Portrait of a Sister Read online

  For a few moments, Katie just stood there, watching her twin from the back, noting the stylish sneakers, the cute shorts that showed far too much skin, and the way Hannah’s light brown hair swooshed against her back as she walked. It was as if Katie was looking at a stranger rather than someone who’d been a part of her life since the very beginning.

  She felt the tears building and squeezed them away with a familiar yet no less potent anger. For months she’d been told Mamm’s sickness and subsequent death were God’s will. She knew such words were supposed to lessen the hurt, but they didn’t. If anything, all it really did was make her angry. At God.

  But with Hannah, it wasn’t God’s will that had made her turn her back on everyone. That had been Hannah’s will—Hannah had chosen to pick up and move out, to hurt Mamm and Dat and the children, to make it so Katie—

  She backed away from the window, biting down on her lip as she did. “I’m glad I don’t have to spend the day with you, Hannah Beiler!”

  Squaring her shoulders, Katie marched over to the bedroom door, yanked it open, and froze.

  She was alone. In New York City. For the next—Katie scanned her surroundings until she spied a clock mounted on the wall above the kitchen table—eight hours.

  At home, she’d pass the time gardening, doing the wash, mending clothes, cleaning, and cooking. Yet here, in Hannah’s apartment, there was no garden to tend, no clothesline to fill, no sewing machine to use, and nothing to clean that Katie could see. There was only breakfast to eat and eight hours in which to eat it.

  Swallowing, she made herself step forward toward the loaf of bread Hannah had left out; her gaze moving between it and the toaster plugged into the wall atop the kitchen counter. A note attached to the bread pulled her in that direction.

  For the next week, you are connected to the outside world with electricity. That’s the way it is here. Dat knows this, and Dat said you could come.

  Put the bread in the toaster just like you’ve seen

  Miss Lottie do, and press the button. It’s easy.

  Hannah

  (I am not selfish)

  “Writing it does not make it so,” Katie murmured before turning her attention to the top section of the note once again.

  For the next week, you are connected to the outside world with electricity. That’s the way it is here. Dat knows this, and Dat said you could come.

  Dat had told her to come . . .

  She opened the loaf of bread and extracted a slice, only to drop it as a telephone, mounted to the wall between the table and the kitchen, began to ring.

  One ring . . .

  Two rings . . .

  Not sure what else to do, Katie picked it up and held it to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Hannah. How’d it go last night?”

  “This is Katie.” She stole a glance at herself holding the phone via the side of the toaster. “Hannah is not here . . . she is at work.”

  “Oh hey there, Katie! It’s Eric.” A beat of silence that rivaled only the sound of her heart slamming inside her chest gave way to the male voice in her ear once again. “You know, from yesterday.”

  “I remember.” And it was true, she did. She just wasn’t sure why her face felt so hot and her phone-holding hand suddenly felt so slippery.

  “So how was your first night in the city with Hannah? Did you do anything fun?”

  “We . . . talked.”

  “Good. Good. I know Hannah has been so excited for you to get here.”

  She stepped away from the toaster and, instead, leaned against the counter as snippets of the screaming match that had constituted her conversation with Hannah replayed itself in Katie’s thoughts.

  “Katie? Are you still there?”

  “Yah. I-I mean, yes.”

  “When will Hannah be back?”

  Katie’s shoulders slumped as, once again, she took in the clock. “Four o’clock.”

  “And what are you going to do in the meantime?”

  It was a good question. “I don’t know.”

  “Want to hang out with me in the park?” he asked.

  “The park?”

  “Yeah. That way you can see with your own two eyes that we have trees and even some grass, too.”

  She practically ran back to the toaster, this time looking past the phone to the rest of her—her disheveled hair, her rumpled bedclothes, her reddening cheeks . . . “I don’t know. I really should just stay here and wait until Hannah gets home.”

  “No, you really shouldn’t. Besides, I’ll have you back long before she is, I promise.”

  * * *

  He was waiting as she stepped out of Hannah’s building and onto the sidewalk; his smile was a welcoming sight against a backdrop that made her feel completely out of place. And while one only had to look at his English jeans and short-sleeved shirt next to her pale blue dress with its aproned front to know she was out of place with him, too, at least he was something a little familiar.

  “Ready to see our version of country?” he asked by way of a greeting.

  “Yah—I mean, yes.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” He pointed in the opposite direction from which Hannah had set off for her nanny job, and when Katie acquiesced, he fell into step beside her. “And you don’t have to do that, you know.”

  Katie stopped. So, too, did Eric. “Do what?”

  “Change the way you talk. If you want to say yah, say yah.” She felt the instant heat in her cheeks and was grateful when he got them walking again with little more than a nod in the desired direction. “So what were you thinking so hard about when you were looking out Hannah’s window a few minutes ago?”

  This time, when she stopped, it was more of a lengthy pause. “How do you know I was looking out Hannah’s window?”

  “It’s a window, Katie,” he said, not unkindly. “I saw you when I looked up. I tried to wave so I wouldn’t have to call, but your attention was on something else.”

