Portrait of a Sister Read online

  She willed herself to slow her breath and to think. But it was hard. Impossible, even. Instead, she flipped through the next few pages, the absence of another one—the one with Mary and the barn cats—morphing her confusion into fear.

  Had Dat found her drawings? Had Jakob or Mary—

  Desperate for an answer, she lifted the pad off her lap only to see a slip of paper flutter out, Hannah’s familiar handwriting scrawled across it from top to bottom.

  Dearest Katie,

  Please do not be mad at me for taking your pictures. All I can say is that I needed to. I like my new life in the city, but that does not mean I don’t miss all of you. If I could, I’d take all of these pictures with me. But I can’t. While I will cherish the memories associated with the pictures I took, you need the rest to remember who you are.

  Never let that Katie—the real Katie—go. Promise me that.

  In the meantime, keep me close the way I will forever and always keep you close.

  Your sister,

  Hannah

  PS Travis took this picture of me in Central Park. You would love it there.

  “Picture? What picture . . .” The whispered words disappeared from her lips as a shake of the pad yielded her answer via a glossy photograph.

  In it, Hannah smiled back at her from atop a stone bridge, massive buildings the likes of which Katie could only imagine serving as a backdrop. In Hannah’s hands was a bouquet of wildflowers just like the ones she and Katie had loved to gather together for Mamm when they were not much older than Sadie . . .

  This time, when the lump returned, Katie didn’t try to distract it away. Instead, she rolled onto her stomach and prayed the pillow would block out her sobs.

  * * *

  Morning’s first light was just starting to peek around the window shade when Katie opened her eyes. For a moment, she could almost pretend everything was normal. Dat’s boots were moving toward the front door with Samuel’s close on his heels. The smell of bacon frying on the stove was wafting up the stairs, beckoning to her stomach and—

  “Mamm?” She tossed back the quilt Mamm had made the previous winter and cringed as her sketching pencil flew over the edge of the bed and skittered across the floor, the tip she’d sharpened several times throughout the night snapping against the sole of her waiting boots. She was reaching down to pick it up when the rattle of plates being placed around the table filtered through the gap beneath her closed door.

  Confused, she glanced again at the window, the position of the sun confirming it was no more than six o’clock. Why was Mamm moving around so early . . .

  The question trailed from her thoughts as reality snapped her from all final vestiges of sleep. Mamm was gone for good, the latest casualty of God’s will—a will she must once again pretend to accept just as she had when Hannah had chosen an English life over her.

  The telltale sound of the utensil drawer opening and closing broke through her thoughts, ushering in a far more likely image than the one that had forced her out from beneath her covers. Quickly, she removed the previous day’s rumpled black dress from her body and replaced it, instead, with a fresh one hanging on the hook across from her bed. Then, with careful yet quick fingers, she removed her head covering, let down her hair, brushed it, and secured it in place once again, this time under the freshly washed kapp she’d looped around her bedpost.

  Part of her wanted to let Mary finish breakfast on her own. But the other part of her, the one that had squeezed Mamm’s hand and promised to look after Dat and the children, knew that would be wrong. Besides, the baby would be waking up soon and chores needed to be done.

  Mamm’s work, Mamm’s life was now Katie’s.

  When her boots were laced and tied, she turned back to her bed and the sketch pad that hovered dangerously close to the edge. She didn’t want to be angry at Hannah for taking her drawings, but she couldn’t help it. They were her drawings, not Hannah’s.

  Hannah . . .

  Her gaze immediately flocked to the photograph sticking out from under her pillow—a photograph she shouldn’t have yet knew she’d never discard. Gripping the edges between her fingers, she pulled the picture into the middle of the bed and looked again at the image of Hannah and the bouquet of wildflowers. All Katie’s life, the sight of her twin had been enough to give her whatever she’d needed. When she’d been sad, it had given her comfort. When she’d felt shy, it had given her courage. When she’d felt out of place, it had helped her belong.

