallowed, and tried again, the memory of the gallery filling her mind’s eye. “You should have seen it, Eric. The whole front room was filled with one woman’s paintings. They were watercolors, the book said, and many people could look at the same painting and say it was something different. But I was right many times.” She plucked a blade of grass off the edge of her dress and rolled it back and forth between her fingers, the memory of the gallery exciting her all over again. “People were there to see her paintings and she wore such a pretty dress.”

  He, too, turned, draping his arm across the back of the bench as he did. “Did it make you wish maybe you’d let Rothman display your drawings the way he asked?”

  When she didn’t answer, he removed his hand from its resting spot just long enough to guide her eyes off her lap and back onto his face. “It’s okay to say you thought about it, Katie.”

  She swallowed. “I thought about what it would be like to have people come to see my work . . . To have them ask me about the things I have drawn and why . . . To have my picture and my name in a book for people to see . . . And to wear such a dress. But they were just thoughts.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “I am not supposed to think such things.”

  “Again, I won’t tell. And I’m pretty sure Hannah won’t, either, if that’s what you’re worried about . . .”

  Tossing the
blade of grass onto the ground, Katie rose to her feet, the anger Eric’s presence had managed to calm resurfacing in short order. “Because of Hannah I have much bigger things to worry about now.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Two of my pictures were in that gallery. In a back room. And two people want to pay money to have them.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yah.”

  He pushed off the bench and followed her over to the tree. “Katie! That’s fantastic news! Wow! Congratulations! That has to feel incredible!”

  “I didn’t say they could show those pictures. Hannah did it without telling me.”

  His smile faltered but only a little. “Okay, so she should have asked, but look at the end result. People fell in love with your work enough to want to buy it, Katie. That’s awesome.”

  “I drew my little sister’s face, Eric.”

  “And you drew it well enough someone wanted to buy it, apparently.”

  She tried to nibble back her smile, but the memory of the elderly couple talking about her drawing made it difficult. “You should have heard the things they said about my picture,” she whispered.

  “Tell me.”

  And so she did. She told him about coming up behind the couple in the back room and how their excitement over the picture had made her want to see it, too. She told him about the money they offered to be able to take it home and how they hoped it would bring joy to their daughter. And she told him about the picture of Luke Hochstetler and how a different person paid money for it, too.

  “I wish you could see your face right now, Katie. It’s glowing.”

  “But it can’t be.”

  “No, trust me, it is,” he said, grinning.

  She waved away his words as she leaned against the tree. “I mean, my drawings. They can’t be.”

  “They already are.”

  “And because of that, and what Hannah did, I will be shunned if Dat or anyone in Blue Ball finds out. My family and my community will be unable to speak to me. Dat, Samuel, Jakob, Mary, Sadie, and even baby Annie will turn their backs on me for what I have done.” The smile that had been hers only moments earlier gave way to a single tear.

  “But didn’t you say that if you repent things will be okay?”

  “I did, but . . .” She lifted her watery gaze to the dusky sky and held it there to a count of ten. “Dat would know of my drawings and I would have to throw them away to be forgiven.”

  “And you don’t want to throw them away?”

  Squeezing her eyes closed around yet another tear, she willed herself to breathe while Eric repeated his question.

  “I-I’m not sure I can.” Slowly, she opened her eyes to find the gap that had existed between herself and Eric gone. Instead, she found them toe-to-toe just as he reached out and gently wiped her tears away.

  “Why not?” he asked, his voice hushed.

  She stilled his finger against her cheek. “Because I am me when I draw. I am Katie.”

  “Then don’t stop.”

  “Thanks to my sister, it may not be that simple.”

  He opened his mouth as if to respond, but closed it as he lowered his hand to hers and simply squeezed.

  “It’s getting late,” she made herself say. “I-I should be heading back to Hannah’s. I’m still angry at her, but I don’t want her to worry.”

  “C’mon, I’ll walk you back.”

  And so he did. For a while, he even held her hand and that was okay. There was something about his touch that she found calming. Like somehow everything would work out in the end. She wasn’t sure that was the case, but at that moment, it was preferable to the images that were hovering on the outskirts of her thoughts, waiting for that moment when he wasn’t there to distract them away.

  “So when are you heading back to Blue Ball?” he asked as they made their way down a long set of steps and turned onto a path that had them walking alongside a small lake.

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “Do you have plans for your last day?”

  “No.”

  He stopped, released his hold on her hand, and pointed toward the one lone rowboat on the water. “I’d love to take you on one of those while Hannah is at work. And when we’re done, we could have lunch at the boathouse.”

  “Boathouse?”

  “There. See?” He redirected her attention to a brick structure off to the left, just beyond a shoreline dotted with upside-down rowboats. “It’s one of the most well-known places in the park and I think you’d like it.”