  “It is so . . . so different here.” She hadn’t meant to share the thought aloud, but in a rush it just came out. Then, anxious not to seem as if she were judging, she tried her best to fill in the answering silence. “At home in Blue Ball, people don’t really walk past my window. Especially in the morning when there is so much work to be done. But if I do see someone walking along the side of the road, they walk a little slower. And they look around more.”

  “Look around more?”

  “Yah. At home, there are neighbors to wave at, cows to say silly things to, wildflowers to stop and pick for . . .”

  She let the rest of the sentence go in favor of a hard swallow. If Eric noticed, he didn’t let on. Instead, he swept his gaze from the building on the left to the building on the right as they continued walking.

  “I guess maybe the people you were noticing have seen all of this a bazillion times so there’s not really a reason to look around, you know?”

  She nodded as if she understood, but she didn’t. Not really. Every single spring there were calves born in the fields, and she still looked. Every day, Dat and the boys worked in the fields, and she still waved to them at least a half dozen times a day. Every afternoon, Fancy Feet moved herself around the yard according to the sun’s rays, and she still laughed.

  “That’s why yesterday afternoon was so special.”

  Confused, she stopped again. “But yesterday afternoon you were with me.”

  His smile widened to include his eyes. “Exactly.”

  “But I don’t understand. There is nothing”—she dropped her gaze down to her boots—“special about me. I am just Katie. I am . . . Amish.”

  “Which is what I expected I would find when I walked into the terminal yesterday.” He guided her forward and then, at the end of the sidewalk, he pointed across the street. “So? What do you think? Not bad, eh?”

  She made herself abandon the odd conversation long enough to humor him, and when she looked in the direction indicated, she felt her mouth gape. For there, just beyo
nd the line of cars slowing to a stop for the traffic light, were trees. Lots and lots of trees. In fact, from where they stood, trees were all she saw in the distance. “Those are . . . trees.”

  His rich, deep laughter tickled her ears a split second before his hand found hers and tugged her across the street. “You wanted trees, I give you trees! Big trees, little trees, and everything-in-between trees.”

  She ran with him across the street, her own laughter mixing with his as they slipped through an opening in the black wrought iron fence and came to a stop. In front of her, as far as her eyes wanted to see at that moment, was grass . . . and trees . . . and the first sense of peace and absolute calm she’d felt in twenty-four hours. No, it wasn’t Blue Ball, but it was closer.

  “Oh, Eric, it is . . .” She drank in her surroundings a second time and then, when her breath had steadied enough to allow something more than a raspy whisper, added in the only thing that fit at that moment. “It is beautiful.”

  An odd expression skittered across his face as he, too, stood perfectly still. “It is, isn’t it?”

  They stood there for a while with Eric seemingly lost in thoughts Katie didn’t or couldn’t know. But that was okay. For at that exact moment, all that really mattered was the feel of the sun on her neck, the gentle breeze that lapped at her cheeks, and the warmth of his skin as—

  She pulled her hand from his, tucked a piece of flyaway hair back in place beneath her kapp, and took a step backward in the direction from which they’d just come, a sadness not unlike the one that had accompanied her away from Blue Ball settling across her heart. “Thank you for showing me this. It . . . helps.”

  “You’re homesick, aren’t you?”

  “Very much.”

  He looked from their surroundings to her, and back again only to widen the gap between them as he stepped farther into the park. “Tell me about it—about Blue Ball, about growing up with Hannah, and your life there now.”

  “I took enough of your time yesterday with all my silliness. I don’t want to do that again today.”

  “Your silliness?” he echoed. “Are you kidding me? When I was with you, I was not one of those people you saw from the window this morning—the ones who walk but don’t look. You made me look at the buildings and actually notice the architecture. Heck, I even waved to someone I didn’t know . . . Twice! Granted, they looked at me like I was nuts, but it was different. Fun.”

  She gave into the laugh born on his words. “I’m pretty sure everyone looked at me that way yesterday. But you get used to it.”

  “People might have done a double take on the clothes a time or two, but really, that’s one of the things I like about living here. Everyone gets to just be.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He darted his gaze around trees and up a nearby hilly mound before looking back at Katie. “Take a look at the guy on top of that hill—the one reading the book under the tree.”

  “I read under a tree at home, too. Only it’s by the pond.” Katie took a half step to the right, bobbed her head around Eric, and visually located the man in question, her mouth gaping for the second time. “His hair is . . . blue.”

  “That it is.”

  “But hair is not to be blue and it is not to be purple like we saw yesterday.”

  “He disagrees. And so, too, do the purple-haired people.” Slowly, Eric began to turn, stopping midway in what appeared to be a circle. “Now check out that woman pushing the stroller where that pathway branches to the left and right.”

  Katie shifted her position until she, too, could see the woman. “What is that shiny thing in her nose?”

  “An earring.”

  “In her nose?”

  “Yup. And do you see that couple getting ready to pass her right now?”

  “Yah.”

  “Do you see them pointing at her? Or stopping to stare?”

  She watched the elderly couple nod at the woman, wiggle their fingers at the baby, and then keep moving. “No.”