  But now, looking into the eyes laughing up at her from the center of Mamm’s quilt, Katie was aware of only one emotion: deep and utter loneliness.

  A knock at her bedroom door sent her scrambling for the sketch pad and Hannah’s picture.

  “Katie?”

  Her heart skipped a beat as she imagined Sadie’s round cheek pressed against the door, listening. Three days earlier, the image would have made Katie smile. Now, it struck fear in her heart. She’d always thought she’d been so careful with her drawings, limiting her work to quiet moments when no one else was around. Yet somehow, despite her best efforts, Hannah had discovered her secret—a secret she couldn’t afford for anyone to know, especially Dat. He’d been through enough. To add the weight of her sins to that would be—

  “Katie?” Sadie called again, the uncertainty in the four-year-old’s voice evident even without the rasp and the follow-up sniffle. “Katie? Did you go to God like Mamm?”

  Go to—

  Pressing her hand against her answering sob, she squeezed her eyes closed. “No, sweet girl. I am here; I was just being a great big sleepyhead, that’s all.”

  A second and third sniffle was followed by a hiccup and then the sound of Katie’s doorknob being turned.

  “Wait! I-I’m . . . getting dressed.” With her heart slamming inside her chest, Katie ran around the bed and shoved the sketch pad beneath her mattress. When she was confident it was out of sight, she grabbed up the photograph and note from Hannah, ran back to the opposite side of the bed, and tucked them into her boot in advance of her foot. “Okay, sweet girl, you can come in now.”

  Chapter 5

  She hadn’t thought it possible for her heart to be any heavier than it already was, but she’d been wrong. Imagining life without Mamm and living life without Mamm were two very different things.

  Before she’d gotten sick, Mamm had been a steady presence in everyone’s day. For Dat and the boys, she’d been the one to start and end their workday with a full stomach and a smile. Katie had helped, of course, but Mamm was Mamm. For Katie and her sisters, Mamm had been their model for how to live, how to function, how to be. No chore had been too big, no problem too daunting, no trouble she couldn’t hush away with the reminder of God’s wisdom.

  Even during her final weeks, when she’d been confined to bed, Mamm had remained an ever present force, her sunny smile and encouraging words as much a given during the day as the fact that the sun would rise in the morning and lower in the evening.

  They’d known she was dying. They’d tried to ready themselves for the fulfillment of God’s will, but in the end, if the sadness Katie felt emanating off her brothers as they moved about the fields was any indication, they’d failed.

  Katie stood at the window, looking out at her dat and her brothers for a few more moments, the tightness in her throat making it difficult to breathe. They were carrying on outside just as Katie and her sisters were carrying on inside, yet somehow everything was different now.

  “How are you holding up, dear?”

  Startled, Katie turned toward the familiar voice. “Miss Lottie! I-I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Sadie let me in.” The elderly English woman gestured toward the large wooden table in the center of the kitchen and, at Katie’s nod, took a seat on the edge of the bench. “She was telling Annie about the different flowers when I came up the drive.”

  “And Mary?”

  “She’s hanging the wash.”

  Katie checked the clothes of
f her mental to-do list and crossed to the refrigerator. “Would you like a glass of iced tea, Miss Lottie?”

  “I would love some, Katie.” Reaching up, Lottie Jenkins removed her floppy straw hat from her head and set it beside her on the bench. “I take it Hannah and her young man got off okay, yesterday?”

  “They did.” She poured a glass of tea for Miss Lottie and a glass of water for herself and carried both to the table.

  Miss Lottie took a sip and then studied Katie across the rim of her glass. “I bet that was hard, having her leave again.”

  “I asked her to stay on for a few days, but she didn’t listen.” Katie heard the bitterness in her tone and waited for the shame to follow, but it never came. “The little ones are having a hard time today. I have tried to smile and to make the chores fun as Mamm always did. But I am Katie, not Mamm, and I am not good at such things.”

