Denise

“Looking back on that moment, he realized that, in the time between the quarter hour before sunset and the first star of dusk, somehow under the spell of that April evening in France, his splintered soul had begun to heal. It would happen in fits and starts. It would be a healing that would never, at least in this life, be total or final. But it was the moment when the fever broke for him.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“And on many days, sometimes for many consecutive days at a stretch, he would check the local morning paper for the exact time of sunset to ensure that he would be punctual for his date with a ten-year-old girl whose laughter was a murmuration and whose memory was a single star, the brightest in all the sky.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“His first lucid thought — “this is lovely” — felt like a betrayal of his daughter. He tried to stifle it with the argument that, in her absence, goodness was no longer possible in the world.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Some days, his lone figure was seen at such long distances apart that locals assumed he must be hitchhiking or driving from one spot to another. But not so. His walking was driven by fear and hope, fear of the thoughts that would catch him if he sat still and hope that he might somehow walk himself into a stupor or oblivion”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden