Portrait of a Sister

by Laura Bradford

  “If it is God’s will.”

  “You don’t sound as happy as I would have expected,” she said, looking between Abram and his picture and back again. “Isn’t this what you said you wanted?”

  “With you, yah. But without you, it is just a different kind of work.”

  Flipping the cover back into place, she set the pad to her left and scooted closer to Abram. “Mary was wonderful with Annie and the boys these past few days.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I am, too, for it means she is ready to take over for me.”

  “Take over for—” He stopped, pulled up his shoulders, and sighed. “You really think you will be okay with not seeing them again?”

  She pivoted her body atop the rock so she was facing Abram directly. After a beat or two of silence, she covered his hand with her own. “I’m hoping we can find a home here in Blue Ball. Dat says there’s one with a small field not more than a mile or two from Miss Lottie’s place. Even has a workshop behind the barn that would be perfect for you.”

  “But—”

  “This is what I want, Abram. You are what I want.”

  Slowly, hesitantly, he lifted his gaze to hers. “But the Englisher is the one who makes you smile.”

  “He does, yes. And I’m thankful to him for that. The sadness I felt after losing Hannah made it so I couldn’t think straight. All my life I was Hannah’s sister and then, one day, she left. I wasn’t sure how to be me without her. Or even if there was a me without her. And then Mamm got sick and went to the Lord and I was needed here. To be . . . Mamm.”

  She tried to breathe, to slow the words in the event Abram couldn’t keep up, but it was no use. Now that she was talking, she couldn’t stop. All she could do was pray that somehow, someway he would understand. “And my pictures . . . They were mine. I-I thought that stopping them would mean I’d just keep on being Hannah’s sister and Mamm’s stand-in. But then, this week, when Sadie got so sick, I didn’t want to draw anymore. I could have . . . I had plenty of time . . . But when she was lying there, so sick, I realized it’s all of you that make me whole. It’s the laughter and joy I get from watching Samuel chase down a chicken. It’s the peace I feel when I look out the window and see Mary and Sadie walking hand in hand. It’s the contentment I felt watching Mamm working in her garden, and it’s the strength and love I felt from you these past few days.”

  “I did not do anything, Katie. I wanted to . . . I really did. But I couldn’t.”

  “Oh, Abram, even when I did not see you, I felt your hand in mine every time you stopped by to check on us. You knew that I needed to be with Sadie, and you honored that. Thank you, Abram. Thank you for being there for me and for Sadie in all the ways that mattered most.”

  This time, when he looked at her, there was only joy—the same joy she felt clear down to the soles of her feet. “There is nowhere I would rather be, Katie.”

  * * *

  She was halfway through her fourth yawn in a row when the light from Dat’s candle disappeared beneath her closed door. “I guess it is time to say good night.”

  “Not when it’s our last night together, it’s not.” Hannah swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. “We’ve got less than twelve hours until Travis and I head back to the city.”

  “Hannah, it has been a very long day on top of many long days and I haven’t slept for more than an hour or two at a time since the night Sadie got sick. Even last night, with Sadie doing better, I was still too restless to sleep. Afraid, I guess, that it was all just a dream.”

  “I know, and I know I should probably let you sleep . . . but I just want a little time together first. Please?”

  She wanted to protest, but she was too tired. So, instead, she mustered up enough energy to pull off something between a groan and a frustrated sigh. Hannah, of course, ignored both, dropped into a squat next to her side of the bed, and retrieved the sketch pad Katie had recovered from Sadie’s room during a lull in activity.

  “Hannah, no. Please. I’m too tired to talk about that stuff right now.”

  “I just want to look, that’s all. I want to see what you’ve done since you left.”

  Somehow, she managed to push herself up to a seated position despite the overwhelming urge to roll onto her side and pull the covers over her head. “I’ve only drawn one picture you haven’t seen. It’s of Sadie and Digger.”

