Portrait of a Sister Read online

  “No.”

  His laugh floated through the air as he brought the side of his hand to the top of his forehead in a salute. “Then I’m honored to captain what I hope will be your first successful voyage.”

  * * *

  She was still smiling nearly an hour later when, after several failed attempts, he dropped the basket on the ground not far from a maple tree and spread his arms wide. “This is it. We’ve got shade . . . we’ve got sun . . . we’ve got peace and quiet . . . and you”—he grinned at her—“haven’t stopped smiling since you stepped into that boat.”

  And it was true.

  Everything about being out in the middle of the lake with Eric had been special. The warm sun on her face . . . The family of ducks that seemed to hover just beyond their reach . . . The familiar croak of some neighboring bullfrogs . . . The coolness of the water as she reached over the side . . .

  A faint click brought her attention back to Eric in time to see him lower his phone to his side. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to take your picture, but I couldn’t let that go by. It was too perfect.”

  “What was too perfect?” she asked.

  “Your smile. It’s . . . beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  Startled, she stepped back. “I am not beautiful. I am plain.”

  His laughter echoed around them as he opened the basket and removed a navy blanket. “Trust me when I say there is nothing plain about you, Katie Beiler.”

  “My clothes are plain.”

  “Compared to everyone else in my universe, they’re not plain. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that dress—at least the green part—is kind of pretty. On you.”

  She stared at him, waiting for something to indicate he was teasing. But there was nothing. “My mamm made this for me last year. Before she got sick.”

  “What was she like?” he asked as he snapped open the blanket and brought it down to the ground.

  She knew she should help, but at that moment all she could really do was breathe. “You mean Mamm?”

  “Yeah. Did she look like you?”

  “A little, I suppose. Our hair was the same. But Hannah and I have Dat’s eyes. Jakob does, too. Mary and Sadie and Samuel have pale blue eyes like Mamm’s.”

  “I see.” He moved the basket onto the blanket and then reached inside again, this time pulling out two plates, two napkins, two wrapped packages, and two bottles of water. Then, looking up, he patted the blanket next to him. “Come. Sit. Tell me more.”

  “What is more?”

  “What was she like? Did she like to cook? Did she like to read? You know, that sort of stuff.”

  This time, when he patted the spot next to him, she lowered herself down to the blanket. “Mamm was a wonderful cook. Sometimes, even when my stomach was still full from lunch, the smell of dinner cooking would make my stomach growl. And her apple pie? It was always the first dessert to be gone after church on Sundays.”

  “Did she teach you how to make it?”

  “I learned by watching and helping. But somehow, it does not taste the same to me when I make it, even though Dat and the boys say that it does.”

  Eric’s soft laugh brought her gaze back to his. “She was special, wasn’t she?”

  “Oh yes . . . She was kind and smart and . . . Mamm. She understood that I was different than Hannah and that was okay.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” He unwrapped both sandwiches and set one in front of each of them. “I took a leap of faith and picked turkey for both of us. Hope that’s okay.”

  “It is wonderful, thank you.”

  He took a bite and then followed it up with a few gulps of water before reaching into the basket for the apples and chips he’d mentioned earlier. “So back to what you were saying . . . Why wouldn’t it be okay to be different than Hannah?”

  “Because Hannah is everything I’m not.” She picked up her sandwich, tore off a sliver of turkey overhanging the roll, and slipped it between her lips. “Everything I’ll never be.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop right there.” Eric set his sandwich back on its wrapper and did the same with Katie’s. “First up, never is a word no one should ever say. You don’t know what tomorrow is gonna bring. No one does.”

  “God does.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you that.”

  “He made Hannah brave, not me. And he made Hannah bold. I am not those things. It is not who I am.”

  “Have you always sold yourself short like this?”

  She stared at him across the top of her water bottle. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “This whole”—he waved his newly retrieved sandwich in the space between them—“Hannah is brave and you’re not stuff. Surely you see what you’ve done the past few months as brave, yes?”

  Somehow, she managed to swallow the sip she’d taken before her mouth gaped open of its own will. “What are you talking about? What brave things have I done?”

  “You mean besides caring for your mother as her health failed? And stepping in to help with your brothers and sisters in her absence even though your own heart was breaking?”

  “That is not about being brave, Eric. That was Mamm . . . I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else but right there, next to her, soaking up every minute we had. And then . . . after . . . when she was gone . . . what I did with the children was—”

  “Do. Present tense.”

  She waved off the correction. “That is my family.”

  He traded his sandwich for his own water but stopped shy of actually taking a drink. “As they are Hannah’s.”

  At a loss for a suitable response, she remained silent, his words echoing in her ears.

  “I may have only been eight when my mom died, but I remember how hard it was for my dad to even get out of bed in the morning after that.” Eric leaned against the tree at his back, his voice taking on a hushed quality. “He was so distraught over her loss that my next-door neighbor had to step in and make sure I was eating and getting to school and talking to the right people about my grief.”

  She forced herself to breathe despite the lump rising up her throat. But it was hard. She could feel his pain just as surely as she could feel her own. Before she could think of something to say though, he continued. “From what you shared the other day, you didn’t do that. You ran around making sure everyone else was okay even though your own heart was breaking. That’s bravery, Katie.”

