Portrait of a Sister Page 14

  “I want to do that for people. I want to make them feel good.”

  She drank in her sister’s words as she shifted her gaze to her own image—to the dull eyes, the hint of Mamm’s hair she could just make out around the edges of her kapp, and a sadness that made her attempted smile not the slightest bit successful. “I want to look like you do, Hannah.”

  Hannah’s inhale was quick and audible. “You’ll let me do your hair?”

  “No, I—” She lifted her gaze to Hannah’s again. “I want to look happy like you do.”

  “Then you need to be happy.”

  “I am. Sometimes.”

  “Like when you’re drawing?” Hannah prodded.

  “Yah.”

  “Like when you’ve spent time with Eric?”

  She looked back at herself and the sudden warmth making itself known on her cheeks. “I like to take walks, Hannah. It doesn’t matter if they are in Blue Ball or here, in the city.”

  Hannah laughed. “Yeah . . . o-kay.”

  “It is true.”

  “Suit yourself.” Hannah’s attention skirted to the clock and then back to Katie. “C’mon, we need to go.”

  “Go where? You haven’t told me.”

  “Because then it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”

  “Can I have at least a hint?”

  Hannah considered her question for a few seconds and then crossed to the couch and her abandoned purse. “Sure, why not . . . That happy you want to be? You’re about to be that times a billion.”

  * * *

  Block after block, they made their way downtown, the taxi Hannah had insisted that they take alternating between fast spurts and abrupt stops. Twice, Katie asked if they could walk the rest of the way, but both times, Hannah looked up from her phone just long enough to mutter something about closing doors and special guests.

  The first time, Katie protested.

  The second time, she gave in and opted for the view outside her window instead—a view made up of people hurrying in different directions. “Do you ever wonder where they’re going?”

  “Who?”

  Katie nudged her chin toward the sidewalk. “Them.”

  “No, why would I? I don’t know them.”

  “Any of them?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Does Travis know them?” she asked, glancing back at Hannah.

  “I doubt it.”

  “But he’s been here a long time, hasn’t he?”

  “His whole life.”

  “I have been in Blue Ball my whole life.”

  Hannah’s thumbs paused just above her phone. “I know this, Katie, remember? I spent my whole life there, too . . .”

  “We know everyone there.”

  “You say that like it’s a good thing.” Bobbing her head to the left, Hannah took in the scenery outside Katie’s window and then redirected her attention to the man in the front seat. “Right here, at the end of this block.” Then, after another flurry of thumb movements, Hannah tossed her phone into her purse, handed the driver thirty dollars, and grinned. “We’re here.”

  “Here?” Katie turned back to the window and a scene that looked no different than everything else she’d seen thus far. “What is here?”

  “Get out of the car and you’ll see, silly girl.”

  Confused, she did as Hannah said only to have nothing change. “I’m out, yet I still don’t see what—”

  The rest of her words morphed into a gasp as her gaze fell on a series of framed paintings displayed inside a window to their left—paintings with bold colors and even bolder strokes. Mesmerized, she stepped closer, the answering thump of her heart drowning out all but Hannah’s squeal.

  “Ta-da!”

  “What is this place?” Katie whispered.

  “This is Mr. Rothman’s art gallery. It isn’t one of the big ones, but he is doing interesting things to set his apart. Like a smaller room in back where he displays new talent—unknowns he thinks need to be known.”

  She tried to focus on her sister’s words, she really did. But at that moment, all she could think about was the swirl of colors on the other side of the window and the way they soothed her in return. She took in the varying shades of blue . . . The snippets of green that sprouted out from the darker blues . . . The—

  “This is a lake . . . and those are lily pads . . . and”—she touched her fingertip to the window—“do you see those sparkles right there? That is the sun as it dances across the lake.” Slowly, she pulled her hand back to cover her mouth. “I did not see it at first. I just saw the colors and the strokes . . . But it is a lake. I’m sure of it now.”