  “Playing bubbles?” At Katie’s nod, Hannah set the sketch pad on the center of the bed, climbed into place next to Katie, and flipped back the cover. “You’ve been home for six weeks, Katie. Surely you could’ve drawn more than one picture in all that time, yes?”

  “Maybe. But I do not want to be shunned.”

  “Then why the picture of Sadie?”

  Katie nestled back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, her words coming faster than she would have expected considering how badly she wanted to sleep. “I needed to draw that picture. For me. Besides, it helped make that particular night pass much more quickly.”

  “I would have thought, with you being awake all night anyway, that you’d have been drawing like crazy.”

  “I made a few tweaks in some of my earlier pictures, but really that was just about changing the curve of a mouth or an eye, that sort of thing.”

  Picture by picture, Hannah made her way through the book. Picture by picture, Katie studied her sister’s reactions—joy, quiet laughter, sadness, back to joy, and, finally, to the surprise she both expected and welcomed.

  “Um, Katie?”

  She closed her eyes. “Yah?”

  “This Central Park picture? The one of Travis and me on the bridge that you did from the picture I gave you?”

  A variety of possible replies flitted through her thoughts but when she could barely make her eyelashes part enough to even look at her sister, the notion of speaking probably wasn’t smart. Besides, if there were any truth to the whole notion that she had God-given talent when it came to drawing, she really just needed to wait . . .

  “You added a scar just like mine,” Hannah said, tapping her finger atop the sketch.

  Katie fought through another yawn. “Yah.”

  “But why? You don’t have a scar.”

  “I know. But you do.”

  When Hannah said nothing, Katie forced her eyes open and onto her sister. “The picture you left is of you . . . With Travis. The whole reason I drew it in the first place was to see if I could do it. That’s all.”

  “But in the beginning you drew you instead of me.”

  “Yah. But that’s because I wasn’t sure of my place anymore. All these things were happening to make my world look different and it scared me. When we were little and you came across something new, you always wanted to do and then think.”

  “If I thought at all,” Hannah quipped.

  “But I wanted to think first. I needed time to step back and look at it through my own eyes rather than yours. And now that I’ve had that time, I see that you’re the one who belongs on that bridge. It’s your world, Hannah, not mine.”

  Hannah pushed the sketch pad farther into the center of the bed and then spun around to face Katie. “Don’t you see? That world can be yours, too, Katie. I mean, I know you’d miss Dat and the children terribly—especially Sadie. But you would still have me. And you’d have Travis . . . And Eric . . . And Mr. Rothman . . . And Jack . . . And all sorts of people you’re still yet to meet.”

  Reaching back for the sketch pad, Hannah wiggled it at Katie. “And best of all? You could draw there, Katie! You could have a real art desk! And you could put your pencils in a drawer instead of wrapping them in a paper towel! You could draw in the middle of the day and leave your work on your desk! You could give more to Mr. Rothman for that special room in his gallery! And you wouldn’t ever have to worry that you’re doing something wrong or that someone is going to find out and make you repent for drawing a picture!”

  On the surface, Hannah was right. Moving to New York City
would make it so all those things she’d just said would be true. But as wonderful as some of those things sounded, their cost was simply too great . . .

  “Did you know that colors have meanings?” Katie asked, pulling her pillow around to her chest. “That yellow is happiness, and green is nature and hope, and purple is creative?”

  “No, I didn’t know that. But I guess that means you probably should change your favorite color to purple.”

  “Actually, I think blue fits me better than ever now.”

  Hannah lowered the sketch pad back down to her lap and sighed. “Why?”

  “Because blue is open and free. Like the sky. And like choices.”

  “Choices?” Hannah echoed. “Does this mean you’ve decided?”

  She released her hold on her pillow long enough to point at the still-open sketch pad. “Keep turning.”

  “Why?”

  “You will see.”

  Hannah held her gaze for several beats and then did as Katie asked, her fingers flipping to the next picture in the pad—the one of the toy sailboats and the ducks in the pond. “I love this one. I feel like I’m you, Katie. Like I’m looking out at all of this through your eyes.”