  The tears that always threatened when there was talk of Mamm gathered in the corners of her eyes. “I-I do not know what to say,” she whispered.

  “A fact doesn’t really need dialogue. It is what it is.”

  “But Hannah? She left everything—me, Mamm, Dat, the little ones, Blue Ball, and everything she ever knew to come here. To the big city.” Not wanting Eric to see the tremble in her hands, she shoved them under her legs. “That is the bravery I speak of.”

  “I’m not saying it didn’t take courage for Hannah to come here. I’m sure it did. But you came here, too.”

  “For a visit that ends tomorrow,” she corrected. “Hannah always just knew how to do things. When we were little, I was afraid to climb the tree by the pond. I was afraid I’d fall. But Hannah . . . she didn’t care. She just climbed right up. Sometimes, when Mamm was busy with Samuel, Hannah would hang upside down from a branch and make faces at me. She wanted me to laugh up at her, but I would just cover my eyes.”

  Shrugging, he lowered his sandwich to his lap. “Some people aren’t thrill seekers, Katie. That doesn’t mean they—or you—are somehow deficient.”

  “But that is not all she could do that I couldn’t. When we went off to school, she would shoot up her hand and answer questions I was too shy to answer.”

  His laughter tickled her ears and made her smile a little, too. “Okay, but did you know the answers?”

  “Of course. But I did not say them.” Feeling her smile begin to fade, she replaced it with a fast shrug. “And when we were Mary’s age, and the English
boys would drive by and say unkind things, I would pretend not to hear. But Hannah? She would throw rocks at their car until they would drive away.”

  “Okay, so she’s a little tougher. But bravery wears many faces, Katie. Just because you two look alike doesn’t mean the inside stuff—the stuff that makes you, you—is the same.”

  “We are different outside, too. She has always been so”—Katie looked down at her sandwich atop its wrapper and pinched her eyes closed for a few seconds—“pretty.”

  “Uh, hello . . . you’re identical twins.”

  “But we look different.”

  “You mean because she wears makeup and you don’t? Because that’s just superficial stuff.”

  “It is not just the makeup. Because at night these past few days, when all of her makeup is off, we still look different.”

  “How?”

  “I did not know, at first. I just knew she looked different.” Katie traced her finger around the edge of the wrapper while she worked to frame the rest of her answer. “But yesterday, before we left for the gallery, I realized it was her smile. It is so big. So true. It lights up her face in a way mine does not.”

  He grabbed his phone and tilted it back and forth. “Trust me, your face lights up when you smile, too. I have proof.”

  Curious, she leaned across the food spread out between them, only to grab the phone from his hand as her eyes came to rest on her image—an image that stole her breath from her lungs.

  “See?” Eric said, his voice triumphant.

  “This-this is me?”

  He grinned. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only Amish girl I know, so, yeah, that’s you.”

  “But I look . . . happy.”

  “As you did when I showed you the sailboats the other day, and the whole time I was rowing you around the lake earlier, and when I snapped that picture a few minutes ago, and every time you talk about your drawings or your little sister. Your smile is there, Katie. More than you realize. It’s quiet and it’s discerning, but it’s no less true.”

  It was a lot to take in, a lot to process. For now, though, she studied herself on the screen a little longer and then handed the phone back to Eric. “Thank you.”

  A comfortable silence filled the space between them, giving them time to eat while enjoying the peace and quiet of their spot. When the sandwiches were gone and there was nothing left of the chips but a smattering of dust, Eric pointed at the basket and grinned. “There’s still two cookies in there, you know. Chocolate chip, in fact . . .”

  “You mean the ones you hope Travis does not notice are missing?”

  “That’s right. Though, honestly, after the way your eyes sparkled just now when I mentioned them? I don’t care if he does notice.” He reached into the basket, plucked out two cookies, and handed one to Katie. “Because whatever retaliation he chooses to send my way will have been more than worth it. Trust me.”

  The lump was back. Only this time, it was accompanied by a flutter high up in her chest. “I have never met someone quite like you.”

  “Uh-oh. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” he joked.

  “It is a good thing.”

  And it was.

  Eric made her feel . . . different. Bigger.

  “I’m glad, because I feel the same way. About you.”

  Startled, she looked up just as a flicker of pain zipped across his face. “Is something wrong, Eric?”

  “Yeah. You’re leaving tomorrow.”

  Chapter 20

  “So according to the sign, they should be starting to board your bus in about twenty minutes.” Hannah dropped onto the chair next to Katie’s and sighed, the burst of air sending a strand of her light brown hair up and off her face. “You still have your ticket, right?”

  Katie lifted the narrow slip of paper off her lap and gave it a little wave. “It is still in my hand just as it was five minutes ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Katie. I guess I’m just a little scattered about you leaving. It seems like you just got here.”

  “It has been five days, just as it was supposed to be.”

  “I know that. It just went too fast is all.” Hannah rummaged inside her purse and pulled out a small mirror for a not-so-quick inspection of her face. “I suppose maybe it would have been better if Travis hadn’t stayed so long after dinner last night, but you still had fun, right? I mean, I did a pretty good job with the food, considering cooking was always more your thing than it was mine . . .”

