Portrait of a Sister

by Laura Bradford

  A sudden rush of footsteps pulled their collective attention from the room and fixed it, instead, on the fourteen-year-old bounding up the staircase. Instinctively, Katie held her fingers to her lips until Jakob’s steps became quieter.

  “Is something wrong, Jakob?” Katie asked.

  Rising onto his toes, he took a quick peek at Sadie, and then lowered himself back down, his gaze seeking Katie’s as he did. “Abram is downstairs. He’d like to see you for a few minutes.”

  “Abram? Abram is here?”

  “Yah.”

  “Why?”

  “He heard about Sadie and wanted to see how she is.”

  “Dat can tell him,” she whispered even as she smoothed her hands down the sides of the dress she’d changed into before the doctor’s arrival. “I-I can’t leave Sadie.”

  “Dat says Mary is to sit with Sadie while you speak with Abram on the porch.”

  She started to protest but stopped as Mary’s hand closed over hers. “Katie, it will only be for a few minutes. If Sadie wakes, I will send Jakob for you right away.”

  “But—”

  “You’re not leaving, Katie,” Mary insisted. “You’re just stepping downstairs for a few moments.”

  Looking back at Sadie, Katie noted the little girl’s still-closed eyes and the rise and fall of her chest beneath the blanket. “You are to sit right next to her, and you are to watch her every second.”

  “I will,” Mary promised. “I will even keep Jakob here with me so I can send him to get you if she wakes up or does anything you need to know.”

  Katie pulled Jakob in for a quick hug and then released him to follow Mary into the room. “I’ll just be downstairs. On the porch.”

  She took the stairs down to the kitchen and then, at Dat’s quiet nod in the direction of the hallway, made her way out to the porch and Abram.

  “Katie!” Abram stepped from the railing to the doorway with two long strides. “How is Sadie?”

  Unsure of whether she could answer without crying, she took a moment to breathe in the night air and to lift her chin to the same gentle breeze that had made it difficult for Mary to clip the laundry to the clothesline earlier in the day. She’d watched Mary fighting with the boys’ pants from the chair beside Sadie’s bed and had felt bad she couldn’t help. But until Sadie was better, there was no other choice.

  She jumped at the feel of Abram’s fingers beneath her chin as he redirected her focus from the fields she wasn’t really seeing to the bright blue eyes looking back at her. “Tell me, Katie.”

  And so she did. She told him how Sadie had been quiet yet still cheerful the previous day. She told him how Sadie had given Samuel most of her dinner yet never complained about not feeling well. She told him about Mary summoning her during the night and how Sadie had been burning hot with a fever. She told him about sitting beside Sadie throughout the night and changing the cloth on the little girl’s head every thirty minutes. She told him how Sadie had woken just once during the night and how she had begged Katie to stay with her. And she told him about the moment when she knew the doctor needed to be called.

  “He wanted to put Sadie in the hospital, but I begged him to let me keep her here. That way I can be the one taking care of her just like I promised Mamm and Sadie.” She shivered as she stepped away from Abram’s touch. “Dat agreed and the doctor told me what to do and what to watch for.”

  Abram followed her over to the railing and looked out at the fields. “And?”

  “She woke once. After the doctor had come and gone. I was able to get her first dose of medicine into her, but she has been asleep ever since. It is difficult for her to breathe. The doctor . . . he says the next few days are critical. And”—her voice faltered—“I . . . I am scared, Abram. She is so very, very sick and . . .”

  He turned her to him, his hand finding hers and holding it tight. “And?”

  “I cannot lose Sadie.” She tried to be strong the way Mamm had always been, but if the tears she felt building behind her eyes were any indication, she was failing, miserably. “She is such a happy girl. She makes me laugh in a way I do not normally laugh. She is gentle with Annie, and kind with the animals. She is so like Mamm. I can’t think of life without her.”

  Katie balled her hands at her sides and willed herself to calm down, to get her emotions under control. But it wasn’t until Abram pulled her into his arms and held her close that she was truly able to breathe.