  “Good. That is what I had hoped.”

  “So when are you going to add yourself in?” Hannah asked, looking up.

  “I’m not. You are.”

  Hannah’s brows furrowed. “I don’t understand. How am I going to add you in? I don’t draw, remember? That’s your thing.”

  “Your view into that scene is through my eyes. That’s how I’m there.” She reached across the sketch pad and flipped ahead to the picture she’d made in one sitting, yet adjusted in bits and pieces over each of the nights that followed.

  Hannah laughed the moment her gaze fell on the bubbles flying in the air, just out of reach of Digger’s paws and Sadie’s outstretched hand. “Oh my gosh, Katie, this is great! The way we see just her hand . . . It’s as if I’m her and I’m the one reaching for the bubble.”

  “Yah. But that is not how I drew it at first.”

  “Oh?”

  “See that?” She moved her finger around the page, stopping again and again to point out the numerous yet faint erase marks throughout the foreground of the drawing. “And that right there? That was Sadie, chasing the bubble.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You could see her face, her smile.”

  Hannah studied the picture for a few moments, her mouth contorting in different shapes and positions. When she was done, she shrugged, dramatically. “I actually think what you changed it to is even cooler. I can feel her excitement as if I’m her . . . As if I’m the one reaching for the bubble . . .”

  “Don’t you see?” Katie scooted up next to her sister, pointing at the drawing as she did. “I can draw here, Hannah! In Blue Ball.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t draw the faces.”

  Hannah scrunched up her nose. “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t draw the faces. I mean, I don’t really need to. I’m already here with my loved ones—with Dat, with Samuel, with Jakob, with Mary, with baby Annie, with Sadie, and with Abram. I don’t need to draw their faces. I can see them every day.”

  “I’m not here . . .” Hannah reminded, her shoulders drooping.

  “I know, but you are only a letter and a bus ride away, remember? And as for my memories, I still have them right here.” She pointed at her head and then her heart. “But now, when I take out my pencils, I get to use them to help me see those same memories in a different way. I can see what it was like for Mary to have those cats climbing all over her . . . I can see what it was like for Samuel to try and catch that chicken . . . Or what it was like for Mary to watch him try . . . Or what it was like to look down, into that lunch pail, and find the frog that Luke Hochstetler put inside . . . Or to see the garden that Mamm so loved from inside her eyes rather than my own . . . Don’t you see? I can still do all the things Mr. Rothman loved about my drawings. But instead of making someone want to see their life in a different way, I can help them to actually see it. Instead of showing them an innocence as he said, I can let them feel it. If you are Samuel and you’re chasing the chicken, you will feel his panic or his urgency. But if you are Mary and you’re watching him chase the chicken, you will feel her joy and her laughter.”

  “I guess.” Hannah leaned back against the plain headboard and sighed. “But are you sure? Because I think you’d like it in the city, I really do.”

  “For too long, I have seen myself next to you. I didn’t climb like you did. I didn’t run like you did. I wasn’t daring like you were. I didn’t make bold decisions like you did. I saw only what I did compared to you. But just because we look alike, doesn’t mean we are the same. It is like these memories.” She ran her hand across the drawing of Sadie and Digger. “For me, I saw Sadie jumping and laughing as she chased the bubbles. For Sadie, it was all about the bubbles and Digger. For you, when we were little and at the pond, you saw trees as things to climb. For me, I saw them as places to sit and talk with Mamm about all the pretty things around me. For you, leaving Blue Ball was a fresh start. For me, leaving and then coming home was a reminder of what makes me happy.

  “I am not you, Hannah. I am me. New York is your choice—for you. Being here, in Blue Ball, is my choice—for me.”

  “What about Eric? He made you happy. I saw the way you smiled every single time you got back from spending time with him.”

  “Yah. He is a good man. He has taught me much.”

  “But . . .”

  “I love Abram.”

