Thirty-Five Years Later
“Hey, Sergeant Rodriguez. All ready for the big day?”
The man sitting on the treatment table was young. Too young, in Maggie’s opinion, to be dealing with such weighty issues. But then, weren’t all of the patients she worked with too young, even if they were in their sixties?
“Okay, then,” Maggie said. “Why don’t you stand and let’s see how much weight you can put on that foot?”
The young man stood, gingerly, as if taking his very first step, which he was. His first step since the IED had detonated in front of his vehicle.
His first step on this foot.
He reached for the parallel bars in front of him, which were set at hip height, and held on as if gripping for dear life. His knuckles whitened.
“Relax, Sergeant Rodriguez,” Maggie said easily. “It’s going to be fine. I promise.”
The man took a deep breath and hoisted himself from the table, all his weight on his left foot.
He was tall. Maggie had forgotten his records had said he was six feet three. He’d nearly always been in a sitting position when they’d spent time together.
“Great, now why don’t you try to put some weight on the other foot?”
The man grimaced, but Maggie didn’t think it was from pain as much as from fear. How would it feel? Would it hurt him? Would the foot hold? Would it feel like, well…a foot?
Only he could tell her. He and the others in her study.
The man, who in every aspect of his being was a soldier, leaned into his right foot.
“Here goes nothing,” he said as he released his weight.
Maggie held her breath.
“How is it?” his young wife—really not more than a girl—asked eagerly. “How does it feel?”
Maggie wasn’t sure what came first, the man’s grin or his tears.
“It feels amazing,” he said, nearly gasping. “It feels like my foot.”
The girl started to sob as she rushed to hug him. The man didn’t let go of the bars, still uneasy in the standing position, but put his head down to hers as she cried.
Maggie turned to the doctor next to her and smiled.
“Are those tears in your eyes, Dr. Lewis?” Maggie asked.
“Nope. Are those tears in your eyes, Dr. Fitzgerald?” he asked her.
“Of course not,” Maggie said. “I’m a professional.”
“Me, too,” Dr. Lewis said, nodding.
Maggie sometimes wondered if certain aspects of her chosen career would ever get old. Certainly the paperwork would. Definitely the bureaucracy. Without a doubt, the hoops she had to go through to raise enough funding would someday do her in.
But this part? She knew, with all her being, this part would never, ever get old.
It would be as fresh and exciting and exhilarating each and every time.
Because, each and every time, the person standing across from her would be experiencing their miracle for the very first time.
Maggie didn’t hear the team of residents come up behind her until one of them spoke.
“Is that a new type of prosthetic?” a young doctor asked Maggie.
“No,” Maggie said, watching Sergeant Rodriguez carefully. She’d need to examine him. They’d be spending most of the day together as she asked him a thousand questions and did a hundred more tests. She knew he wouldn’t mind. Neither would his family, who were all—his parents, his brothers, his two little children—now running into the room.
This was the happiest day of their life, better than any wedding day.
And they all knew it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning back to the resident. She’d gotten distracted by the scene of joy taking place right in front of her. “Sergeant Rodriguez came to us two years ago, having lost his right foot in combat.”
“Were you able to reattach it?” another resident asked.
“No,” Maggie said. “That limb was never recovered. And, even if it had been, I’m fairly certain it would’ve been too damaged to reattach.”
“Then what did you do for him?” a third resident asked. Clearly, they were all confused.
“We enrolled Sergeant Rodriguez in a clinical study we’ve been conducting for the past six years.”
She turned to look at the group, purposely making eye contact with each one of them. She was about to blow their minds.
“We helped him grow a new foot.”
“What?!” The cry escaped from each resident’s mouth at the same, precise moment with the exact high pitch.
Maggie chuckled, as did Dr. Lewis next to her. The reactions from people? That part would definitely never get old.
