“The little boy was part of a simple equation that required no other solution except in those moments when, with little or no warning , he felt overwhelmed by horrible love. . Anything he looked at for too long could provoke him” (401). Rayber saw his mentally disabled son as something that could be calculated and understood, but did not understand the feeling of love he felt for Bishop when he looked at him for too long. This signifies Rayber's constant struggle with grace within his own life. Being an atheist and secular, grace was a strange and foreign feeling to him that made him uncomfortable. Later, Rayber discovers that "he could control his terrifying love as long as it was centered on Bishop, but if anything happened to the child, he would have to deal with it within himself...he would have to resist feeling whatever whatever, come to think of it. anything” (442-443). Rayber realizes that if Bishop ever dies, he will come face to face with this omnipresent grace, and foresees the extreme effort he would have to expend to resist and rebel against it. As the novel progresses and Bishop dies, Rayber must eventually confront the ever-present grace, or "horrible love." “He waited for the intense pain to begin, the intolerable injury that was due to him, so that he could ignore it, but he continued to feel nothing” (456). After this realization, Rayber passes out. It's in this moment of numbness