“Allie noticed it all, every sound, every thought. Her senses had come alive, invigorating her, and she felt her mind drifting through the last few weeks.”

“The memories of the day played in his mind, but this time, his thoughts were of his daughter and the way she'd clung to Katie, her little face buried in Katie's neck.The last time he'd seen that, he reflected, was when Carly had been alive.”

“Dawson, she knew, had saved Alan's life- but in the end, he'd saved Jared's as well. And for her that meant...everything. 'I gave you the best of me,' he'd told her once, and with every beat of her son's heart, she knew he'd done exactly that.”

“I continue to stare, my eyes missing nothing, remembering the moments we just shared together. But in all that time she does not look back, and I am haunted by the visions of her struggling with unseen enemies. I sit by the bedside with an aching back and start to cry as I pick up the notebook. Allie does not notice. I understand, for her mind is gone. A couple pages fall to the floor, and I bend over to pick them up. I am tired now, so I sit, alone and apart from my wife. And when the nurses come in they see two people they must comfort. A woman shaking in fear from demons in her mind, and the old man who loves her more deeply than life itself, crying softly in the corner, his face in his hands.”

“I gave you the best of me, he'd told her once, and with every beat of her son's heart, she knew he'd exactly done that.”

“because the past was always around her and might return at any time. It prowled the world searching for her, and she knew it was growing angrier at every passing day.”

“but she realized that she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to understand her, if only because she had strange sense that he was the kind of man she could fall in love with, even if she didn't want to.”