“Dr. Lewis is going to take all of you into a conference room and explain the entire study in great detail. But, to give you a quick understanding, so you can comprehend what you’re seeing as you look at Sergeant Rodriguez, we discovered a human gene which is active early in a human’s life, but remains silent in mature tissue. It can reprogram human non-reproductive cells, rewinding them back to an embryonic-like state. We realized, when this gene is reactivated, it can enhance the healing power, and grow new tissue.”
“Dr. Fitzgerald keeps using the pronoun ‘we,’ but that is not accurate,” Dr. Lewis interrupted.
“Yes. It is accurate,” Maggie said.
“No, it’s not,” Dr. Lewis said. “On top of being a genius, she’s obsessively modest. It’s true we are all part of a team, but it is led by Dr. Fitzgerald and she is the genius behind our findings.”
Maggie waved off her colleague and friend as if she were swatting away a fly.
“The point is,” she said, smiling at Dr. Lewis. “This protein can boost the metabolism, fooling the body into thinking it’s younger than it is, thus stimulating a complex cascade of chemical reactions. Those reactions generate energy.”
“Energy that becomes a foot?” a stupefied resident stuttered.
“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than the brief explanation I’ve just given you,” Maggie said, smiling. “As I said, Dr. Lewis will explain it all in more detail. I hear he’s got a fancy PowerPoint presentation and everything.” She winked at her colleague, teasing him good-naturedly.
“How many people have re-grown limbs so far?” another resident asked.
Maggie looked at Dr. Lewis as the two of them counted in their heads.
“Six feet, nine hands, numerous individual fingers and toes, fourteen ears, eleven noses,” Dr. Lewis said, looking at Maggie. “Did I miss anything?”
She shook her head. “Sounds good to me, or close enough. Now, some of those limbs were on the same person. We never work on more than one limb at a time, per person, in case the individual has an adverse reaction to something. But, once we see they had success with one foot, if they’d lost both, we would then begin working on the second limb.”
“What about entire legs? Arms?”
“So far, we’ve only been able to regenerate smaller limbs, but we’re working on the process of larger ones.”
“How old were all of your participants?”
“That’s a good question,” Maggie said. “They’ve all been quite young. In their twenties or younger.”
“Why is that?” a resident in the back piped up.
“Well, first of all, we had to start somewhere. Since we’re rewinding the cells back to an embryonic-like state, it seemed most practical to begin at an age where the cells didn’t have to travel back so far.”
“Have you tried it on older amputees?”
“Not yet,” Maggie said, her voice softer than before. “But we will.”
She turned away from the group. The last couple of questions had hit a nerve, though of course, none of the young doctors would know that. How could they?
None of them knew the reason she’d set out on this path. The one person she’d hoped to help—to heal.
The years had gone by so quickly. Maggie was constantly praised, by colleagues and medical journals, alike, for her magnificent forward- thinking. She’d advanced medicine light-years in her own, so far short, life. And yet, none of it had come fast enough—not the knowledge, not the ideas, not the studies, not the results.
None of it had come in time to help her dad.
She loved her patients—all the participants she worked with. Each new limb was a blessing. Each one symbolized a new life, for the amputee and those he or she loved. But she’d wanted that blessing in her own life—in her dad’s life.
Each time she saw a patient wrap his new fingers around his child’s hand, she felt a pang of jealousy. Every time she saw an amputee stand on his own regenerated feet, she wished she could’ve given her dad that same gift.
She’d come to recognize, though, some things were not in the cards. He was too old. His missing limbs were longer than they could yet regenerate.
Someday they’d get there—science and Maggie. But they weren’t there yet. And, Maggie wondered if Callum would still be alive to see it when they did.
“No dad has ever been prouder of his daughter than I am of you,” Callum had told Maggie, thousands and thousands of times, as she grew up, but never more emphatically than when she’d brought him to their lab and shown him what the team—what she—had accomplished.
“He grew a new hand?” Callum had said, completely floored after meeting one of Maggie’s very first patients. “An actual, real hand?”
Maggie had laughed, half wondering if her dad was about to fall out of his chair from shock.