  “You want to take me?”

  He laughed. “You sound surprised.”

  She looked down at her aproned dress and then back up at him. “But I am Amish.”

  “Okay, and that matters because why?”

  Unsure of what to say, she simply looked back toward the lake and the couple now disembarking from the small boat, their laughter preceding them down the path. “I don’t know.”

  “I like you, Katie. I like spending time with you. I like learning about your world and seeing mine through your eyes.”

  “But I am not special,” she protested.

  “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  She saw him reach out his hand and, after a moment of uncertainty, she took it, the warmth of his skin against hers bringing a smile to her lips she couldn’t completely nibble away. “Thank you for listening tonight, Eric. For turning what was a bad night into something a little better.”

  “You’re welcome. But I think you need to reconsider the whole bad night thing at least a little, you know?”

  “Reconsider?”

  “Someone wanted to buy your work, Katie.”

  “Two someones,” she corrected.

  His laugh tickled her ears. “Ah, that’s right, my mistake. Two someones wanted to buy your work.” They rounded a corner of the path and crossed over to a different path, this one bringing them closer to the buildings Katie knew signaled the impending end to their time together. “I’d be beside myself if even one someone wanted to buy one of my songs.”

  “It could happen, yah?”

  “I certainly hope so.” He tightened his grip as they stepped out of the park and headed across Fifth Avenue to Hannah’s street. “But really, enjoy this for what it is, Katie, even if it’s only for a little while. Your work is speaking to people. And that’s something you should feel pretty darn good about, if you ask me.”

  “But I—”

  “There’ll be time for buts later. There always is, unfortunately.” He stopped outside Hannah’s building and gave her hand one last tender squeeze. “For now though? It’s okay to be a little proud of yourself. You’ve earned it.”

  Chapter 19

  Katie was waiting in front of the building when he walked up shortly before noon, his legs and his arms tanned to perfection and his dimples on full display. For a brief moment, she wished she’d taken Hannah up on the offer to borrow some English clothes, but she shook it off for the same reason she’d declined in the first place.

  Still, she glanced back at her reflection in the windowed door and quadruple checked the mascara she’d hastily applied just before walking out of the apartment. She knew it was wrong, had even taken the elevator back up to Hannah’s floor two different times with the intention of washing it off, but had changed her mind at the last minute.

  It wasn’t that she was trying to be someone she wasn’t. If she was, she’d have caved and worn the denim shorts Hannah had left on the couch for her. Instead, she’d dressed in her favorite mint-green dress and newest overlay and topped it off with the backup kapp she’d packed.

  The mascara had really just been a whim. Besides, it wasn’t like she’d done a second coat . . .

  “Are you ready for a fun-filled last day?”

  Inhaling deeply, she turned back to the man who was now no more than a step away and let loose the smile she couldn’t hold back even if she’d wanted to. “I am!”

  “Then shall we?” Eric motioned
in the opposite direction from which he’d approached and, at Katie’s nod, fell into step beside her. “I was thinking about it last night and I decided the Boathouse isn’t right for us for lunch.”

  She stopped, mid-step, and did her best to keep the answering disappointment from her voice. “That is okay. I do not want to take too much of your day.”

  “I’m not trying to shorten our time together, Katie. I just thought that maybe a picnic would be nicer. You know, less distractions and all that.”

  “A picnic?”

  He pulled his opposite hand into view and shook the basket she hadn’t noticed until that moment. “Yup. I packed some sandwiches, a few apples, some chips, and two cookies I’m hoping Travis won’t even notice are missing. I figured that gives us more time to talk before Hannah invariably calls and tells me it’s time to bring you back. Which reminds me . . . how did it go last night when I dropped you off? Did you and Hannah talk about what happened at the gallery?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Together, they crossed into the park and headed in the direction of the lake he’d shown her the previous evening, her reluctance to answer catching her by surprise.

  “Katie?”

  “I don’t know.”

  His pace slowed momentarily only to resume with a flick of his hand. “Hey, I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t be asking such personal stuff when we’ve only known each other a few days.”

  “No. It’s not that. It’s just that talking to you last night made me feel better and I-I didn’t want an argument with my sister to ruin that.” She pinched her eyes closed for a brief second and then opened them to find she was still moving and Eric wasn’t.

  “Did I say something wrong?” she asked, doubling back. “I did not mean . . . wait.” She gestured toward the lake she hadn’t noticed until that moment. “We’re here, yah?”

  He followed her finger toward the boats lined up along the shoreline, nodded, and then reached for her hand. “Have you ever been on a boat before?” he asked, his voice funny.

  “No. But I have been an acorn person in one of Sadie’s twig and leaf boats.”

  “Did you make it across the pond?”