My father, recently retired, flies in to Johannesburg Airport on free Voyager Miles, with spanners in his suitcase, a voltmeter in his hand luggage and tap washers in his top pocket. I have forestalled the plumber with a bucket under the cistern to catch the slow leak that started right after Dad's last visit. And I have staved off the electrician by not running the oven and the bedroom heaters at the same time.

Like I did when I was a girl, I pass him tools, hold one end of the measuring tape and stabilise the ladder. I learn the respective purposes of gland screws and grub nuts. I rediscover mole grips and shifting spanners. I ask about drill bits and plug cutters. Dad's purple tinted veins protrude from the back of his hands where liver spots have appeared that weren't there before. I look at my own hands, fingers splaying just like his. My thumbs also solid, unyielding. My knuckles bear his genetic imprint.

When my father flies home, the toilet behaves again, and the taps, not the electrics, will sparkle. We've saved a grand, but our retired playmate grumbles into his G&T at the airport bar, that we kept him from wild women and the casino. I say, Pop, your wild woman is waiting for you in Cape Town.

On the M2 homeward bound, my husband looks hangdog. I stare at his hands gripping the steering wheel - hands that know the landscape of the piano like a mystic weatherman, finding chords and keys by feel. His thumbs rain the repetitive rhythm of shaded accompaniments; pass over the notes, pick scales, pluck melodies from the keyboard like a conjurer. He rests one hand on his leg. Freckles and fine ginger hairs catch the sunlight coming through the windscreen. I reach over to stroke it. It is the hand that rests on my belly at night, that ruffles my hair, scratches my back, stirs my coffee and makes the sandwiches I take to work.

My husband sighs. He wishes he could replace gutters, remedy sagging shelves and coax an ornery kettle into submission. But pianists understand the mechanics of uneven rhythm, unstable harmony. They know about tonal blending, texture and balancing dynamics, suspending a cadence, accelerating a climax.

I remind my musician how he found the shattered slivers of my divorce-betrayed heart, picked them up, held them tenderly while I buried old roles: scapegoat, scarlet woman, parish pariah.

Custody cheated I mourned my children, while, with meticulous care, my best boy pieced and placed the fragments of my broken heart back together. I tell him again how he seamed them, sang them -- slowly, beautifully back in place.