  Stepping to the left, she took in the next painting and the bright red splash of color dripping down around a soft brown.

  “What on earth is that supposed to be?” Hannah stepped closer. “It looks like a red blob.”

  “I think it is like those popsicles that Miss Lottie would give us sometimes when we were done chasing bubbles and she wasn’t ready for her quiet time with Mamm to be over.” Katie held up her own fist and pointed between it and its representation in the painting. “See, it is melting around the hand.”

  Hannah’s laugh mingled with Katie’s as they moved on to the next picture. “This is a field of pumpkins or, based on the empty vines, was a field of pumpkins. All that is left is that one there.” Katie pointed to the orange object just beyond the pumpkin-less foreground before moving her finger and her focus farther into the background. “And do you see this? It is a young child, searching for a pumpkin to take home. Soon, he will find the last one.”

  “How are you able to see these things?” Hannah asked. “Me? I just see colors and blobs. But when you point things out, I can see things I didn’t see before.”

  She opened her mouth to answer but closed it as she stepped in front of the fourth and final painting with its dark colors and harsh strokes. Here there was no sense of calm, no sense of peace. Instead, she found her heart twisting in a way reminiscent of pain and sorrow.

  Hannah’s shoulder brushed against hers as she, too, shifted to the left. “Oh good luck with this one, Katie. There’s nothing—”

  “It’s a new burial plot.” Again, Katie lifted her finger to the window, moving it to indicate each detail. “See? The brown here is lighter, older. And the white markers in this area are more faded. But that dark brown mound, there?” She pointed toward the right side of the picture. “That is fresh dirt. And these strokes here could be a winter rain or tears.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yah.” She studied the picture for a few more moments and then stepped back just enough to be able to see all four at the same time. “They are all different things, but together, they represent the change in seasons. The lake is spring, the Popsicle is summer, the pumpkin in the field is autumn, and this”—she motioned toward the final picture—“is winter.”

  “If you say so . . .” Hannah took one last look at the four pictures and then looped her arm around Katie’s. “Now come on, there’s more to see inside. Better, more special ones.”

  “You mean more paintings?”

  “Yup.”

  For the first time since spotting the window display, Katie looked past the four evenly spaced paintings and into a room with even more framed paintings and an occasional person milling in front of them or moving between them. “Are-are we allowed inside?” she whispered.

  “I work for Mr. Rothman, remember?” Hannah’s tug grew more firm. “Besides, you need to be here.”

  “But the people inside . . . They look so fancy.”

  “That’s because it’s that”—Hannah redirected Katie’s attention back to the paintings displayed in the window—“artist’s opening. Mr. Rothman says all sorts of people come—her family, her friends, people who helped her along the way with her art, and, if she’s lucky, an art critic or two who will like her stuff enough to talk it up in the newspaper and other places like that.”

  Katie glanced down
at her aproned dress and boots, mentally compared it to the simple black dress and pretty heels Hannah wore, and then looked up as her twin continued. “I saw her binder the other day at Mr. Rothman’s. They keep it up at the front desk during the showing for people to see. It has her bio, her picture, any press she’s gotten, that sort of thing. She’s pretty to begin with, but I imagine she’ll be positively gorgeous tonight.”

  “Who?”

  Again, Hannah pointed to the paintings in front of them. “The artist.”

  “You mean she will be here?” Katie asked.

  “Not will be, Katie. Is.” Hannah consulted her phone again, nodding as she did. “The showing officially starts in ten minutes, so we really should get inside so you can look around before everything starts.”

  Then, reaching across the gap between them, Hannah loosened the ties on Katie’s kapp and then repositioned her on the sidewalk until the window became more mirror like. “Do you see your smile right now, Katie? The way it lights up your whole face? That is how you should be all the time—the way you say you want to be.”

