A photograph of this moment still hangs in their living room. It shows a teenager with a pale complexion, visibly panicked, hugging a little girl as if she were made of porcelain. This cliché says everything about the man he was going to become.
Years of discreet and silent sacrifices
In the years that followed, he learned while walking. He gave up university, worked a series of construction sites, delivered pizzas in the evenings, and repaired bicycles at the weekend. He watches tutorials on the internet to learn how to style his daughter's hair. Her first braids? A real shipwreck. One evening, she comes home from school with a ponytail so wobbly that her classmates are amused by it. She finds him at their home, in the middle of training on a doll bought at a garage sale.
"Tomorrow it will be better," she said softly.
"No," he replied, smiling. Tomorrow, it will be perfect.
And he was right. Every time.
