Portrait of a Sister

by Laura Bradford

  Sneaking a peek at the screen, Katie read the message herself, Eric’s words, coupled with his voice in her head, transporting her back to the park. She could hear the birds, see the squirrels, feel the heat in her cheeks when he listed the many ways in which he found her special—

  “Oh, Katie . . .”

  The sound of her name on Hannah’s tongue pulled her back into the station. Hannah’s fingers, digging into her arm, made her grab hold of her ticket with one hand and the handle of Miss Lottie’s suitcase with the other. “Is it time for my bus?”

  “He got to you, didn’t he?”

  She looked from Hannah to the platform doorway and back again, the lack of any sort of an official line leaving her even more confused. “He? He who?”

  “Eric.”

  She bolted upright in her chair a second time, only this time, instead of grabbing her suitcase, she straightened her dress and her kapp while widening her gaze to include the area on and around the escalators. “I didn’t think he had time to come.”

  “He doesn’t.” Hannah abandoned Katie’s arm in favor of leaning so close their foreheads practically touched. “But what you just felt right now, Katie? When I said his name? And read his text? And you thought he was here? That’s what I was talking about a few minutes ago when I asked you if you like Abram. That’s the kind of reaction you should have to someone you’re going to marry, Katie.”

  “Stop it, Hannah, you’re being silly! There is no reaction. I-I just thought you were saying he was here.”

  “Then why are your cheeks turning bright red and why are you looking at everything and everyone except me?”

  Katie stood. “If my cheeks are red, it is because it is hot in here.”

  “There is a fan above our heads.” Hannah pointed to the fan they’d purposely sought out when selecting their seats. “And your cheeks didn’t do that until I said what I said, and you thought what you thought.”

  “People are lining up, Hannah. It is time for me to go home. To Dat and the children.”

  “And Abram—don’t forget him . . .”

  Katie forced her gaze back onto Hannah, the warmth in her cheeks now powered by anger. “Of course I’m going home to Abram. That goes without saying.”

  “But why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why does it go without saying?” Hannah asked.

  “Because everyone knows we are to be married, Hannah, including you!” Katie led the way over to the line as it began to move toward the platform and the bus bound for Lancaster County. “It is time for me to go. I will tell everyone you send your love.”

  “Yes. Please.” As they neared the door, Hannah tugged Katie off the line and pulled her in for a hug. “It was wonderful having you here. You fit real good.”

  She held on to Hannah for a few more seconds and then, when she was pretty sure her emotions were under control, she stepped back, handed her suitcase to the driver, and sidestepped her way back into line, turning one last time at the sound of Hannah’s voice.

  “Remember, Katie, are to be and want to be are two very different things.”

  Chapter 21

  She saw Abram’s buggy the second the bus pulled into the station, his horse, Tucker, tethered to a post on the far end of the parking lot, lapping up water from a black metal bucket. Like so much of what she’d seen outside her window over the past thirty minutes, the familiar sight blanketed her in the kind of calm that had been so elusive the past few days.

  Yes, there had been quiet moments in New York, but even then, she’d always been aware of the fact that she didn’t belong. It wasn’t that Hannah had made her feel unwelcome, because she hadn’t. In fact, Hannah had done everything possible to make Katie consider staying permanently. But the world her sister had chosen to live in was so different from Katie’s. There, quiet, end-of the-day time was spent watching television rather than visiting. People passed one another on sidewalks without looking up. And everything moved so fast.

  Well, everything except time spent in the park with Eric.

  There, and only there, did she feel truly at ease, able to dream and laugh and play in a way she’d always wanted to . . .

  Swallowing over the sudden knot at the base of her throat, Katie shifted her focus from the window to the passengers now making their way toward the door, the anticipation on the faces of some counterbalanced by the relative indifference on others. She wondered, briefly, where she fell on that spectrum and then was instantly ashamed of the thought.

  She was back in Blue Ball. Where she belonged. Of course she was happy . . .