  “It will be okay, Katie. This thing that Sadie has may be strong, but Sadie is even stronger. Like you.”

  * * *

  Katie listened for any sound of life in the darkened hallway, and when she was sure there was none, she closed the door and headed back toward the window and the lone sliver of moonlight that stopped just shy of Sadie’s bed. Beside it, on the floor, was the quilt-wrapped sketch pad she’d commandeered from her room in the wake of Abram’s visit.

  She’d tried to tell herself that she’d removed it from beneath her mattress as a way to eliminate any chance Mary would find it, but she knew it was more than that. Yes, she’d grown to love the feel of the pencil inside her hand and the sound it made against the paper in an otherwise silent room. And, yes, she loved being good at something all on her own. But more than that, more than all the other reasons she loved to draw, the biggest of all was the opportunity it afforded to record those moments in life that made her truly happy—moments that gave her the strength Abram seemed to already think she had.

  Abram . . .

  She wasn’t sure what had surprised her more, that he’d held her while she cried, or that being in his arms had managed to quiet her fears and give her a much-needed energy boost to see her through until everyone else was fast asleep. Now that they were, she wanted nothing more than to lose herself in a happy Sadie memory.

  Closing her eyes for just a moment, she allowed herself to drift back to that first day at Miss Lottie’s, when Sadie was matching Digger’s every jump as the bubbles she blew sailed high into the air above their heads. In her ears, she could still hear Sadie’s happy squeals and Digger’s excited barks. With her nose, she could still smell the soapy bubble scent mingling with the chocolate chip cookie Sadie had waited to eat until the bottle of bubbles was dry. And in her mind’s eye, she could see Sadie’s smile and the way it had transformed her pale blue eyes into something that resembled a bright blue summer sky . . .

  After a quick check on Sadie, she pulled the oddly folded quilt onto her lap and slowly unwrapped her sketch pad and pencils from its center. For weeks she’d laid in bed, mentally looking at each picture, seeing them as clearly as if they’d been in front of her. Yet now that the pad was in her hands once again, she flipped past all of them to the first empty page, her fingers seeking and closing around the sharpest of her pencils.

  She started with Digger—his body leaping into the air for what would eventually be a big bubble. She drew his hind legs, his arching body, his floppy ears, and his opened mouth. Then she moved on to Sadie—her legs, her torso, her neck, her face, her cheeks, and her eyes coming quickly. It was as if she were back on Miss Lottie’s front porch, sitting on the top step, looking out at the scene unfolding on her paper. Twice, Sadie’s laughter in her ear was so clear, so real, she’d actually popped her head up over the edge of the bed to see if Sadie had woken.

  Never, with any of her previous drawings, had it all come so fast, so right the very first time. She even managed to capture the way the breeze lifted the wisps of hair that had escaped the kapp Sadie always insisted on wearing just like Katie.

  She added the grass as it swayed in the breeze . . .

  She added Digger’s collar and the heart-shaped tag that dangled from its side . . .

  She added the wand in Sadie’s tiny hand . . .

  She added the bottle of bubbles in the grass not far from Sadie’s bare ankle . . .

  She added the bubble responsible for Digger’s leap and the laugh that made her look, again, at a still sleeping Sadie .
. .

  She added a second bubble, just beyond the main one, and somehow managed to capture it just as it was popping on its own.

  She added the line of trees in the background, separating Miss Lottie’s land from the Amish farm to the east . . .

  She added Miss Lottie’s fattest cat, as it kept a sleepy yet still-watchful eye on the grand adventures taking place only a few yards away.

  She even managed to set the uneaten cookie in the lone bare spot in the yard where Sadie had tucked it for safekeeping. . .

  And, finally, she added the smile she needed to see more than any of it—the smile that endeared the four-year-old to everyone who crossed her path in much the same way Mamm’s always had. Its impact reached into Katie’s chest and calmed her in much the same way Abram’s arms had.

  By the time she was done, night was giving way to dawn. Soon, Dat and the others would be opening the door to check on Sadie . . .