“Yes, Papa, he grew a hand. With some help from us, of course.”
“You mean, from you,” Callum said. “You helped that man grow a brand-new hand.”
“Yes, Papa.” Maggie giggled. “I, your little Maggie Claire, helped that man grow a brand-new hand.”
Callum had just shook his head in amazement. His eyes shone brightly with pride for his little girl and all she’d accomplished.
“But it’s not enough,” Maggie had said to him, when they were alone that night.
“What do you mean it’s not enough?” Callum said in disbelief. “How could growing a whole new appendage possibly be not enough?”
Maggie hadn’t said anything then. Just stared at where her dad’s legs, had he been born with any, should’ve been.
“Oh, my Maggie girl. You wanted me to get some of those new limbs, too.”
Maggie had nodded. If words escaped her, so would the tears.
“Come here,” he said to her, calling her over to the couch where he sat. She cuddled up next to him as he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close.
“I’ve never believed, for one second, the plan for my life included getting a new set of legs and one extra arm. Never.”
“But,” Maggie said. “Science has come so far. I’ve come so far.”
“And you’ll go further yet, love. Someday, they’ll name an entire solar system after you, that’s as far as you’ll have come. But we both know, you won’t get there while I’m still here.”
“But, Papa.”
“Maggie Claire, you have discovered how to help human beings—people like me, who’ve lost or been born without limbs—regrow them! What could there possibly be to cry about?”
“But I wanted you to grow them,” Maggie said, knowing she sounded like a little girl not getting her way. “I wanted you to be the one to get the legs.”
“It wasn’t a part of the plan,” Callum said.
“You and your plan,” Maggie replied, in frustrated exasperation.
“Oh, no, my sweet girl. You’re not about to roll your eyes at me. We are all a part of a much larger plan. You know that. We both know it.”
Maggie nodded her head, but wouldn’t look up at Callum.
“But, just because I won’t be the one jumping around on my own legs, doesn’t mean that I’m any less thrilled for the men and women who will someday be doing that for the very first time. And all because of you. You. To me, knowing you’ve helped all those people is so much better than you being able to help just me.”
“If I could have only helped one person, it would’ve been you.”
“I know, love,” Callum said, holding her closer. “I know.”
“You would have looked great in a new set of legs,” Maggie said.
“You think? I’m not so sure. I don’t think I would’ve known what to do with them. All those extra limbs? I think they would’ve gotten in the way.”
Maggie laughed as Callum had kissed her. No one was ever more proud of their child than Callum was of her.
“I don’t know how to thank you, Dr. Fitzgerald.”
Maggie looked up quickly. She’d been so lost in her thoughts she’d nearly forgotten where she was.
“Oh, Sergeant Rodriguez. There’s no need for thanks,” Maggie said hurriedly.
“How can you say such a thing? Do you understand what you’ve done? How you’ve changed my life forever?”
“I think I do,” Maggie said, smiling at him. “My dad is a congenital trilateral amputee. There’s no telling what a break-through like this would have done for his life if it had happened when he was younger.”
“I’m a scientist,” one of the residents said, “and I don’t tend to believe in miracles, but this…if this isn’t one, I don’t know what is.”
“But isn’t that what science is?” Maggie turned, posing the question. “One miracle after another?”
“And you’re the miracle maker,” Sergeant Rodriguez’s wife said, as she held on to her husband.
“Oh, no,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “I’m just a part of a much larger picture.”
“Part of a bigger plan?” Sergeant Rodriguze asked with a knowing grin.
Maggie paused and looked at this tall young man in front of her, so full of hope and dreams. Dreams he’d now reach because of Maggie.
She smiled as she reached out to grasp his hand.
“Exactly,” she said. And then, because she knew it was true, she said it again. “Part of a much bigger plan.”
• • •
Callum knocked at the door. He was nervous. His palm was sweating. He wiped it on his pants’ leg. He couldn’t remember the last time he was this anxious and yet, also excited, all at once.
Gia opened the door and smiled at him, broadly.
