Lightning Sketch

Ilse is just back from her mother's funeral in Germany. Not yet unpacked, she opens her carry-on suitcase in the kitchen and takes out a small framed something. She'd deliberately chosen a small suitcase to avoid the temptation of bringing stuff home from her mother's house—to leave such keepsakes to her three siblings and nieces. But everyone insisted Ilse should take this drawing, which her mother had kept displayed in the TV room alongside family photographs.

Our last visit was in June of 2019. COVID had discouraged Ilse from going back, despite her mother's decline in the three years since. But she'd called her mother every week to talk. Her mother was ninety-six, ready to die, and her passing was peaceful. At Mutti's gravesite, where the family buried the urn with the ashes, they tossed rose petals. Mutti loved roses.

Ilse handed me the drawing.

It's lovely, a pen-and-ink sketch of a small house, with the suggestion of a house next door. More than lovely. Something about it has magic. How do I put such evocation into words?

The lines give the house substance. The drawing is only about six by eight inches, but it has weight. The minimalist strokes of the pen convey essences, volume carved out of the space represented by white paper. Whatever sinews of domestic German architecture may show, it is a particular house with history, memory, lives inside.

Seen in a three-quarters view from the gable end, the edge of the roof shows just enough suggestion of sag to capture the work of gravity over time. The front steps emerge from a crisscross of lines, an angle of handrail. You expect to see someone stepping out the door. The moment belongs to the house. At the sun-washed gable end, a jumble of squiggles says rosebush; a few gestural pen strokes of window disappear into space to hint of more. The artist knew when to stop.

I look up. “This is great! Who's the artist?”

She smiles. “You.”

Ilse points to the lower left, and I see it: my signature, modestly concealed under the