  Taking one last look at the picture, she made herself close the sketch pad and tuck it, along with her pencils, back inside the quilt. Then, rising to her knees, she pushed it underneath Sadie’s bed until she was fairly certain it couldn’t be seen by anyone standing in the doorway. If Mary noticed it at some point and asked why it was there, she’d come up with something then.

  A strange noise from the top of the mattress redirected her attention back to Sadie in time to see the child struggling to catch her breath.

  “I’m here, Sadie. I’m right here. I’m not leaving you, sweet girl.”

  Sadie’s eyelashes fluttered open, her pale blue eyes, dull and tired, stared up at the ceiling in a way that suggested she wasn’t really seeing it at all.

  “Why . . . is . . . it... God’s will?”

  “Why is what God’s will?” Katie whispered past the fear working its way up her throat.

  “That . . . people . . . die.”

  Chapter 29

  Day after day, she sat by Sadie’s side, ready with sips of water, the next dose of medicine, and the removal or addition of another blanket. Occasionally, she’d leave her chair to stand at the window and stretch her legs, but even when she did, she spent more time looking back at Sadie than anything outside. When Annie napped and Mary could sit by Sadie’s bed, Katie slept. It wasn’t adequate sleep but it was better than the nothing she was getting at night when everyone else in the house was asleep and the only sound she could hear was Sadie’s labored breath.

  She tried to draw at least part of the night away, but other than the picture of Sadie that had been almost effortless from start to finish, Katie had no interest in making anything other than an occasional tweak in some of her other work.

  Miss Lottie stopped by every afternoon, her questions always the same; how is she, do you want to take her to the hospital, how are you?

  Likewise, Katie’s answers followed a pattern, as well; no change, no, and I’ll be fine once Sadie is.

  The questions and subsequent answers were always followed by the offer to watch over Sadie so Katie could take a break. But it was an offer Katie always turned down. Somehow, the thought of missing even a second of the kind of lucidness she hadn’t seen since the whole God’s will question was more than she could bear.

  So she sat.

  She watched.

  She listened.

  And she tried to quiet her fears long enough to pray.

  The lone bright spot in her days came at night, after the post-dinner cleanup sounds had ceased. There would be a knock at the front door, footsteps in the hall below, and then Abram’s deep voice would float up the stairs as he inquired about her and Sadie. Each time Dat would offer to have Katie come down, but Abram would always decline, saying she was where she needed to be—by Sadie’s side.

  Still, he found ways to let her know he was thinking about her—a freshly picked bouquet of flowers, a cookie his sister had made, a bookmark he’d found in an English shop, and a book of poems he thought she’d like. His effort and his kindness always gave her a much-needed burst of happy even if it was short-lived.

  It had been five days. Five days since Mary came into her room and told her Sadie was sick. Five days since she’d seen Sadie smile. Five days Sadie had literally slept away . . .

  Rising to her feet, Katie made the two-step trek to the window and looked out over her father’s fields, her gaze coming to rest on her brothers’ black hats as they walked beside Dat surveying the crops they would soon harvest. She tried to imagine what she, herself, would be doing at that moment if Sadie were well.

  Maybe a little canning?

  Or some gardening?

  Or, better yet, baking cookies . . .

  Sudden movement from the fields redirected her focus back to her brothers in time to see first Jakob, and then Samuel, take off in a run toward a section of the driveway she couldn’t see from Sadie’s window. She waited a few seconds to see if they’d return, but when Dat, too, headed in the same direction, she merely returned to her chair.

  Leaning forward, she captured Sadie’s hand inside her own and brought it to her lips. “Soon, when you are well, you will help me bake a cake for Dat’s birthday. Perhaps Miss Lottie will know a recipe for cherry frosting. Dat would love that, don’t you think? And later, the next month, it will be your birthday and you will be five! You are getting so big. This time, next year, you will be going off to school and learning all sorts of fun things like . . .”

  A series of footsteps, all far heavier than either Mary or Annie could make, stole the rest of her sentence and sent her attention toward the door. The telltale creak of the second step from the top brought her to her feet.

