An Uncommon Family by Christa Polkinhorn Page B

while. And I need to do the same with Eva. Eva and your mama want us to be happy. They don’t want us to be sad and always grieve for them.”
    Karla gave him a thoughtful look. Jonas smiled. “Not convinced, huh? Well, let’s try something else for a change.” He pointed at Karla’s picture. “I like this. I love the colors and I like the fact that the picture fills the whole paper. That’s a good composition. Now, put it aside and I’ll show you something.”
    Jonas stepped onto the rooftop patio and waved at Karla to follow him. He pointed north to where the storm clouds were towering over the mountains. “Look at the clouds. Close your eyes halfway and scan them. Take your time; don’t focus on them too much. Relax your gaze and try to see the colors in the clouds. When we don’t pay attention, storm clouds are just black and gray. But in reality, there are many more colors. Can you see them?”
    Karla squinted her eyes and looked toward the north. She nodded her head. “Yes. I can see purple.”
    “Good,” Jonas said. “What else?”
    “Yellow and blue and white and orange.”
    “Excellent. See, there is much more to the world than it looks like on the surface. We just need to learn to see. Drawing and painting are all about learning to see. You understand?”
    Karla nodded. 
    “Now, what about painting the clouds the way you see them?”
    Karla’s face lit up. “Yeah, that would be cool.”
    Jonas smiled. “Okay, let’s do it. You can use the pastels. But only the sky and the clouds, no people. And if you forget what the sky looks like, you can always come out here and check.”
    Jonas put a new large piece of paper on Karla’s drawing table, then sat down at the other end of the room and observed her while she worked. He noticed the change in her right away. A new kind of energy seemed to fill her. Not having to worry about exact forms and figures, she let herself go. Her body and her mind opened up. Her facial color deepened, her arms and hands moved with great agility, and her strokes became bolder.
    Karla was a beautiful child. She seemed to have inherited her Latin father’s facial features, the large dark eyes, the high cheekbones, and the light-bronze skin. The highlights in her shiny black hair must have come from her Swiss mother’s side.
    Every once in a while, Karla stepped out on the balcony and looked toward the sky. Then she returned with a smile and continued.
    Jonas nodded to himself. There was a lot of passion in the girl and Jonas wanted to find ways for her to express it. Drawing her mother was a basic need for Karla and Jonas didn’t want to interfere too much. They just had to find a balance between preserving that link and exploring the rest of the wide and exciting world.
     
     
    Chapter 14
     
    Fall vacation was almost over and school was about to start again. The October winds had blown many of the colored leaves from the trees. Karla had collected the most beautiful ones and pressed them in a notebook. Once they were dry, she wanted to use them for a collage.
    Today, Anna had taken her shopping in the city for a few school supplies. Karla stuffed the notebooks and pens into her backpack but kept her new set of crayons and other painting utensils on the table. She gazed at the window, scrunching her eyes, as if trying to decide what to draw. The sun rays piercing through the windowpane lit up the reddish highlights in her black hair.
    “Look, Anna,” she said and got up. Her eyes opened wide and she pointed at the window. An almost perfect spiderweb was stretched between the top of the window and the side frame, its fine threads shimmering in the golden evening light.
    “Neat, huh?” Anna said. They both gazed at the perfect work of art.
    “I could draw it,” Karla said, pointing at the spiderweb. “I’ll add the spider, too, and perhaps the colored leaves.” She got excited and hurried back to the table.
    Anna sighed. She hated to spoil Karla’s enthusiasm,