  She felt Miss Lottie’s hand on her arm, coaxing her to sit on the bench, but she was too keyed up to heed the woman’s touch. “Hannah was always the one who could make the little ones giggle when I could not.”

  “And you’re the one they go to when they need hugs, Katie.” Miss Lottie took another sip of her drink and then pushed the glass into the center of the table, her large knowing eyes fixed on Katie. “Right now, if it’s one or the other, they need hugs most.”

  “They should have both! The way they did with Mamm!” She regretted the anger in her voice, but before she could muster a worthy apology, she began to sob.

  With little more than two swift moves—one to stand, the other to pull Katie close—Miss Lottie’s shoulder helped block the sound from reaching the front window and the garden just beyond its open screen. Every time Katie thought she had herself under control, she’d begin sobbing again. Eventually, though, she was able to wipe her eyes and steady her breath enough to step away.

  “Miss Lottie, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I-I am just Katie. I don’t know how to do this without Mamm. She made it all look so easy. I am not strong like Mamm or courageous like Hannah. If I was behind them, I could do the things they did. But only because they did them first and told me I would be okay.”

  “Oh, child, your mamm was right, you do sell yourself short.”

  Katie stared at the woman, certain she must have misheard. “Mamm said that? About me?”

  “She said you have a strength that is so unassuming even you do not see it. But it is a strength that is every bit as real as Hannah’s.” Reaching forward, the woman tucked a rebellious strand of hair back under Katie’s kapp. “And it is a strength that will see you through the weeks and months ahead, dear one.”

  “I could never go off on my own and start a new life the way that Hannah did,” Katie protested. “That takes courage I do not have.”

  “A famous writer once said, ‘courage is grace under pressure. ’ I cannot think of someone more befitting of those words than you, Katie. You handled your mamm’s illness with your head held high. And yesterday? At the service and then the meal? You honored your mother’s life by looking after the wee ones and still seeing to it that everyone was greeted and fed and thanked just as she would have done. To do that while your own heart was heavy with sadness is the epitome of courage, young lady.”

  She felt her face warm at the praise and looked away. She wanted to believe Miss Lottie’s words, to know that she was as courageous as her sister, but it didn’t ring true. Clearing her throat, she wandered over to the window and its view of the fields in the distance. “Dat and the boys are carrying on as if it is just another day, but it’s not. Mamm is no longer here.”

  “I know it is the Amish way to carry on, to accept such a loss as God’s will. But she was your mamm. It is okay to hurt.”

  “Mamm wanted me to take care of things, to look after the children and Dat. And I can do that. I can cook, I can clean, I can wash and mend clothes. But to smile the way that Mamm did? To be strong and brave the way Mamm was? I-I do not know if I can.”

  “Your mamm knew you could.”

  Katie spun around. “You cannot know that.”

  “I can. And I do.”

  Miss Lottie sat back down on the bench, removed her hat from atop her bag, and fished out a plain white envelope Katie recognized from Mamm’s letter writing box. For as long as Katie could remember, she’d loved the sight of that box for it meant Mamm was going to write a letter to faraway family, taking care to include special hellos from Katie and her siblings. When the letter was written and Dat had taken it to the post office, Katie and Hannah would try to imagine when it would arrive at its destination and the joy it would bring.

  Shaking the memory from her head, she pointed at the envelope. “That looks like Mamm’s.”

  “Because it is.”

  “She wrote you a letter?” Katie asked.

  “She wrote you a letter, dear.”

  Katie drew back against the window. “But I was right here all the time. Why would she write me a letter?”

  “For you to read when she was gone.”

  Slowly, she crept forward, her gaze returning to the envelope in Miss Lottie’s hand. The sight of Mamm’s careful handwriting stretched across the front stirred pain and excitement in equal measure. “What does it say?” she asked.

  “Why don’t you open it and find out?”

