Two young children and their father form a strangely united and courageous family after being abandoned by the most important woman in their lives, their mother and wife. In all the family's bungling imperfections, good intentions, inconsolable loneliness, fury of emotions, sometimes hurtful and cruel, their unspoken love has kept their bond strong.For eleven-year-old Tommy, his family is his sister Viola, at times a merciless bully, and his father Renato, a seemingly harsh and unjust disciplinarian. For the three, an almost routine peace has settled over their motherless home. Until Stefania's sudden return. Tommy's mother reappears just as recklessly as she had departed, upsetting precarious equilibriums and defenses, churning up buried pain.Yet Tommy has a secret refuge high above the city. Here dreams can still be nurtured, and the wisdom to handle the great balancing act of life learned. Across the rooftops, like a magic tightrope walker, he leaps. Tommy walks that vast yet fine line between childhood and manhood. And when, before his innocent gaze, the image of his father crumbles shamelessly, Tommy realises the tremendous fragility of even a father, a grown-up, under the weight of life's suffering.