  Bobbing her head until she had a clear view of her own face, Katie wasn’t surprised to see the proof behind Hannah’s words. The joy she felt at that moment, in that exact place, was every bit as real as her chin and her cheeks and her clothes. It was, in many ways, like that first moment when Dat’s candle went out at the end of a busy day and she knew she was free to open her sketch pad and lose herself in her drawings again.

  “And you know what the best part of all is?”

  She smoothed the sides of her dress down and made herself turn back to Hannah. “What?”

  “It’s only going to get bigger and more wonderful when you see what’s inside.”

  Chapter 17

  The first lap around the gallery’s main room had been about soaking up each and every painting—the colors, the strokes, and the picture inside the picture.

  The second lap had been about trying to decide whether the artist’s title for each painting was a good fit.

  The start of the third lap had Hannah scurrying off in search of wine while Katie continued on, her interest moving beyond the paintings to the kind of big picture details she’d missed the first two times. Like the small red circles that were starting to show up on some of the paintings . . . Like the guests who sought out the artist to ask questions or deliver praise . . . Like the simple yet elegant cream-colored dress the artist wore . . . Like the sudden acceleration of her heartbeat as she imagined her own pictures hanging on a gallery wall and the dress she might choose to wear if—

  Shaking away the impossibility, Katie wandered toward the back of the gallery and the small hallway she’d spied between her second and third laps. At the time, she’d assumed it led to a restroom, but her current reluctance over the impending end to the evening propelled her to be certain.

  A murmur of voices at the other end beckoned her past a bathroom, a closet, and, finally, into a smaller version of the main gallery.

  “Oh John, doesn’t this make you think of our precious Suzanne when she was little?” A woman Katie guessed to be about Miss Lottie’s age grabbed the hand of a gentleman standing beside her and rested the side of her head on his upper arm. “Do you remember the way they’d flock to her the moment she walked into the house and how she’d try to find a spot on her little lap for each and every one of them?”

  “I do, indeed. I suspect that’s when her dream of being a veterinarian was truly born.”

  “Standing here, looking at this picture, it’s like we’re being transported back fifty years, to all the peace and wonder Suzanne brought to our lives . . .”

  Intrigued, Katie rose up on the toes of her boots and peeked across the woman’s shoulder, her answering smile at the sight of Mary surrounded by a half dozen barn cats freezing midway across her face.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” the woman asked, turning to look at her.

  She tried to smile, to respond in some way, but at that moment, in that place, she could barely think let alone speak. They were looking at her drawing. In a frame. In a gallery. Only, she wasn’t wearing a fancy cream-colored dress . . .

  Confused, Katie ran out of the room, down the hallway, and across the main gallery, her eyes seeking and then finding those of her mirror image.

  “Katie! Katie! You did it! You really, really did it!”

  She opened her mouth to speak but closed it as Hannah shoved something long and white into her hand. A quick glance down revealed an envelope with her name scrawled across the front.

  “Open it,” Hannah demanded between squeals. “Open it!”

  “Hannah, why is my picture of Mary—”

  “Open first. Then we’ll talk.”

  “But—”

  “Open it!”

  “Fine.” With quick fingers, Katie ripped open the envelope, stumbling backward at the stack of money inside. “I-I don’t understand . . . What is this?”

  “It’s money, Katie. Your money.”

  “But—”

  “A woman from Connecticut just bought your picture of Luke Hochstetler and his frog! She said it made her laugh.”

  “My . . . my picture?”

  “Yes! And she paid five hundred dollars for it! Five hundred dollars, Katie, can you believe it?” Hannah let loose a slightly louder squeal and threw her arms around Katie. “You’re going to be—”

  With one hard shove, Katie broke free of Hannah’s embrace. “How did someone in Connecticut see my picture?”

  “She lives in Connecticut, but she was just here a few minutes ago. She fell in love with the picture of Luke and the frog, and—guess what?” Hannah reached across the front desk, pulled a red circle off a sheet of stickers, and danced it around in front of Katie. “She. Just. Bought. It. She’ll be back to get it in the morning.”

