Emma leaned forward.
“Then maybe the lines can help.”
He studied her.
“Maybe.”
She reached into her schoolbag and took out the chalk box.
“Use the white one. It’s easiest to see.”
Karl looked at the small piece of chalk.
“Your father won’t like it.”
Emma frowned.
“Why?”
“He likes the floor.”
She looked toward the hallway.
Then back at her grandfather.
“Can’t we clean it?”
Karl laughed.
“Yes, little sparrow. We can clean it.”
He took the chalk.
That evening, he placed it in the pocket of his cardigan.
The line grew over several nights.
Karl did not draw it continuously.
Some evenings he forgot.
On others, he became confused before reaching the hallway.
But when he remembered the chalk, he knelt carefully beside his bedroom door and drew a white line along the wooden floor.
It followed the corridor toward the staircase, then turned past a small bookcase and continued toward Emma’s room.
He chose the route partly because it was familiar and partly because he wanted to preserve the bedtime visits that had become more difficult.
He knew Emma’s parents were responsible for her safety.
He did not imagine he could protect her from every danger.
What frightened him was something quieter.
He feared that one night she might call for him and he would not know which room belonged to her.
He feared standing in the hallway while she waited behind a door he could no longer recognise.
The chalk did not solve the medical problem.
It did not restore his sense of direction or guarantee that he would be able to follow the route when confused.
But drawing it gave him a task he could still understand.
He could begin at one door.
Move the chalk along the boards.
Turn at the window.
Stop at Emma’s room.
A line was a familiar thing.
He had spent his professional life drawing them.
Walls began as lines.
Doors began as gaps between lines.
Entire buildings had once existed only as marks on paper beneath his hands.
Now the white chalk gave him a way to express something he could not easily explain to his family.
He wanted to remain part of Emma’s life.
He wanted to keep finding her.
For several weeks, Emma said nothing about the lines.
She noticed them appearing each morning and gradually understood that her grandfather was drawing them at night.
Sometimes they were straight.
Sometimes they wavered.
Once, a line stopped halfway down the corridor.
Emma found Karl studying it the next morning.
“Did you get tired?”
He looked at her.
“Perhaps.”
She crouched beside the unfinished line.
“That’s okay.”
Karl watched as she picked up the chalk.
She drew the line another few inches.
Then stopped.
“Can I finish it?”
Karl considered this.
He knew Anna and Matthias would not approve of more chalk on the floor.
He also knew that he should not encourage Emma to become responsible for navigating his nighttime confusion.
He knelt beside her.
“No, darling.”
She looked surprised.
“Why?”
“Because that’s my job.”
“But I can help.”
“You already do.”
“How?”
He smiled.
“You keep reminding me why I want to find the way.”
Emma considered this.
Then she placed the chalk in his hand.
“All right.”
He drew the final section himself.
That afternoon, they returned to the study.
Emma was building a wooden house.
Karl sat beside her, holding a pencil but making no marks.
She looked up.
“Grandpa?”
“Yes?”
“Why do you always draw the line to my room?”
Karl studied her.
“Because I like saying goodnight to you.”
She smiled.
“You can just knock.”
He glanced toward the hallway.
“Sometimes I forget which door is yours.”
Emma was quiet for a moment.
Then she moved the red block from her wooden castle and placed it beside the door.
“Use a landmark.”
Karl stared.
It was the same red block he had used months earlier to explain how buildings should be made easy to navigate.
She pushed it closer.
“Remember?”
He looked at her.
His eyes filled slightly.
“Yes, little sparrow.”
He picked up the block.
“I remember.”
The family discovered the full extent of the chalk lines on a Sunday morning in February.
Matthias was carrying a laundry basket upstairs when he noticed white marks along the corridor.
He put down the basket.
The line began outside Karl’s bedroom.
It ran past the landing window, turned around the bookcase, and continued all the way to Emma’s door.
There were older marks beneath it, faint and partially erased.
Some sections had been drawn repeatedly.
The dark wooden floor was covered with chalk dust.
Matthias stood staring.
Then he called for Anna.
She came upstairs.
“What?”
He pointed.
“Look at this.”
Anna followed the line.
“Oh, Matthias.”
“I’ve only just had this floor refinished.”
“It’s chalk.”
“It’s everywhere.”
He crouched and rubbed one section with his finger.
White powder collected on his skin.
“Who keeps doing this?”
Anna looked toward Karl’s room.
She had seen him carrying a small piece of chalk several days earlier but assumed he had been helping Emma with schoolwork.
Matthias stood.
“Dad!”
Anna touched his arm.
“Don’t shout.”
“I’m not shouting.”
“You’re about to.”
Karl appeared in the doorway.
He looked at the white line.
Then at Matthias.
“What is it?”
His son gestured toward the floor.
“Dad, have you been drawing all over the hallway?”
Karl frowned.
“Drawing?”
“With chalk.”
Karl looked down.
For a moment, he seemed unable to understand why the marks were there.
Then he recognised part of the route.
