" She suspected that Harry would think fourteen months was a long time; most people would. How do you measure absence? There had been minutes that had become hours, and hours that had been like a desert with no horizon. There had been days dull and deadened as lead, and whole weeks when she’d had to force herself forward, inch by inch, across their expanse. How do you know when your heart is ready once more? Perhaps, for someone like her, the heart was never ready and had to be forced open. "

― Nicci French , Tuesday's Gone (Frieda Klein, #2)