  “You did a fine job with the meal,” Katie murmured.

  “And that movie Travis picked for us to watch on the couch?” Hannah added a swipe of lipstick to her already-too-pink lips and then snapped the mirror closed. “That was funny, wasn’t it? Especially the part when that one guy drove his motorcycle straight into the mud.”

  Katie tried to nod along, but really, she didn’t remember that part, or any other part of the movie, for that matter. No, her attention had started on Hannah and Travis cuddling and giggling together on the couch and then drifted back to the park and—

  “Katie? Are you even listening to me?”

  She lowered her gaze to her ticket and then lifted it again to meet Hannah’s. “Do you and Travis ever talk?”

  “Of course we talk. We talk all the time.” Hannah tossed the mirror and lipstick tube back into her purse and zipped it closed. “You know that.”

  “I don’t mean that kind of talking. I mean . . .” her words trailed off as she visually picked her way through the crowd entering and exiting the escalators, the absence of anything resembling a familiar face sagging her shoulders into the back of the chair. “Do you ever miss it? Miss us?”

  Hannah swiveled in her own seat so as to face Katie, instead of the crowd. “I miss you all the time, Katie. Dat and the children, too. And I-I miss Mamm every day, but now, with her passing, that would be the case even if I was still in Blue Ball.”

  “Do you ever think of coming back?” she whispered, her voice shaky.

  “No.”

  Squeezing her eyes closed against the answering rush of pain, she willed herself to breathe slowly. “If there were no Travis, would you come back then?”

  “No.”

  Surprise propelled her eyes open. “But I thought Travis was your boyfriend.”

  “He is. But I didn’t know him when I left, remember?”

  She did. Still, she needed to make sense of everything, to find a way to understand both her sister’s actions and her own unsettled heart. “But he makes it better, yah?”

  The same mischievous smile she’d known all her life raced across Hannah’s face. “He does. He makes me laugh all the time. And he makes me feel . . . special. Like in that picture I showed you when Mamm died. The one with the rose petals on the picnic blanket.”

  Hannah unzipped her purse, reached inside again, and pulled out the small brown book she’d shared with Katie months earlier. When she found the picture she sought, she handed it to Katie. “I wish I could explain how special that day was. How special Travis made me feel by planning that for me.”

  “There is no need.”

  And there wasn’t. Thanks to Eric, Katie did know how it felt. She just didn’t know what to do with it, or what, if anything, it meant. Sure, she’d tried to make sense of it all in her journal after Hannah had gone to sleep, but by the time she’d finally put down the pen, her thoughts were as jumbled as ever.

  “Can I ask you something, Katie?”

  Surprised by the rare hesitancy in her sister’s voice, Katie looked up. “Yah.”

  “Do you really like Abram? Really truly?”

  She drew back at both the question and the dull roar it kicked off in her ears. “Of course I like Abram. He is a good man. A kind man. A hardworking man.”

  “I don’t mean who he is as a person.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “I’m talking about the other stuff, Katie. Like does your heart race when you see him? Do you think about him when you are not togeth
er? Do you think of kissing him?” Hannah splayed her hands atop her lap. “You know, that sort of stuff.”

  “Hannah!”

  “It’s a normal question, Katie! You should be in love with the person you marry.” Hannah leaned forward across their conjoined armrest. “Does he know that you can draw the way that you do? Does he know you stay awake for hours—drawing pictures that you hide away under your mattress?”

  The roar grew silent against the pounding inside her chest. “Of course not.”

  “But he’s going to be your husband. Don’t you think he should know his wife has such a talent?”

  Katie pushed Hannah back onto her own side of the armrest. “Stop it, Hannah, you know I’m not supposed to draw such things. Why would I tell Abram? So he, too, can be shunned for what I do?”

  “Will you ever tell him?” Hannah asked.

  “There will be nothing to tell him, Hannah.”

  “Uh . . . okay. Sure. So when he walks into your bedroom and sees you drawing, he’s not going to ask any questions? He’s just going to wait politely while you slip your sketch pad and pencils under your mattress? C’mon, Katie, you’re being ridiculous. He’s going to find out.”

  She fisted the side of her dress in her hand and worked to soften her jaw enough to speak. “He’s not going to find out because there will be nothing to find out. When I get home, I will be throwing my sketch pad and pencils in the big blue trash box behind the English market.”

  Hannah’s gasp brought more than a few unwanted glances their way. “Don’t say that, Katie! You can’t stop drawing. Ever. You heard what Mr. Rothman said . . . and what those people said about that picture of Mary and the barn cats they wanted for their daughter and—hold on a sec, I think I just got a text.” Hannah reached inside her purse again, pulled out her phone, and consulted the screen. “I sure did. And it’s from Eric. He says he’s sorry he couldn’t be here to say goodbye, but he got a call he had to take and now there’s no way he can get here before your bus leaves. He says safe travels, thanks for everything, and brave is . . .” Hannah looked up at Katie, her brows furrowed. “Brave is brave? I don’t get it. What does that mean, ‘brave is brave’?”