Contents
PROLOGUE
Overview
The prologue introduces Theo, an elderly Portuguese man drawn to rivers, who spends a single transformative year in Golden beside the Oxbow. His quiet presence gathers a circle of friends into his current. The group later recognizes how profoundly Theo’s influence moved them, anchoring the book’s emotional stakes.
Summary
The narrative opens with Theo’s arrival in Golden just before Easter, amid blooming dogwoods and azaleas. The setting establishes a season of renewal as pollen dusts the city and Theo settles into a new phase of life.
Theo’s lifelong affinity for rivers is traced through memories of the Douro, the Seine, the Hudson, and others, suggesting a maritime heritage that instills a sojourner’s spirit. This riparian instinct guides Theo to a home overlooking the Oxbow, where he claims he can always see, hear, and feel the river’s steady push toward the ocean.
Though he stays only a year, Theo’s presence becomes a subtle but powerful current. Friends and acquaintances—Asher, Tony, Ellen, Basil, and many more—are drawn into his orbit, their lives aligning with his gentle momentum without fully realizing it.
In retrospect, the group understands they were carried along by Theo’s influence toward destinations they scarcely understood at the time. Echoing a preacher’s phrase, they affirm that their hearts “burned within” them, framing Theo’s year in Golden as a quietly transformative genesis for the relationships and journeys to follow.