  “Mary?” She started toward the door only to stop as a second and third creak on the same step struck a note of fear where before there had been only curiosity. “Who’s there?” she called.

  The question was no sooner past her lips when Hannah peeked around the corner, her normally mischievous smile somewhat subdued. “Hello, Katie.”

  “Hannah?” she sputtered. “What are you doing here?”

  “Miss Lottie called and told me what’s been going on. I couldn’t stand waiting around for word, so we got on the next bus, instead.”

  “We?”

  Hannah’s eyes moved past hers to Sadie just as Travis stepped into view. Before Katie could fully process their dual presence, another familiar face stepped around the corner.

  “Eric?” she echoed from behind her hand. “What . . . What are you doing here?”

  “Uh, hello? He’s worried about you, Katie . . .”

  She heard Hannah’s words, even registered the playful sarcasm that had ushered them in, but at that moment, in that spot, all she could do was hold her breath and stare.

  Eric was there . . .

  In Blue Ball . . .

  Standing less than two feet away from her at that very moment. . .

  “Travis told me what was going on with Sadie and I wanted to make sure you’re okay.” He stepped closer, pulled her in for a quick hug she neither expected nor fully processed, and then released her back to her original position. “How is she? How is Sadie?”

  Before she could answer or even fully shake off the sudden and strange fog brought on by his embrace, Hannah made a beeline for Sadie’s bed. “Did she just fall asleep? Because I was kinda hoping that seeing me might be just the perk she needs—”

  “She’s been asleep for the past five days.”

  Hannah paused, mid-step, and turned to stare at Katie. “Seriously?”

  “Yah.” Katie trailed Hannah across the room and then stepped around her to check Sadie’s breathing and skin color. When she was sure there was no change, she pulled the blanket over the little girl’s shoulders. “I can wake her just enough to get a swallow or two of her special drink into her every hour or so, but she does not really see me. And as soon as I lower her head back to her pillow she is asleep again.”

  “So Miss Lottie was right? She’s really that sick?”

  “Yah. She is very sick.”
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  “Then why is she here?” Hannah demanded, her voice rising to something outside the whisper category. “Why is she not in a hospital with doctors and nurses who can take care of her properly?”

  Katie drew back, Hannah’s words hitting her like a slap across the face. “Because I am taking care of her. Here. At home. Where she belongs.”

  “If she’s this sick, Katie, she belongs in a hospital!”

  “She wants me!” Katie thundered back. “Me, not a stranger.”

  “But a doctor—”

  “The doctor has told me everything I am to do. And I am doing it.” She swept her hand toward first Sadie, and then the chair. “I sit here, next to her, all day and all night. If she moves, I am here. If she doesn’t move, I am here. I will take care of Sadie just like I told Mamm I would.”

  Hannah held up her hands and took a step back, her eyes open nearly as wide as her mouth. “Okay, okay, Katie, relax. I have a right to ask.”

  “But you don’t ask, Hannah. You tell.” Now that the words were flowing, she couldn’t really stop them. “I am the one who is here, not you. I am the one looking after Sadie, not you. I am the one—”

  “Are we back to that again?” Hannah hissed while simultaneously waving Travis and Eric over. “Come on you two, come closer. This is the part where little miss perfect, here, reminds me—for the bazillionth time—that I am a horrible person for wanting to have my own life.”

  Eric stepped between them and quietly cleared his throat. “Hannah, I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s going on here. So, rather than add more stress where there is already plenty, how about we let Katie tell us what we can do to help. Katie?”

  She looked from Eric to Hannah and back again, the anger draining from her body along with most of her energy. “There is nothing, unless . . .”

  “Unless?” Hannah prodded.

  “Unless you would want to sit with me for a while and keep me company? Maybe tell me things you have done since my visit. It has been a very quiet five days.”

  “Done.” Eric motioned Hannah and Travis to take the edge of Mary’s bed while he claimed the spot on the floor beneath the window for himself. “So, let’s see . . . Oh, I know! Hannah, tell your sister about that award Jack just got—the one you told me about on the bus ride here.”