Tracy Chevalier

I had often seen him look at her, touch her shoulder, speak to her in a low voice laced with honey.

“She is facing us, but is looking out the window, down to her right. She is wearing a yellow and black fitted bodice of silk and velvet, a dark blue skirt, and a white cap that hangs down in two points below her chin.”

A painting in a church is like a candle in a dark room—we use it to see better. It is the bridge between ourselves and God.

His eyes locked with mine. I could think of nothing except how their grey was like the inside of an oyster shell.

When I did her look was a puzzle of anger held back, of curiosity, of hurt.

She was trying to understand what had happened to her daughter.