It's incomprehensible. Kathleen and my father had the most loving relationship. They never fought.

A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself -- to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.

Rachel and Lilly loved Neil very much. Neil was a trusted husband and father and it is incomprehensible how that love and trust was betrayed in the ultimate act of violence. We are heartbroken at the loss to understand how this happened, but as our pastor, Father McKenzie reminded us just eight days ago, God didn't do this. There is evil among us.

Oh, daddy, by what witchcraft have you coaxed that sulky rose-bush into bloom?'

'No witchcraft at all - it just bloomed because you were coming home, baby,' said her father.

But what does he do to qualify as a sonovabitch?” Jenny asked.
“Make me”, I replied.
“Beg pardon?”
“Make me”, I repeated.
Her eyes widened like saucers. “You mean like incest?” she asked.
“Don’t give me your family problems, Jen. I have enough of my own.”
“Like what, Oliver?” she asked, “like just what is it he makes you do?”
“The ‘right things’”, I said.
“What’s wrong with the ‘right things’?” she asked, delighting in the apparent paradox.

What term do you employ when you speak of your progenitor?"
I answered with the term I'd always wanted to employ.
"Sonovabitch."
"To his face?" she asked.
"I never see his face."
"He wears a mask?"
"In a way, yes. Of stone. Of absolute stone.