“Ready for the big day?” she asked him.
He nodded, not trusting his voice. He felt like a teenaged boy, worrying it might crack.
Gia looked beautiful. Her hair was pulled back into a chignon. She wore a long, slate-gray, one-shoulder gown with applique along the neck. Covering her shoulders was a sheer, mid-length-sleeve bolero jacket.
She looked ever the role of mother-of-the bride.
Except, of course, she wasn’t.
“Close your eyes, Papa,” Maggie said, from behind Gia. “I want you to be surprised.”
Callum did as he was told and sensed Gia stepping out of the way so he’d have a clear view of his little girl.
“Okay, you can open them!” Maggie said.
Callum had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life. Not even Claire, and he wasn’t ashamed to say that. He knew Claire, as stunning as she was, would have taken such pride in knowing their daughter was even more striking. Callum had never thought that possible until he saw the beauty Maggie became as she grew.
She had the best parts of both of them. Callum’s dark, curly hair, though she’d never let hers become the wild mess his often was. She’d always taken great care in her appearance, fixing and braiding her own hair at an early age, perhaps sensing her dad had difficulty doing it for her, not only because he was lacking an arm, but also because he was a man.
She was tall and thin, but curvy in all the right places. Callum had often wanted to hit the boys with his prosthetic leg when he’d seen the way they’d admired her. Didn’t they know they were ogling his baby?
She’d inherited her mother’s musical ability, too, though she much preferred playing the guitar with a group of friends to performing on the stage. She had both Callum’s and Claire’s love of travel and the world. But then, how could she not? Ever since she was a little baby, she’d visited all corners of the world with Callum and the team. She was raised on Wyatt’s shoulders, in Alison’s arms, and on Frank’s lap as he let her bang along on the keyboard. They’d all loved her and raised her together.
Callum had hired a nanny to travel with them, too, so the team could get their work done. Polly had been a widow who’d retired and had loved the opportunity to have a second career, her first one being an elementary school teacher. It had been great fun to have Polly with them. She passed away a few years back and Maggie had mourned her as she did her own grandparents. Both Nora and Patrick had died when Maggie was in her late twenties. Losing them had been difficult on both Maggie and Callum. Maggie had spent many a summer and Christmas break in Ireland with her grandparents, sometimes with Callum and sometimes on her own. Callum’s entire Irish clan had doted on Maggie and she’d lapped up all the attention like a puppy does his milk.
Maggie was smart. Wicked smart. Callum had realized that when she was able to read full books at the age of four, before even beginning kindergarten. He wasn’t sure where her genius mind had come from. Neither he nor Claire had been dummies, but they were no prodigies, either. Their daughter, however, was.
She’d finished high school by the age of sixteen and college by the age of twenty. Maggie had breezed through medical school as if she was doing nothing more than taking a summer poetry class. Callum had almost felt sorry for all of her classmates who, certainly, must have hated her and the ease with which she ingested knowledge.
But, of course, no one could hate Maggie. She was as kind as she was smart. Her level of empathy astounded Callum. Though, how could she not be empathetic when she’d been raised by a man with only one limb? She’d grown up understanding what is inside a person is much more important than any outward appearance.
He’d hoped, from the moment she was born, she wouldn’t be teased because of him. That, sadly, could not be avoided. Kids were mean. Always had been, always would be. Maggie had come home one day in first grade, in tears, running straight to her room. Callum had had to bang on her locked door for close to an hour before she’d open it for him. And, when she finally did, it’d taken him another hour to pry out of her what had happened.
A boy had made fun of Callum while the class was on the playground, saying mean and hurtful things. Maggie had taken them to heart. Not before she’d punched the boy in the mouth, though, knocking out one of his front teeth.
Thank heavens it hadn’t been a permanent one!
Once the crying was over, Maggie had handed Callum the letter from the principal, saying he was required to show up in the office, with Maggie, the next morning.
