Six months of hard therapy had given him back a little — some limited movement in his right arm, a few careful words.

Lucy sat three rows behind us, in the gallery, because that was the distance she had chosen and I had learned to respect it.

We were not a couple.

We were not even, in any ordinary sense, friends.

But as we gathered ourselves to leave, my father turned his wheelchair with his one good hand, and he reached that trembling hand back over his shoulder, toward Lucy, and would not lower it until she came.

She rose, and stepped forward, and took his fingers in hers.