  Her mind made up, Katie stood, followed the aisle to the front, and exited down the stairs, the answering blast of warmth from the day’s waning rays dulling the odd sense of uncertainty she couldn’t explain or shake off in its entirety. She took a moment to breathe in the familiar smells of sun and earth and then stepped over to the curb, her gaze seeking and finding Abram waiting beneath a large tree, a bouquet of wildflowers in his hand.

  She tried to take stock of her feelings, to quiet the Hannah-spawned questions that had plagued her for most if not all of the bus ride, but before she could do much more than blink, Abram stepped to his left to reveal a smile every bit as big as his own.

  “Sadie!” Katie lurched forward and spread her arms wide, her feelings at that moment no longer in doubt.

  Sadie, in turn, hopped up and down, giggling, and then pulled a near perfect match of Abram’s bouquet out from behind her tiny back. “Look, Katie, look! Abram picked me flowers, too!”

  “I see that, sweet—” The thump of Sadie’s body against her legs stole the rest of her words and sent her attention back to a still smiling Abram. She tried to blink away the tears making it difficult to see, but his answering nod and ever widening smile let her know he’d caught her nonverbal gratitude.

  After several long seconds, Sadie released her grip enough for Katie to squat down to the little girl’s eye level and plant a kiss on each chubby cheek. “Did you miss me while I was gone?”

  Sadie’s pale blue eyes shown bright as her head jerked up and down. “I missed you lots, Katie! But I only woked up Annie two times.”

  “You woke up Annie?”

  “I tried to cry quiet, Katie.”

  Her eyes drifted upward to Abram long enough to see his answering shrug. “Why were you crying, sweet girl?”

  “I was scared you wouldn’t come back.”

  She sensed Abram closing the gap between them, but Sadie’s hushed words kept her frozen in place. “I told you I’d come back, Sadie. Remember?”

  “But Hannah didn’t come back,” Sadie whispered.

  “I know that, but—”

  Abram, too, squatted down, his gaze moving from Katie to Sadie and back again, his own smile suddenly . . . uncertain? “Katie isn’t Hannah, little one. She’s different.”

  Unsure of what to say, she looked down at the ground and waited for the normal rise and fall of her breath to return. When it did, she tapped Sadie on the nose, followed it up with another kiss, and then, taking the child’s hand, stood up and waited for Abram to do the same. When he did, she accepted the bouquet.

  “It’s really good to see you, Katie.”

  She pulled the flowers to her nose and, inhaling deeply, savored their subtle fragrance. “Thank you, Abram. These are lovely.”

  “I saw them on my way to pick up Sadie and they made me think of you. Especially the purple ones.”

  Sadie studied her own flowers and then held them up between Abram and Katie. “Which is me?”

  Abram’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

  “She wants to know what color made you think of her,” Katie teased.

  “Ahhh.” Abram bent forward and pointed his way around the little girl’s bouquet, stopping on the yellow flower. “Most definitely the yellow for you, little one. It is happy just like you.”

  Pulling her bouquet close, Sadie rose up on her bare toes and twirled around. “Ha-ppy, ha-ppy. I
am ha-ppyyyy!”

  “And you, Katie, must be tired from your trip.” Abram motioned toward his horse and buggy. “Why don’t you two start heading that way and I’ll get your bag from the driver and meet you there. I know everyone is excited to see you.”

  Sadie stopped twirling to slide her hand inside Katie’s. “Mary made a surprise for you! And you’re gonna really, really like it ’cause it’s apple pie!”

  “Apple pie, huh?” She glanced at Abram in time to see the same smile she was trying to hold at bay envelope his face.

  “So much for surprises,” he whispered just loud enough for Katie to hear.

  Katie’s laugh filled the space between them. “We’re working on those, although it appears we must work harder . . .”

  “It does, indeed.” He hooked his thumb over the top of his suspender-clad shoulder. “I’ll have you on your way to your secret apple pie just as soon as I get your bag.”