  Hannah drew back. “Are you sure? I mean, really sure?”

  “Mamm said that when I was little I loved to look at the sky but that she never knew why. She just knew that there were times when I was upset or worried or scared about something and then, when I would look up, I would smile.”

  “You still do that, silly.”

  “Well, I think I’ve finally figured out why. Only I didn’t figure it out looking at the sky. I figured it out looking into Abram’s eyes. I see hope in his eyes, just like I do when I look up at the sky. Hope is faith, Hannah. And I can’t imagine living my life without faith.”

  Dropping her head onto Katie’s shoulder, Hannah sighed. “I get it, I really do, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was a little disappointed. For me. I’ve spent a lot of time imagining you coming to live with me in the city.”

  “But that’s not all you’ve pictured about your life there, right?”

  Hannah sat up, grabbed the sketch pad, and swung her legs over the bed once again. “I take it you’re talking about the whole hairstyling thing?” At Katie’s nod, she shrugged and then gestured toward the pad. “Should I put this back in its spot?”

  “For now, yah. Soon, I will show it to Abram so he can see what it is I would like to do. Perhaps, one day, one of my pictures can be sold in a store in town, or even in the special room in the back of Mr. Rothman’s gallery.”

  “I don’t think there will be any perhaps about it, Katie. You’re good. Really, really good.”

  “And if that is true, that is nice. But I do not need people to buy my pictures to be happy. I do not even need to draw to be happy. I enjoy it, and I will continue to do it without faces, but it is really the people I have made my memories with that make me happiest of all.”

  Hannah’s soft laugh filled the space between them with something other than joy. “Wow. I don’t know what to say other than I am happy for you.”

  “And I will be happy for you when you are able to do hair the way you want.”

  “Thank you, Katie, but it will be a long time before I can take classes to learn what I must learn. I am fine to live and to eat, but there is not extra money for such things.”

  “That is not so.” Swinging her own legs onto the floor, Katie got out of bed, reached underneath her side of the mattress, and extracted the same white envelope Hannah had hidden in the bottom of Katie’s suitca
se at the end of her trip. “Remember this?” Katie asked, holding it up.

  Hannah’s eyes darted from Katie, to the envelope, and back again. “Is that the money you got for your drawings?”

  “It is.” Locking eyes with her twin, Katie extended the envelope in her direction. “It took me a while to see it, but I’m where I want to be, where I choose to be. So I don’t need this. Instead, I want you to take it and use it to figure out where you want to be. Take classes, go on a trip—it’s up to you. I just hope that one day you, too, will find whatever it is that gives you hope and brings you peace.”

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  PORTRAIT OF A SISTER

  Laura Bradford

  ABOUT THIS GUIDE

  The suggested questions are included

  to enhance your group’s reading of

  Laura Bradford’s Portrait of a Sister.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. When Katie steps off the bus in New York City, she’s more than a little overwhelmed. In many ways, it’s like she’s landed on a new planet. Have you ever gone somewhere that is so utterly different from everything you’ve ever known? Did you like the change—why or why not?

  2. All her life, Katie has been a rule follower. She’s done what was expected of her, when it was expected of her. It’s the way she is, and the way she’s seen by everyone else—even herself. Do you feel as if you’re seen a certain way, and do you find that you maintain that because it’s the way you are, or because it’s the way people expect you to be?

  3. Katie keeps her drawings to herself because she knows it’s something she’s not supposed to do. But she also keeps it to herself because it’s something that is hers, alone. So much of her life has been about following a certain path and acting a certain way, yet in this one area, she allows herself to be different. Do you have a hobby or a passion that you either indulge in now or hope to at some point? What is it? And what about it speaks to you?

  4. While there was the potential for Eric to become a love interest for Katie, the friendship was richer in many ways. Through his eyes, Katie was able to see herself as something other than just a daughter and a twin sister. Do you have a close friend of the opposite gender? Is that friendship different than ones you have with people of the same gender? How so?