Our host had seen you looking at the linens again and insisted you take it, the pearled pink fabric folded like a present in her arms when we said goodbye. You tried to decline, but she pressed it on you, her frank, open face creased into a smile. You had to paint on it; had never seen a sheet with a thread of gold in it, barely there, a trick of the light. You spent most of our flights staring out the window, counting the colors you saw in the clouds, in the ocean, the uneven patchwork of farmland and forest over the states. We’d traveled thousands of miles before reaching our front door, asleep on our feet, but you went straight to your studio, nailed the sheet to the wall, took out your palettes and began. Handmade in the USA