Slow Hands

often.
    “That’s the problem, you see,” he added, his fingers loosening, as if the effort to clench their hands was too much. “Like many others in my family—your grandmother, who lived alone for decades, my brother, always looking for the one he foolishly let get away—I’m at the mercy of my own heart.” He lightly tapped his chest. “Which is, perhaps, a bit weaker than I’d supposed.”
    “What are you saying?” Tabby asked, in visible confusion.
    He smiled up at his oldest daughter, who shared his bright blue eyes. “I cared for your mother, but we were young. Neither of us went into it for the right reasons.”
    Tabitha nodded, conceding the point. “I know.”
    “And I quite enjoyed many relationships with others over the years.” Then he glanced at Maddy and his eyes moistened, as if tears were threatening. “But the truth is, we Turners are only capable of one real love.”
    Maddy sucked in a breath. She’d never heard her father talk this way, not in her entire twenty-eight years. And while for a brief moment, she wondered if his medication had confused him, she had to acknowledge that his gaze was clear; his voice—though weak—held certainty and conviction.
    “It’s a blessing and a curse in our family, but it’s true. We can only manage it once. One great love, never to be forgotten, never to be replaced, not even if we end up entirely alone.” He reached up and brushed his shaking hand across Maddy’s cheek. “You break my heart and you fill it, every time I look into your eyes and see her there.”
    And suddenly she understood the words he was saying. The truth he’d never admitted before. Her father wasn’t guilty of loving too briefly, or too shallowly.
    The greatest tragedy of his life was in having loved so much he could never say goodbye.
    “You’re doomed, I’m afraid, both of you. So be vigilant, listen to your heart,” he said, sighing deeply. “And when you do, savor every moment, don’t waste a second of it. I pray you won’t be like me. I found the other half of my heart and have spent twenty-four years trying to fill the time until I can be with her again.”
    Tears flowed freely down Maddy’s face. Of all the moments in her life when she’d regretted having lost her mother, this was the most poignant.
    Their father reached for Tabby’s hand again, regarding her with sad eyes. “You’ve found the wrong one, darling…again and again, trying so hard and hoping each time will be better than the last.” Then he turned his attention to Maddy. “And you, my sweet girl, have closed yourself off completely, never allowing yourself to believe you’ll ever find the right one.”
    “Oh, Dad,” Maddy whispered, her heart breaking for him more with every word he spoke.
    There was, she knew, one gift she could give him, to help ease his worry, perhaps to help him heal. Just one secret…but the most important one of Maddy’s life. “You’re wrong, you know.”
    He merely waited.
    “I’ve already found him,” she said, then bent to press a soft kiss on his forehead.
    He stared at her, seeing the truth there. “I’m so glad,” he whispered. “So very glad.” Then he fell asleep, looking comfortable and relaxed as his breathing continued evenly, steadily.
    Maddy and her sister stared at their father, then across his bed at each other. The shock and grief for the long, lonely years their father had endured had to have been written just as clearly on Maddy’s face as it was on Tabitha’s. And, from both of them, maybe even sadness for the women who’d hoped to refill the vast empty wells of his heart that, to this day, mourned for Magdalena.
    A nurse intruded, informing them their time was up. They rose in unison; each bent to kiss their father’s cheek before walking out of the room together.
    “I’ve got to go,” Tabby murmured, her voice having lost that anxiety—the sadness and guilt she’d been carrying when she’d arrived here this morning. “I have a wedding to cancel and a fiancé to jilt.”
    Unable to stop herself from smiling, Maddy grabbed her sister’s hand. “Me, too. I’ve got three words to say to an amazing man.”
    The love of her life. She no longer had a single doubt about it. And she would make sure he didn’t, either.
    * * *
    “H EY , W ALLACE , somebody’s here to see you!”
    Jake looked up from the medical kit he’d been restocking in the supply room, surprised that one of the guys had come back here looking