Calvin stopped at each pew, holding Grace out in her blanket, seeing just hands now, men’s and women’s, old and young, thick fingers and gold bands and glossy red nails, gently touching her, caressing her head like a downy softball, rubbing it like a charm, crossing her, blessing her. They were the multitude, and their reaching out to Grace, with battered knuckles and liver spots and nails chewed to the quick, seemed to Calvin something both common and wonderful, like bread, an ordinary miracle.

—Flesh Wounds