He’d scolded Maggie, properly, and punished her at home, as was expected. And hand in hand they’d walked—well, he’d rolled—into the office where she took her school punishment with her chin raised high. She’d have to eat in the classroom, away from the other kids, for two weeks and write an apology letter to the boy and his parents.
Though Callum did not condone violence, he’d been secretly proud of Maggie. Not because she stood up for him, but because she’d stood up for herself.
Maggie never lost that feisty nature. She was fearless and stubborn, both traits she got from her mam. She knew what she wanted and would do anything to get it. She let nothing stand in her way. And, thus far, nothing had.
He hoped the man she was about to marry was ready for Hurricane Maggie. She’d certainly turned Callum’s world upside down with her arrival, but looking back, even with all the struggles and challenges raising her had brought, he wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Other than wishing Claire had been there to experience it, too.
Now, here Maggie stood before him, a bride. How could that be? Where had the years gone? It seemed just yesterday she was clapping with glee as the two of them sped around parking lots in his chair.
“Faster, Papa. Faster!”
She took his breath away. All little girl and grown woman rolled into one.
“How do I look?” she asked.
How did one answer such a question?
“You look like your mother,” was all Callum could say. “And she’d be so very proud of you.”
Maggie smiled that gentle smile, the one that reminded him of Claire and the one Maggie had always given him whenever he mentioned Claire’s name.
“You didn’t have to wear your legs,” she said, eyeing him in his dark-blue linen suit.
“I never miss a chance to walk beside a beautiful woman.”
Callum rarely used his legs these days, even less than he did in his youth. They’d become more uncomfortable over the years, though he’d gotten new ones whenever the other ones became worn. His body, now in its seventies, didn’t adjust to changes the way it used to. He was much more comfortable in his chair. Yet, on special occasions—and there had never been any more special than this—he dusted the legs off and put them on again. He used a cane now when he walked. He was no longer quite as steady on his feet. But there was no way he was going to miss actually walking his daughter down the aisle.
“I’m going to go take my seat,” Gia said. Callum had nearly forgotten she was still in the room. He only had eyes for his daughter.
He turned as Gia kissed him on the cheek and then did the same to Maggie.
“You look incredible,” she said to her goddaughter.
“Thanks, Aunt Gia…for everything.”
Gia nodded and turned before Maggie could notice the tears.
Gia had been a godsend all these years. Her pain over losing Claire had been as raw as Callum’s, nearly ripping her apart. But the two of them had held tight to each other for support, and onto Maggie, whom they both loved fiercely.
Three years after Claire died, Gia and Wyatt married. Maggie had been their flower girl. Callum was sorry Claire had missed the special day. She would’ve been so excited for her best friend, seeing how happy she was, finally with a “real man,” as Claire had called Wyatt. And not a “loser,” as both Claire and Gia had referred to the other men Gia had dated.
Wyatt and Gia had gone on to have three children of their own. Two boys, Cole and Preston, and a girl they named Clarissa, a variation on Claire’s name.
The three adults had raised all the kids as cousins and Maggie and Callum had always viewed them as family, spending most of their holidays, birthdays, and special events together—the ones that weren’t spent in Ireland. Clarissa was the little sister Maggie never had and was serving as her maid-of-honor.
“Are you ready?” Callum asked Maggie.
“Not yet,” she said. “I have something to show you first.”
Claire went over to her laptop and inserted a flash drive into the USB port. Flash drives were a thing of the past, of course. Technology had progressed faster than Callum could keep up with it. However, when Claire was alive, flash drives were what one used to save documents and pictures and videos. Callum knew, if Maggie was holding one now, what she was about to show him had to do with Claire.
“This was in my wedding letter,” Maggie said simply.
My wedding letter. Callum needed no more explanation than that.
Callum had thought Claire had spent all those hundred-plus days on bedrest doing nothing more than watching movies, reading and knitting. But he’d been wrong.
Unbeknownst to him, she’d been making preparations.
Claire never thought she’d die. Callum believed that with all his heart. It wasn’t that she’d put on a brave face for him. She truly didn’t think something was going to go wrong.
