In the middle of the gallery was a triptych formed by three separate paintings of women.
Each was seated at a desk writing,
and behind each woman were scenes of men and women,
separate
and coming together.
"Who are they?" I asked Dorothy.

"They were painted the first winter I spent by myself in Flannagan's Hill," she replied.
I had more time for reading than I had had in a long time.
Often I would pick up a book as the sun went down,
and I saw the view out the window for the last time before morning.
I would begin to read
and suddenly I was in a different world.
I reread books I hadn't read for many years.
Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Dorothy Sayers.

They are the women in the paintings.