  “But I don’t understand how she saw it.”

  “It’s in the back room. Next to the picture of Mary and the barn cats.” Hannah slipped the envelope into her pocket and pointed her sticker-adorned index finger across the main gallery. “Come on, I’ll show—”

  “I saw the picture of Mary, Hannah. But what I don’t understand is how it is here . . . in a frame . . . in a gallery,” she hissed.

  “It’s like I told you in my letter. I showed Mr. Rothman the pictures I took and he loved them.”

  She followed Hannah back across the main room and down the hallway toward the smaller gallery in back, her brain working hard to keep up with Hannah’s mouth. “So when he told me he wanted to have them up in here in time for today’s showing, I went ahead and signed your name to the release, figuring I’d tell you about it when you got here. But then I thought it would be more fun to surprise you and—”

  “You signed my name?” Katie echoed.

  “Yes. Because I knew you wouldn’t. But this? Right here?” Hannah waved her sticker-topped finger again and then marched over to the picture of Luke that Katie had missed the first time. “Proves I made the right choice. You’re good, Katie. Really, really good.”

  Reaching out, Hannah adhered the sticker to the bottom right corner of the glass-fronted sketch, and followed it up with a triumphant smile back at Katie. “Five hundred dollars good, in case you need reminding.”

  “Excuse me, miss? Do you work here?”

  Katie and Hannah turned as one toward the door and the same elderly couple who had been admiring the picture of Mary not more than ten minutes earlier. Shrugging at Katie, Hannah stepped forward. “I work for Mr. Rothman, the gallery’s owner . . .”

  The man pointed toward the wall behind them. “That picture there? The one of the little girl with the cats? How much is it?”

  Katie heard the air whoosh past her lips seconds before Hannah clapped her hands together and turned back to Katie. “Katie? How much would you like for your drawing?”

  “I—”

  The diminutive woman with the wire-rimmed glasses stepped past her husband and grabbed hold of Katie’s hands, he
r eyes casting downward just long enough to take in the kapp and aproned dress. “You’re Amish, dear?”

  “Yes, she is,” Hannah answered. “And that picture is of our little sister, Mary.”

  “Our sister? But you’re not Amish.”

  Hannah’s focus moved to the man now sporting a furrowed brow. “I was. Once. But now I am English.”

  Releasing Katie’s right hand, the woman led her toward the picture. “I see now that the head covering on your little sister isn’t a bonnet, but everything else about her makes me think of my own little girl, Suzanne. When she was that age, she fell in love with animals during trips to her grandmother’s home. She’d sit on the floor and my mother-in-law’s cats would just flock to her from all directions, wanting her to pet them . . . cuddle them . . . play with them. And the look on her face? It was just like that—that complete sense of peace you managed to capture in your delightful picture.”

  Not sure what to say or do, Katie merely followed the tip of the woman’s finger to the picture and Mary’s sweet face, the uncomplicated joy she found there making her ache for Blue Ball and everyone she left behind.

  The woman paused, sucked in an audible breath, and then continued, her voice transitioning to one choked with emotion. “Suzanne is getting ready to turn fifty-five. She owns a veterinary clinic up in New Hampshire, and we don’t get to see her very often. She’s had a difficult year for many reasons and her best friend is having a surprise birthday party for her next weekend. John”—she hooked her thumb in the direction of her husband—“and I have been searching high and low for just the right gift but to no avail. Little did we know we’d find it while attending a gallery showing for the daughter of one of John’s coworkers.”

  “You-you found a present for her?” Katie stammered.

  “Yes. Your picture.” The woman looked back at first her husband, and then Hannah, before bringing her full attention back on Katie. “I think it would remind Suzanne of the moment her dream began and, hopefully, bring her back to what matters most—finding her happy place.”