  “Well, that’s a plus side to what you saw outside your window earlier. People are busy, yes, but they also just don’t care. Which, translated, means no one will notice your kapp unless you keep messing with it.”

  Dropping her hands, Katie met Eric’s eyes once again. “You remembered to call it a kapp.”

  “Because you took the time to explain it to me and I listened. So, come on, tell me more about Amish life.”

  “I don’t want Hannah to worry.”

  He pulled a phone from the back pocket of his jeans, hit a button, and then turned it so she could see the screen. “It’s not even eleven yet. We’ve got five hours before Hannah is back home.”

  Pulling the phone close, he pressed a few more buttons before placing it back in his pocket. “And so she doesn’t worry if she tries to call, I just sent her a text letting her know I’m with you and we’re going for a walk. So let’s walk.”

  Not sure of what else to do, she followed him across the grass and over to the path. When they reached it, he stopped, considered both directions, and then led her toward the right and a canopy of trees not unlike one she’d seen on Mamm’s kitchen calendar the previous year. At the time, she could only imagine what it would be like to walk down such a path so unlike any she’d ever seen.

  “Every year, Mamm would hang a new picture calendar on the wall in the kitchen. Each page showed something pretty—a meadow of flowers, a waterfall down a mountainside, river water falling over rocks, and a path that looked just like”—she stopped fiddling with the sides of her dress and held out her hands—“this. I remember changing to another seat many times that month just so I could see that picture and imagine what it would be like to be inside it.”

  His footsteps slowed beside her as he cleared his throat once, twice. “Hannah told me about your mom, and I’m really sorry. I know how hard that is.”

  Like clockwork, the constant ache that was Mamm’s death took everything that was good about the day and turned it a drab gray. She gathered her breath the way she’d taught herself to do the past few weeks, and then released it through her lips along with the expected “it is God’s will” response.

  “Yeah, I know. That’s what people told me, too. But all that did was make me hate God for a really long time.”

  Katie’s answering gasp sent a squirrel running in the opposite direction. “Eric! You are not to speak like that about God!”

  Veering off the edge of the path, Eric backed his way up against the trunk of a nearby tree. “I don’t feel that way now, but back then? When all the other kids had moms except me? You bet I was angry.”

  “Your mom passed, too?”

  “Yup. When I was eight. Died in a car accident on her way to the grocery store to buy cake mix for the church bake sale.” He ran his hand down the front of his face and then released his own labored breath. “Haven’t eaten a piece of cake since.”

  “What was your mother like?” Katie asked.

  Eric bent his left leg at the knee and rested his foot against the trunk of the tree, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “She was funny . . . and smart . . . and she always made a big deal out of holidays and birthdays for my dad and me.” Then, pushing off the tree enough to reach into his back pocket, he pulled out his wallet and beckoned Katie to come closer. When she did, he pulled out a picture of a dark-haired woman standing beside an equally dark-haired man and behind a young, but still recognizable, Eric. “My dad has the more formal version of this picture in a frame on the mantel at home, but I liked this one because the photographer caught the three of us laughing about something goofy Mom had said. I can’t remember what it was, but I can remember the way her laugh sounded and the way it made me feel.”

  “I miss everything about Mamm,” Katie whispered. “I miss her smile . . . I miss her kind words . . . I miss the feel of her hand on my shoulder and her voice in my ear when I couldn’t do things like Hannah.” Now that the words were flowing, they wouldn’t stop
. “Everyone says it was God’s will, but how could it be His will to take her from Dat and the children? And from me?”

  “I don’t think it was. I think it just happened.” Eric closed his wallet and slipped it back into his pocket. “So? How about you? Do you have a picture of your mom?”

  Casting her eyes downward, she toed at a pebble. “No. The Amish do not take pictures.”

  “But you just talked about the calendar picture that looks like”—he motioned toward the canopy of trees just beyond where she stood—“this, didn’t you?”

  “That is a place, not a person.”

  “And there’s a difference?” he asked.

  “The Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not make unto thyself a graven image.’”

  He dropped his foot back to the ground and stepped away from the tree, disbelief holding court on his face. “So you don’t have any pictures of your mom at all? Wow. That really stinks.”

  At a loss for how to respond, Katie made her way back onto the path with Eric close on her heels. “Hey-hey, Katie . . . I’m sorry if that just got a little heavy. It wasn’t my intent.”

  “It is not you or anything that you said. I think of Mamm every day and it always makes me sad.”

  “Then it sounds like you’ve had your sad for the day. We both have. So let’s find some happy now, okay?”

  She looked up to find him smiling down at her. “Where?”

  “Patience, patience.”

  Laughter chased away the last of the sadness for Katie. “Mamm used to say those very words to Hannah all the time when we were little.”

  “Why Hannah?”

  “Because she didn’t like to wait for anything.”

  “Ahhhh, yes. That certainly sounds like the Hannah I know, too.” His deep, rich laugh tickled her ears and warmed her cheeks from the inside out. “But today is about you, not Hannah. So stop right there and close your eyes.”

  “But if I close my eyes, I will not see what you want me to see.”

  “It’ll only be for a minute, I promise. And I’ll have your hand so you don’t bump into anything.”