However, she’d also never thought she’d lose her whole family one December night.
So she was prepared. Just in case.
Callum had found the box about six months after Claire’s death—and Maggie’s birth. He’d been missing Claire terribly that day. Maggie had just cut her first tooth and the fact that Callum couldn’t share that news with his wife had nearly broken his heart. He missed her so much. Missed her touch. Her voice. Her smell.
He went into her closet to try to find that smell. He’d pulled her dresses close to his face, trying to breathe her in. And that’s when he saw it. A box, on the floor behind her clothes.
Callum was all it said.
He’d pulled it onto his lap and rolled back into their bedroom. He found the letter she’d written him. The sight of her perfect, flowy handwriting had nearly made him sob.
My Dearest Callum,
I don’t expect you’ll ever read this. I plan on destroying it once the baby and I are home from the hospital and we are finally alone as a family—the three of us.
I have loved you with a love more fierce than a mama lion protecting her cub. You put me back together when I was nothing but pieces of grief. You fought for us when I was too cowardly to fight alongside you. You believed in me when I could no longer believe in myself.
If I’m no longer here, but Maggie is, I know—in the deepest part of my soul—you will raise her to be an amazing woman. She is blessed to have you as her father. As I was blessed to be your wife.
I’m not gone. I will never be gone. I’m in the smile of our daughter and her laughter and the way she looks up at you with complete trust. I’m in the music you hear and the cool breeze of the spring. I’ll never truly leave you. And you will never leave me.
These letters are for Maggie. I plan to be there, in the flesh, for all her special days.
But, just in case…
You’ll know what to do with them.
Until we’re together again…
Claire
It had taken Callum the rest of the day, and most of that night, to stop crying. When he finally did, he took out the envelopes in the box and held them close.
Claire had left a letter for Maggie for each of her special days. One letter for every birthday until she turned eighteen. A letter for her fifth grade, eighth grade, high school and college graduations. And one more, just in case she went to graduate school. A letter for her first date. A letter to be opened when she got her period. A letter for when she started wearing makeup—with photos of how to apply it. A letter for her first broken heart. A letter for when Daddy seemed to be mean and not understanding. A letter for the first time she was bullied. A letter for the day she lost her first tooth.
There was a letter for everything of significance in Maggie’s life. Claire hadn’t missed a thing.
There was even a letter for the day Daddy someday remarried.
That letter had never been opened. And never would be.
Callum would never remarry. He knew it from the moment Claire had died. He knew it before then.
She was his whole world. The mate of his soul. There would be no other.
In her hand, Maggie was holding the letter Claire had written for her wedding day. Inside it had been the flash drive.
“Watch this,” Maggie said, pushing “Play.”
An image of a young Callum popped up on the screen. It was a video Callum hadn’t seen in years. Decades. Definitely not since Claire had been gone.
It was the interview he’d done. The one where the reporter had asked his greatest dream. The one that had nearly cost him Claire.
Callum watched with tears in his eyes.
“Did you ever think, as a little boy in Ireland,” the reporter asked. “You’d someday be in front of that many people?”
“Never.”
“So, it was a big dream of yours?”
“No, it never even crossed my mind. I just wanted to survive the playground,” Callum said.
“What, then, is your biggest dream in life?”
Callum watched as his young self paused before responding.
“Honestly, I sometimes dream of the day I’ll walk my daughter down the aisle.”
“So, having children is a possibility for you?” the reporter asked.
“Oh, absolutely.” Out of the corner of his eye, the current Callum could see Maggie smiling. “At least, the doctors say they don’t see any physical reason why I can’t have them. I just need to find the right woman and get started making those babies.”
“You’d like a lot of kids?” the reporter asked.
“I’d love a whole houseful. As many as God sees fit to give us. There’s no greater blessing than a child.”
Callum put his arm around Maggie and kissed her hair, as Maggie stopped the video, just the way he’d kissed her mother’s a thousand times many years ago.
