"Reasons to love your new heart." And my son was suddenly no longer a simple kid. He walked to Scout's bedside and rested the box on a chair. He gave him a sea shell, an outgrown shoe, a baseball, and a pair of knitted cream-colored gloves.

"Hum . . . the shell is because she liked the beach but she couldn't go in the sun long enough to find pretty shells, so when we had Fourth of July at Grandpop's beach house I would look with my dad for shells and we'd bring them back to her. Sometimes we had a whole bucket full. But one time we only found this one and she told me it was her favorite because it was like a little lost coin in the dark and me and Pop were good sweepers."

Scout took the shell and then allowed Andy to explain how Everly taught him how to tie his shoes, and toss a ball, and slept with gloves on her hands because she had a tickle monster that hid inside of her and might sneak into his room at night. The gloves kept them both safe.

With reserve he pulled a final item from his box.

"What's the story behind this one?" Scout asked as Andy handed him a folded piece of paper.

"It's a ticket. I made it for you. Well . . . for your heart." Scout unfolded the paper and read silently. Andy explained, "It's not a real ticket, but Pop said he'd pay for us to go a real train when you're better."

Scout looked at him after he refolded the paper. "I'd have to have a doctor's approval." They both looked at me.

In that moment I was not a doctor or a grieving man. I was only a beat trying to once again find a rhythm.

Flashes of lemonade and perfect lilac no longer felt like branding pokers beneath my ribs. I could dream with my eyes open as fate whispered deep into my spirit all the memories of Everly Anne-every last one-all at once. She wasn't as simple as pictures or nostalgia; secrets or genetic failure. She was the hum in my ears that told me the right thing to do, the quietness in a room when I needed to listen, humor amid tragedy, and most of all-THE most important thing-she was absolutely not dead.

Her song played inside the wonderment of a curious heart.

It strummed phenomenal, crippling sadness inside of me.

Danced like fingers on piano keys across star-filled skies.

And as long as all of those memories we built remained in my world so would she, because, I could never stop wondering about her, or longing for her, or looking north and thinking of her and the complete and utter confusion of why love was linked so fiercely to heartbreak. I couldn't help but to revel a little at how lucky I was to have been able to feel the blunt force of such a hurting; how damn lucky was I to feel.

As Everly's heart thumped inside a chest of second chances, I watched her smile at me. I felt her arms seal around my shoulders. We rode the subway and hoped with Sunday hymns. We stripped bare under waterfalls and told secrets. The softness of her cheek lingered in my fingertips. And her laughter relocated within a dream and woke up inside a new, smaller heartbeat.

Scout looked at me as if I could offer freedom. And for the second time in my life I was granted the ability to play along with inchoate destiny as I replied, with a heavy sigh, "A train ride? Scout-there couldn't possibly be anything better for a heart like yours."

Redemption Song I placed a hundred-dollar bill on the counter when a sandy-haired clerk greeted me in a little shop in Montauk. She traded me the bill for a car full of red heart-shaped balloons, told me they were pretty as she filled them one-by-one, painfully slow, allowing charm to be bullied by doubt.

Anne.

That was the name on her tag.

The beach house was too loud. The walls hung her memory laughter like fine art.

But it was the boat that troubled me the most.

Red balloons were my only companions in the room, even though every part of her gathered just within arms-reach. The sheets still smelled like her . . . not detergent, not cotton or silk . . . just her warmth. It smelled like the night she curled up beside me in my bed, the night she rested her chin on my shoulder and told me I was her favorite. To box it all up and hide these memories away was foolishly dreaming that it could make it all go away. And the truth was I didn't want it to go away. I wanted it all to come back.

"Ready?" I asked him.

Nick detached the ropes from the ceiling. "Let's fucking do this, brother."

With the cover of darkness, while everyone else slept, we snuck the boat down to the beach, and hid it beneath the dock.

I expected to wake up that year, on the Fourth, with a heavy weight on my chest, but surprisingly, it felt like I was smiling.

Blonde hair blew through my window as I stared into the sunlight, searching for her face. Finally she turned to me. "Morning, Callum Andrew."

"Everly Anne?"

"Get up," she said gently. "Go on, get up."

"Everly Anne," I whispered. "Come to me." I tried to reach for her, but my arms were heavy as stone.

"I'm here, Callum Andrew. Now get up. It's time for you to go."

"I don't want to go anywhere but with you."

She was suddenly beside me on the bed. I felt the warmth of her hand on my cheek, but she never moved to touch me. I wept in my dream, but my eyes were bone dry.