He found his Maggie again and she wasn't great, just as Sophie had told her friend, but she was alive, she was trying, and she was still very much herself. He had promised his daughter he would look in on them from then on and he was true to his word. That's not to say he didn't occasionally still fly with the birds or go for a quick thrill ride through the power lines and yes, if someone had asked him if he didn't still every once and a while insert himself somewhat guiltily into a dog/tail/teeth ménage à trois he would have been lying if he said no but he always found his way back and never again did he confuse motion for freedom.
Over time, he discovered that when he wasn't expending all his concentration on being oblivious, he could spend it on other things. It turned out, with enough motivation and focus and practice (lots of practice) he could do even more than make a candle's flame flare. Still not much, mind you, but sometimes a little went a long way.
He was the warm breeze that brushed Maggie's cheek on the coldest of nights, he was the bird-song that sounded when she had no music left inside her and he was the flyer for an Over 40's Dating Service she kept finding in her handbag even though she was absolutely sure she had tossed the silly thing in the recycling at least twice now.
He was the golden autumn leaves that see-sawed in the air above Sophie's head on her first day of university and he was the rustle in the branches of a large oak tree that drew her attention to the bench sheltered below it that seemed to her like a very good place to sit and take a breath and stop freaking out because she had this, she knew she had this, it was only bloody uni after all.
He was the music that Sophie and her husband danced their first wedding dance to and he was the clap on the groom's back from an old ex-devil friend who said "Well done, Wolf Boy" and he was the mingled laughter and age-old annoyance of the groom who wished the woman he loved hadn't given him that nickname on the same Halloween night they had shared their first kiss because it was very hard to be a respected business systems analyst when everyone in your immediate family and social circles called you Wolf Boy and yes ok, he actually quite liked it but that wasn't the point.
He was the sole excited recipient of his granddaughter's first word (though he wasn't entirely sure if it had been Train or Rain as there was no locomotive in sight and it was in fact quite a clear and sunny day). He was the wooden floor beneath his grandson's first steps and some months later he was the squeak in the floorboard that alerted little Philip's parents to the fact that he was making a beeline for the open front door.
Years passed and eventually, after what seemed both like an eternity and no time at all, he was the parting in the clouds that allowed a ray of sunshine to fall on his daughter's face on the otherwise cold and grey morning she stood at a graveside with her husband's hand clasping hers, with her children and their own children around her, all of them saying goodbye to his Maggie.
He said hello.
A river ran along the edge of the cemetery and they raced one another toward it.
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