Her love for Nathan was so totally consuming, yet at the same time was defined by such childlike dependence in a hundred ways, that the terror that surrounded her in his unexplained absence was uttely demoralizing, like being caught in that strangling fear which she had often felt as a little girl. And she knew that this, too, was irrational but beyond remedy. Turning the radio on, she sought a news announcer’s empty distraction. She continued to pace the room, visualizing the most ghastly mishaps, and she was on the verge of dissolving into tears when he suddenly and noisily burst through the door. At that instant she felt an immediate blessing like showering light–resurrection from the dead. She remembered thinking: I cannot believe such love.
William Styron, Sophie’s Choice. Bantam Books, 1980. p. 388.