I stuck out my pinkie fingers, but she only leaned for my mouth.

I was a mess. Tatum handed Everly Anne a bundle and stepped back. "There you go. Good practice." She smiled and glowed. There was something so different about Tatum, that girl who had always been fire, who had always been ready to fight. She was dressed in the glow of motherhood, so soft and quiet.

"We're getting old," Nick said, sitting at my side as we watched the girls. "I'm married with a kid. You're now married with a kid. We used to run this beach, remember?"

I smiled. "Yeah, but would you honestly trade any of it for those days? I sure as hell wouldn't."

He looked at Tatum just as she glanced his way. A smile instantly sewed itself to his face. "No, brother, I can't say that I would. Look at that girl."

I watched Everly Anne as she cuddled their daughter in her arms. "It's impossible not to look."

Red balloons lined the beach, the backs of lounge chairs. People dressed in red, some even had posters. Shannon had a mermaid costume this year. Jeremy wore a red shirt, but he was more interested in kicking sand than waiting for a mermaid.

"Like my tail?" Shannon swished at me.

"It's made of pure awesome, Shannon Elizabeth Patterson."

Everly smiled at her. "I'm sure Topolina will be mighty envious."

"I hope she comes ashore this year," Shannon whined. "Think she will?"

"I think," I glanced to Everly, "Topolina likes hope. So always keep that in your heart, and it won't matter if she ever comes ashore. She'll be happy that someone was hopeful enough to wait for her."

As the fireworks bloomed above us, I held Everly in my arms, sitting on the sand just like our first year in Montauk.

"I have a question for you, Everly Anne."

"Ask away, Callum Andrew."

"Do I still give you butterflies?"

She leaned closer. I leaned closer. "You give me everything."

I kissed her softly. "Good Fourth, Topolina?"

She kissed me harder. "Good Fourth, Callum Andrew."

TWO TANGLED RHYTHMS.

Fate had a plan to meet me in room 708 of Atlanta Memorial. While I had been studying years before in New York, fate had been courting a man who had a sincere crush on a woman who grew the finest tomatoes. By the time fate would infinitely connect us, charm, and hope, and love reshaped my spirit and expanded my hearing. It brightened my eyes and slowed me down despite the constant, required and expected need to rush.

Days still existed where I wished I was a slave to the blurring pace of medicine, but I had moments of clarity, with a certain patient, too. Scout Everdeen became such a patient, and luckily for both of us, I had yet to spend all the coins of my inheritance.

The same couldn't be said for Truscott Zoe.

It was a rainy night in Red Pine when I found Everly taping squares of powder blue, cotton candy pink and lemon to the nursery wall. "Which one? Pick a color," she said prideful.

Our house had become a stage production bearing none of the props that doomed Everly's childhood. Black and white sonogram pictures strewn across our fridge waiting for the finger-tap-kiss they received each morning as she reached for orange juice. Green soft blades of grass massaged her bare feet as she debated whether the swing-set would go, "right here under the oak tree for shade, Callum? Or should we put it in the sunshine and just slather sunscreen in the summer? A pool would be nice, too. We'll have to look into that. One with a waterfall." And of course the nursery was her main focus. She stared at me so full of unbridled bliss I couldn't bear to break her heart with the news of that evening. But we didn't keep secrets.

"Yellow is pretty neutral," I answered. "I don't think our child will be dispassionate. Let's just hold off until I get a free day to help you out with this, all right?"

"But that'll never happen," she sighed, "I want to be ready."

My mind couldn't form a charming response to distract her from worrying because it was too hung up on the truth I had yet to reveal. Instincts running ramped, she faced me fully and wanted to know what my sourpuss face was all about.

"I need to tell you something," I said slowly, "but you have to promise me that you'll stay calm." I inched toward her and slid her hands from her hips to the bump. "The baby needs you to stay calm, all right?"

"What happened?" she demanded.

"Promise me."

"Fine. I promise." She hooked her fingers with mine. "Now what is it?"

I steadied my breathing. "Truscott."

She stared at me for a moment and then understood that was all that needed to be explained. Her eyes squeezed shut, shuddering away from my words. I took Everly into my arms and hoped that somewhere within her spirit she could find the truth-her life wasn't meant to inspire his-not in the way she had thought anyhow-but to comfort. And she had been brilliant.