Pal

Two brothers, raised in affluence, competently man the helm of a generations-old family textile design and printing business. They are best friends and, in their spare time, invent, build, and fly experimental aircraft. Life is good until tragedy separates them and the older brother finds himself spiraling into a void of guilt and overwhelming grief.

Circumstances force him to begin daily interaction with the beautiful, young administrator of a skilled nursing facility who stands as a protective barrier between her maligned staff and the threats and insults of an angry, devastated man.

She doesn't flinch when he narrows his eyes to view her with molten contempt that she can feel, and furiously reminds her that she has no medical degree and informs her that she is nothing but a paper-pusher running a warehouse for the dying.

It is her strong, quiet resilience that gradually convinces him to lay his weapons down. It is her compassion and her soft touch he begins to seek out that quiets his storm. It is her father, a retired military captain, who understands more than anyone the private hell of tormenting nightmares, and who patiently leads the young man back to confront the place of loss and into the cockpit of a plane.

It is that vulnerable moment of discovery, when the powerful man with no power looks into the eyes of the woman who has become his safe place and asks, "Do you know how, sometimes, there's the slice of a moment that's filled with a charge of something so rapid, that you think you might have imagined it?"

It is when she begins to distance herself, he decides that he did.