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 isn't neglect. It's the mathematics of a man trying to do two people's work with one person's hours. Three years a widower, and his grief still shows up as a scheduling problem.Ivy Azzurra is a kindergarten teacher, and she notices things: the child who waits instead of plays, the emergency contact form with a blank line where a mother's name should be, the man who slips a notecard into 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, and neither of them is going to examine any of it too closely.But Ivy has disappeared into someone else's life before. She knows how easy it is to stop being a person and start being useful - to fold yourself into the shape of a family until there's no you left. The Vitoris are easy to fall into. That's exactly what frightens her.Stars and Bridges is a quiet, closed-door romance about grief, small routines, and the terrifying difference between being needed and being loved.