Excerpt from This Is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Because this was an honors class, and because her frank approach made them think they were finally getting what they signed up for, they shuffled closer to the Roslan, squinted and strained. Annika, a skinny young woman wearing only a T-shirt and jeans, who always underdressed for the cold to showcase the tattoo sleeves on both arms, followed Will's lead and slowly walked the length of the painting, getting alternately closer and farther away. Sophie clutched her purse strap and closed her eyes. Ludka wanted to press her, to get her to tell these dzieci a thing or two, but for all Ludka's blustering she was not a teacher who put students on the spot. Sophie's hand strayed up to her throat and touched her buttoned cardigan as if she were toying with a necklace, which was, in fact, what she was doing. The gold cross was a new addition in the past year. She tucked it away only on campus.

Annika crossed her arms, cradling her elbows in her cupped hands. "Nobody's smiling," she said. "Not one person."

"And no one's carrying a book!" said Will. "What's up with that? In 1939 there should be at least one book, no?"

Ludka was shocked she'd never noticed the absence of books. Thus, she felt a fondness toward Will and immediately began to ponder Roslan's possible intention—clearly something to do with the imminent murders of the Polish intelligentsia, to which her parents had belonged. Ludka closed her eyes against the sudden pulsing of the cavernous room's pale walls. Even as a young woman she'd felt lightheaded in museums, and she'd fallen in love with many a painting after latching onto it, a visual horizon from her unsteady boat. At the start of today's class she'd had to latch on to the Roslan to avoid alarming the students, an alarm she'd seen on the faces of those who'd beckoned her back from the dissociative episodes she and her husband Izaac were optimistically calling her reveries. The first time she'd had one, sitting in the garden at home last summer, Izaac had summoned her, his face inches from her own, and when she surfaced he sank into his rocker, breathing as if he'd climbed the stairs to the attic. It had taken her a moment to realize he'd been calling to her in Polish, a rare departure from their decades-old covenant to speak English in America.

"Was I muttering?" she asked. Izaac shook his head.

"Again I was fifteen," she said. "Like yesterday."

They'd sat side by side, looking at the morning glories and the field and wetlands beyond, he wondering how much his heart could take should she precede him, she wondering if this was how her mind would go, if one day she'd no longer hear the summons.

Now Ludka praised Will for noticing what wasn't on the canvas, and then the murmuring began as the students finally started to talk about what Roslan had left out.

"Always," she said, "I imagined Roslan had two studios, one for all his omissions."

"What if he painted it all," said Will, "and then covered it?"

"Ah! Now here is idea!"

She stood abruptly, remembering caution too late, and swayed for a moment, thin calves pressed into the edge of the bench, wool shawl clutched against her throat, gaze tethered to the Roslan. These were some of the teaching moments that made her happiest, when someone like Will shook her out of her own limited vision. She couldn't fathom that she'd missed this in her research, but imagine if it were true, if one could tease off the outer layer and read the signs and see the books and fill the empty grocers' bins! She could see why Roslan might go that route. Carefully she stepped away from the bench, and suddenly Will was beside her, commandeering her by the elbow, hustling her forward. Had he been anyone else, she would have tossed him off with a hiss, but she could sense his actions were more pragmatic than decorous, fueled by his desire for quick companionship to scrutinize the work. A not unpleasant aroma of warm wool arose from his threadbare peacoat, along with a hint of stale sweat. Once in front of the painting, he released her so gradually she knew he'd let go only when he stepped away and bent down to inspect the street busker's violin case. She searched for evidence that the missing books had been covered, and while she found none, she did marvel that she'd never noticed their now obvious absence, there in the cocked arms of the stooped old rabbi, for instance, or in the idling hand of the fey young man she'd always thought of as a poet; he reminded her of her father, a sculptor who'd been stronger than this young man, but possessed of a similar otherworldly sensibility.

Excerpted from This Is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey. Copyright © 2017 by Joan Dempsey. Excerpted by permission of She Writes Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.