"Bernadette had been dead two weeks when her sisters showed up in
Doyle's living room asking for the statue back. They had no legal claim
to it, of course, she never would have thought of leaving it to them,
but the statue had been in their family for four generations, passing
down a maternal line from mother to daughter, and it was their intention
to hold with tradition. Bernadette had no daughters. In every generation
there had been an uncomfortable moment when the mother had to choose
between her children as there was only one statue and these Irish
Catholic families were large. The rule in the past had always been to
give it to the girl who most resembled the statue, and among Bernadette
and her siblings, not that the boys ever had a chance, Bernadette was
the clear winner: iron rust hair, dark blue eyes, a long, narrow nose.
It was frankly unnerving at times how much the carving looked like
Bernadette, as if she had at some point modeled in a blue robe with a
halo stuck to the back of her head."--excerpted from book
