Stars and Bridges: 1

Marco Vitori is very good at his job. He is less good at 3 p.m.His daughter Maya has learned to wait - standing at the classroom window every afternoon, watching the car park, counting the minutes until he arrives. It is not neglect. It is the mathematics of a man trying to do two people's work with one person's hours, and the gap between them is where Ivy Azzurra steps in.Ivy is a kindergarten teacher. She notices things: the child who waits instead of plays, the emergency contact form with the blank line where a mother's name should be, the man who puts a notecard in his inside pocket and keeps it there.The arrangement is professional. The thermoses are logistical. The green block on the calendar is just a scheduling solution.Neither of them is going to examine any of this too closely.Stars and Bridges is a quiet romance about grief, small routines, and the love that grows when someone stays long enough to make the mundane a masterpiece.

Pages: 334, Paperback, Independently published