  She started to take the envelope Miss Lottie held out but, at the last minute, she pulled her hand back and cocked her ear toward the front windows. “The young ones will be coming in soon to help prepare dinner. I do not want them to see me cry.”

  Miss Lottie gathered her hat and bag, stood, and made her way over to Katie. “Then read it before bed.”

  “I will.” She took the envelope and held it to her chest. “Thank you, Miss Lottie.”

  * * *

  Somehow, she’d made it through the rest of the day. She’d prepared supper, made polite conversation at the dinner table, cleaned the pots and pans, put Annie to bed in her crib, read two stories to Sadie, and played a silly game with Mary and Jakob while Dat and Samuel talked about an upcoming horse auction.

  On the surface, it had seemed like any other night. But it wasn’t. Mamm’s absence was ever present, manifesting itself in smiles that weren’t as big as normal and laughter that seemed almost forced at times. And every once in a while, when she’d stolen a glance in Dat’s direction, she knew he felt it, too.

  She’d considered asking if he was okay, but she knew what his answer would be. Instead, she counted down the hours and then the minutes until she could disappear to her room and finally, mercifully, it came.

  Sucking in a breath, Katie waited for the glow of Dat’s candle to disappear beneath her door. She imagined him taking off his boots and draping his suspenders across the foot of his bed. She imagined him looking at the side of the bed Mamm had occupied just a little over forty-eight hours earlier. But when she started to imagine the look on his face now that he was alone, she made herself concentrate on nothing but the swath of light playing across the toes of her boots.

  “Please, Dat,” she whispered. “You have had a long day and you need your sleep . . .”

  The light gave way to darkness save for that of the moon peeking around her window shade. Relief sagged her backward but not for long. Quietly, she made her way over to the bed, sat on its edge, and unlaced her boots. When she pulled off the left one, she reached inside, removed Hannah’s note and picture from the area where her ankle had been, and set them on her pillow. Then, without waiting to remove her right foot, she reached inside her remaining boot and pulled out Mamm’s letter.

  For a moment, she just sat there, staring down at the letter that had consumed her thoughts over the past few hours. So many times during and after dinner she’d considered feigning a stomach ache just so she could read what Mamm had written, but she’d resisted. Part of that was because she didn’t want to cloak her last communication with her mother in dishonesty. But an even bigger part was knowing she wanted to savor ev
ery word without distraction.

  Now that the distractions were gone though, she was both eager and wary all at the same time. Yes, she wanted to know what Mamm had written, but once Katie read it, Mamm would truly be gone.

  Katie ran her fingertips across her name and imagined when Mamm might have written it. While she was confined to bed? Before she’d become ill? How? When? Why?

  Inhaling deeply, she turned the envelope over, worked her finger beneath the seal, and slipped out the simple white folded page it contained. With trembling fingers, she unfolded the paper and smoothed it across her lap.

  Dear Katie,

  If Miss Lottie has given you this letter, it is because God’s will has made it so.

  I know that my passing will mean a change in your life, but it will only be for a short time as we have already spoken about. Abram is a fine young man and I am sure that he will wait with understanding and patience.

  When you are to marry, you will find a bolt of blue fabric in my chest. When you were not much older than Annie, you loved to look at the bright blue sky. You would look at me, point up, and then throw your head back and make this happy little sound. I never knew why you did that, but I knew that something about the sky made you smile.

  I want you to smile like that again. And I want you to smile the way you did when Hannah was close.

  Make your wedding dress of this blue, Katie.

  Smile the way you once did.

  Smile with Abram.

  It is God’s will.

  With love,

  Mamm

  She tried to catch the tear before it hit the paper, but she wasn’t fast enough. Instead, she watched as the ink from her mother’s pen darkened and spread with the moisture, the thump of her heart barely noticeable against the deafening silence in her head.

  Why did Mamm think her smile had changed? It hadn’t changed . . .