  * * *

  Four hours later, her footfalls heavy with exhaustion, Katie closed her bedroom door and sank onto her bed. It had been wonderful to see Mary and baby Annie watching for them from the front porch when they came around the bend, and to have Samuel and Jakob temporarily abandon their work in the fields with Dat to say hello.

  Dinner and Mary’s secret apple pie had been a festive affair with the boys bringing her up to speed on the crops and the animals, Mary sharing stories about Annie, Sadie adding in her version of all, and Dat inserting an occasional nod and laugh of his own. Abram had been invited to stay and he, like everyone else, had listened quietly as she talked of the buildings and people she’d seen, and the time she’d spent with Hannah.

  Once, after what had to have been her sixth or seventh story involving the park, she’d looked across the table to find Abram studying her closely, but thanks to a question from Jakob and the opportunity it provided to change topics, the moment had passed.

  But even with the bits and pieces she’d been able to share, something about her time in New York suddenly felt so far away.

  Too far away.

  Pushing herself into a seated position, Katie reached for Miss Lottie’s bag and hoisted it up and onto the bed. She peered at the gap between her door and the floor, and when she confirmed it was still dark, she retrieved her sketch pad from beneath the clothes Hannah had washed and dried in the apartment building’s machines earlier that morning. For a moment, she simply looked down at the cover, its feel against her fingertips so emblazoned in her thoughts she didn’t even need to touch it. Likewise, her mind’s eye filled the remaining empty pages with a view of a lake from inside a rowboat, a tree-lined path stretched out in front of two sets of feet, and the look on Eric’s face as he talked of her leaving.

  The images were so vivid, in fact, her fingers were virtually itching to pick up one of her pencils and sketch the night away. Instead, she set the pad down, transferred her new journal from the suitcase to the drawer beside her bed, hung her freshly laundered dresses from the wall hooks, and then returned to Miss Lottie’s bag to find an envelope with her name written across the front in Hannah’s bold handwriting.

  A peek inside revealed a thick stack of money and a folded note, the sight of both making her heart race.

  Katie,

  This is the money from the sale of your drawings, less the gallery’s commission. Every time you look at this, remember that you earned it with your talent. And that there could be much more to follow if you came here, to New York, where you and your ability belong.

  Your twin,

  Hannah

  With trembling hands, Katie pulled out the money and slowly counted it atop her lap. When she reached the final of sixteen bills, she sunk back against her pillow. This was the kind of money Dat made, not Katie. Her job was to look after the children in Mamm’s absence and to do the things that needed to be done while Dat and the boys worked in the fields.

  Yet there, on her lap, was sixteen hundred dollars . . .

  Sixteen hundred dollars she’d earned . . .

  From something she kept hidden beneath her mattress in her real life . . .

  Katie looked again at the money and the sketch pad before lifting her gaze to the dresses and kapps hanging against the wall beside the door—the same kind of dresses and kapps Mamm, and her mamm before her, had worn. Good, strong women who’d lived the life she’d vowed to live when she, unlike Hannah, had chosen baptism.

  To imagine a life like Hannah’s was to imagine a life without the very people who had welcomed her home with open arms not more than four hours earlier. They were the ones she needed to focus on, to draw strength from, to—

  Draw . . .

  Blinking back tears she had no right to shed, Katie stuffed the money and Hannah’s note back inside the envelope and carried it around to her hiding spot on the other side of her bed.

  “Bravery wears many faces, Katie. Remember that.”

  Then, with little more than a single, weighted inhale, she reached across the mattress, secured her sketch pad and pencils from their resting spot beside the suitcase, and slid them out of sight, once and for all.

  Chapter 22

  It wasn’t hard to fall back into the day-to-day routine that was life in Blue Ball. It was as much a part of her as her mamm’s soft brown hair and Dat’s brown eyes. And, for the most part, that was exactly what she needed.

  Each morning, the rising sun ushered in its own set of tasks—a hearty breakfast for Dat and the boys, barn and house chores for Katie and her sisters, and looking after Annie.

