Excerpt from one of my novels about a young deaf woman, Grania. (p.132)

In the tower apartment they lay on the blue blanket, the parlour curtains pulled back so that they could see the night sky. He lay beside her in the dark and she turned on her right side, where she could tuck in closely.

She wanted to talk. The room was dark unless there was a moon, but she did not need the moon. She closed her eyes and raised the fingers of her left hand to his lips. Though at first he was astonished, he understood and began to speak. His careful words fell into her fingertips and she whispered back and they conversed like this, side by side. She had been well taught; her hands and body remembered the countless times at school when she had sat on a chair facing her teacher.

“Place your fingertips over my mouth. Lightly now. Feel the word. Now to my throat, back to the lips. Let the shape of the word fall into your fingers. Scoop it up with your hand.”

He had never known a language that so thoroughly encompassed love.

She had never felt so safe.