She picked up a small, folded sheet of ivory paper and held it up to Callum.
“This was in the envelope for you,” she said.
He removed his arm from around Maggie and opened the paper.
Here’s to making that dream come true.
It wasn’t signed. Callum knew who had written it.
He tucked the note inside his jacket pocket and held out his elbow to his daughter.
“Shall we?” he asked.
• • •
The church was filled with a hundred people—all the ones they loved, some new friends, some dear, old ones. Alison and Mitch were seated on the bride’s side, their children and grandchildren by their sides. Frank was there, too. He was getting up there in age and had problems seeing these days, but he was there. He’d married the widow he’d begun to date around the time of Claire’s death. Between his children and hers, they’d been blessed with fourteen grandchildren. And one great-grandson.
Nancy and Bill had passed away many years ago, but not before becoming an integral part of Maggie’s life. Maggie grew up knowing all about the brother and sisters she’d had who’d lived, and died, before her—Luke and Ella and Lily. She knew Nancy and Bill had been their grandparents and, because of a great love, they were hers in a way now, too.
Maggie and Callum walked down the aisle, very slowly, as that was the only way Callum could walk these days. His mind was suddenly flooded with precious memories. To the side of the altar, there was a small photo of Claire, but he didn’t need a photo to remember her. The memories were as clear and vivid as the day she left them—the day she’d given him the greatest gift by making the ultimate sacrifice.
Along with the memories, Callum couldn’t help but reminisce over the plan that had been laid out for his life. It hadn’t always been the one he’d have wanted. Oftentimes, it’d had more valleys than mountains. But, in the end, it had come to a beautiful conclusion.
He’d been given the most amazing daughter a man could desire. She, in turn, was literally changing the world, giving hope and life and mobility to millions who, without her, would be left dealing with the greatest nightmare of their lives.
If there hadn’t been Claire, there would never have been Maggie. If there hadn’t been a Callum with nothing but one arm, there wouldn’t have been a little girl, growing up in his care, seeing his struggles, traveling the world, understanding the needs of so many.
His little girl had taken the best, and worst, parts of him and Claire and turned them into something that shined.
He could have never seen that coming.
Never seen that part of the plan.
All he’d been able to do was trust.
As Callum and Maggie reached the end of the aisle, and he lifted Maggie’s veil to kiss her cheek, Callum suddenly remembered the rest of that interview, the part that came later.
“And what about walking your daughter down the aisle would be so special?” the reporter had asked him.
“Well, walking her anywhere on my own two legs would be, in and of itself, a sort of miracle.” Callum had laughed at that point. “A miracle, by the way, I expect to see possible in my lifetime. You mark my words. Someday, some genius doctor or scientist will come along and find a way for amputees to walk, again, on their own two feet, or drive a car with their own two hands.
“But, what will be so uniquely special about someday walking my own daughter down the aisle is that it will signify the completion of a journey. Sending my daughter into the world to learn what plan God has in store for her life. The plan he had before she was even conceived.”
Callum placed Maggie’s hand in her groom’s outstretched one and stepped back to take his own seat. He was alone in his row. There was no mother-of-the bride by his side. But she was there. Claire had been right. She’d always been there. Today, she was in the smile of their beautiful bride, the sparkle in their little girl’s eyes and in the hand he and Claire were, together, offering to one very lucky man.
As he gazed at the photo of his lovely wife, the end of the interview continued to play through his mind.
“It’s the discovery of that plan that makes life worth living, you know?” he’d said to the reporter. “It may not always be an easy path, but the way I see it, it’s the only one worth taking. They say the way to make God laugh is to tell him your plans. I’d choose God’s plan, over mine, any day, no matter how difficult certain parts may be. Because, in the end, His plan is perfect. I know all things, even if you can’t see it at the time, work together for the good.”
Callum remembered the smile he’d given the reporter at that moment, just as he was smiling now.
And then he’d said, “It’s that, not my wheelchair, which keeps me moving forward.”