  Evenings, of course, brought cooking, eating, cleaning up, clothes mending, and conversation. Occasionally, if there was no mending to be done, Jakob would lure them onto the front porch with a game of I-Spy.

  At night, when she was alone in her bedroom, Katie did her best to go straight to sleep with thoughts of the coming day and the tasks that would require her attention. It wasn’t easy as evidenced by the dark circles Sadie pointed to beneath her eyes most mornings, but at least the empty pages in her pad remained so.

  Letters from Hannah arrived every Friday much to the delight of Katie’s siblings. They loved to read of their big sister’s adventures and then share them with everyone else after the day’s work was done. After a few failed attempts at trying to keep her voice steady during the weekly ritual, Katie become proficient at letting Mary share her letter while she busied herself with whatever task she’d intentionally left unfinished.

  But amid the familiar and comforting pattern of her days, she’d made a few changes, too.

  Now, instead of saving a few chores for Annie’s nap time, Katie made sure to have them done, the change leaving her with time to play with Sadie or, when Mary took over, walks alone. The walks, unlike the rest of her life, followed no real pattern. Sometimes, she walked east toward Miller’s Pond and either wandered around it picking wildflowers, or sat in her favorite spot in the sun. Other days, like she was at that moment, she turned west, her only destination however far she could make it before needing to turn back. Regardless of the direction though, she treasured the opportunity to slow things down and just be as Eric had said.

  Unfortunately, just being had a way of always leading her back to the same place whether physically or mentally. And despite her resoluteness to refrain from drawing at night, she simply couldn’t bring herself to get rid of her work completely. She’d tried a few times. Even gone so far as to wrap it in one of her dresses for a naptime trek to the English market. But when it came time to leave, the thought of actually tossing it into the dumpster had her forgoing the alone time in favor of sending Mary for the needed grocery items, instead.

  Still, it was something she knew she needed to do.

  Soon.

  She welcomed the approaching clip-clop of a neighbor’s horse-drawn buggy for the distraction it was and turned to wave, the strength of the afternoon sun making it momentarily difficult to discern the identity of the driver.

  “Good afternoon, Katie.”

&nbs
p; With her hand as a shield, she sought and found the voice’s matching face. “Good afternoon, Abram.”

  “Can I give you a ride to wherever it is you’re going?”

  “No, I am just walking.” Slowly, she lowered her hand back to her side and shifted her stance so as to let the buggy do the blocking. “Annie is napping, and Mary and Sadie are playing string with the barn cats.”

  “And you are just walking to walk . . .”

  It wasn’t an entirely accurate assessment, but in light of her reality, it would suffice. “Yah.”

  He loosened his grip on the reins until they were resting more atop his lap than in his hands. “I do that sometimes, too. It is a good time to think and to plan.”

  “You . . . think?”

  His laughter, deep and rich, floated across the air between them. “Of course I think, Katie. It would be odd if I didn’t.”

  “I-I didn’t mean that. I-I’m sorry to sound so-so stupid.” She buried her warming cheeks in her hands only to have them pried away by Abram’s.

  “I did not mean to make you feel stupid, Katie.” He tucked the reins onto his abandoned seat and then captured her hands in his once again. “I know you are smart. I also know you are kind and creative.”

  “Creative?” she echoed.

  “Yah. It is why purple flowers make me think of you.”

  She felt her mouth gape and tried her best to recover it before he noticed. “I don’t understand.”

  “There is a sign in the English paint store that speaks of colors and their meanings. Yellow, like the sun, is happy.”

  “Like Sadie.”

  He smiled. “Yah. And blue? It is open and free, like the sky. Brown is comfort like the soil. Orange is endurance. And purple? It means creative . . . like you.”

  “I-I am not creative. I am just . . . Katie.”

  “I saw the horse you drew on a napkin at a hymn sing in the fall. It was of Tucker, here.” He released her left hand so as to pat the side of his waiting horse. “You had the patch of white between his ears shaped just right. And you captured the way his eyes get big when he sees one of my sister’s peppermint cookies.”