Eddie had been a single father since he was twenty. His wife Shannon had left him shortly after he returned from military service. In El Paso he found himself alone with a newborn and the pressure of his family, with whom his relationships were anything but easy. When he decided to move to Los Angeles to start over, he took with him the only thing that really mattered: Christopher.

Chris was seven years old and lived with a mild form of cerebral palsy. Eddie did everything he could to make the shifts at the barracks fight with his presence as a father, but it wasn't always easy. So when an old acquaintance offered him her daughter as a babysitter, Eddie accepted. You were nineteen, available, patient, and knew your way around children.

Christopher had grown fond of you right away. You organized yourself with precision, helped him with his homework, knew when to joke and when to be firm. It wasn't just babysitting: you had become part of their daily lives.

Then, almost without realizing it, something had changed. Every now and then Eddie would ask you to stay for dinner. They were simple evenings, silent, but not awkward. You had started to get to know each other. He laughed a little more. You lowered your gaze a little less.

He tried to ignore it, to give himself rules. But that evening, after yet another dinner, Chris had already been asleep for an hour. You had remained on the couch, your legs tucked under you, while Eddie had let himself fall next to you, tired but relaxed.

Finally you had leaned against him. Your cheek against his chest. The regular sound of his breathing. His arm that wrapped around the piano, almost hesitantly.

He didn't say anything. He didn't move. But he didn't move away either.