Reese meets Annie selling lemonade in town, noticing the scar on her chest and signs of an enlarged heart.

A bread delivery truck swerves and strikes Annie, and Reese rushes to her side to keep her alive.

After Emma's death, Reese discovers she left a safe deposit box containing three letters and a life insurance policy.

Reese secretly attends a cardiology conference in Florida to stay current on the latest surgical techniques.

Reese visits Annie in the hospital and gives her a stuffed frog, earning Cindy's gratitude and trust.

Reese and Charlie meet a troubled teenager named Termite for the first time at The Well bar.

Reese takes Cindy and Annie on a boat tour of Lake Burton in his restored wooden boat, Podnah.

After driving Cindy and Annie to a doctor's appointment in Atlanta, Reese's former partner Dr. Royer spots him in the car.

Reese reveals what truly happened the night Emma died: exhausted from stimulants, he woke too late to save her.

Reese and Charlie sell reclaimed wood from Cindy's family barn for $58,000 and hand Cindy the entire check.

Reese hacks into Annie's medical file to order a beneficial test, and Dr. Royer threatens to expose his true identity.

Reese reads Emma's third letter and then reveals his true identity as Dr. Mitchell to Cindy.

Reese confesses to Charlie about using stimulants the night Emma died, and Charlie forgives him completely.

Annie's transplanted heart fails to beat until Reese speaks a Bible verse aloud, and it miraculously starts.

Annie tells Reese she saw Emma in a dream, and Charlie delivers Emma's final letter urging Reese to love again.

Reese, a former heart surgeon living in hiding on Lake Burton, meets Annie, a seven-year-old girl with a failing heart, when she is struck by a delivery truck and he saves her life. As Reese grows closer to Annie and her Aunt Cindy, he conceals his true identity while quietly using his medical knowledge to monitor and assist Annie's care. His past catches up with him when his former partner Dr. Royer spots him outside a clinic in Atlanta, setting off a chain of events that forces Reese toward a reckoning with his grief and guilt. After confessing to Charlie the truth about the stimulants that prevented him from saving his wife Emma, Reese receives forgiveness and finds the courage to reveal himself and perform Annie's heart transplant. The surgery nearly fails, but Annie's transplanted heart miraculously beats again after Reese speaks a Bible verse aloud. In the aftermath, a final letter from Emma gives Reese permission to love again and fully embrace his life.

The headline story of Reese, Annie, and the surgery that changes everything.

Townspeople suspect Reese's motives as he treats Annie in the street, but accept him once the ambulance crew confirms his skill.

Cindy questions Reese in the hospital waiting room about how he was able to save Annie's life.

Reese and Charlie perform their morning rowing ritual on Lake Burton, bonding through motion and comfortable silence.

As a child, Emma suffers a spell that leads to her hospitalization and the first discovery of her heart condition.

Reese wakes from a nightmare in which he holds a cracked pitcher and helplessly watches a stranger begin to die.

After a storm, Reese rescues a wounded female cardinal, fixes her broken wing, and eventually returns her to her waiting mate.

After Emma's death, Reese and Charlie build their shared lakeside properties according to the vision Emma had once described.

Reese and Charlie go together to donate blood for Emma after her monthly blood loss begins worsening her heart condition.

Reese spontaneously stitches a cut on Cindy's finger at her kitchen table before she fully realizes what is happening.

Emma voluntarily passes up an available donor heart so that one of Reese's critically ill patients can receive it instead.

Cindy calls Reese with a business proposition to reclaim valuable antique wood from her family's crumbling old barn.

Charlie leads a dinner prayer at The Well, blessing the gathering of Reese, Cindy, and Annie as a group.

Reese unexpectedly runs into Shirley, the woman alive because of the heart Emma gave up, and is overcome with emotion.

Reese visits his retired mentor Dr. Trainer, who encourages him to stop hiding from his calling as a heart surgeon.

After the storm destroys Reese's property, Termite joins Charlie and helps Reese begin rebuilding from the wreckage.

While the main plot drives toward Annie's surgery, a series of smaller but significant events reveal who Reese truly is and how his relationships slowly pull him back to life. Townspeople's initial suspicion of Reese gives way to respect after he saves Annie, and a hospital waiting room exchange with Cindy marks the beginning of a cautious friendship built on secrets. Flashbacks to Emma's illness show how her worsening condition shaped Reese's identity and drew him deeper into medicine, while his daily rituals with Charlie on the lake reveal the quiet grief he carries. Acts of generosity toward Cindy and Annie, from an impromptu stitching of Cindy's cut finger to clearing her family barn for profit, show Reese edging back toward connection. A chance encounter with the woman who received Emma's donated heart, and a visit to his retired mentor Dr. Trainer, each push Reese a step closer to embracing his calling. By the story's end, the teenager Termite, once hostile and adrift, is working alongside Reese and Charlie to rebuild what the storm destroyed.

The quieter moments and relationships that give the main story its depth and meaning.

Reese sits in his hammock holding Emma's unopened third letter, unable to bring himself to read her final words.

As a child, Reese asks Emma's mother whether they can sew up Emma's heart and privately vows to fix it himself one day.

At a revival held in hopes of healing Emma, Reese sneaks into her room at night and prays to give her his own heart.

Reese confronts Termite at the boat dock after finding him openly reading a pornographic magazine.

During their senior year of high school, Emma gives Reese a necklace bearing a biblical inscription.

Reese and Emma marry during their junior year of college, and Reese is accepted to Harvard Medical School.

After Cindy accidentally leaves Annie's heart imaging slides in his car, Reese holds them up and studies the contours of Annie's heart.

While Reese performs emergency surgery on Emma on their kitchen floor, Charlie rushes in, slips on blood, and suffers the injury that blinds him.

After Reese relives Emma's death, a storm rolls in and a joyful Charlie dances in the flashes of lightning.

Reese reflects that Emma's death severed him entirely and that he vanished from his own life for eight months afterward.

Annie tells Reese she once woke up paralyzed during surgery because the anesthesia was too weak, and asks if she should risk it again.

Dr. Royer explains the results of Annie's cardiac test, confirming that her enlarged heart is critically inefficient.

Reese reveals to Annie that he is Dr. Mitchell and agrees to be her heart surgeon.

Annie and Reese arrive at the hospital ready for surgery when Royer calls to report the donor heart is diseased.

A violent storm strikes while Annie waits for a new heart, and when Annie collapses, Reese performs emergency surgery using his own blood.

From the novel's opening image of Reese frozen with an unread letter to a storm-battered climax where he operates with his own blood, this pool traces the internal arc of a man learning to forgive himself. Childhood flashbacks reveal the promises and devotion that set the shape of Reese's life: his vow to fix Emma's heart, his prayer to give her his own, and the necklace inscribed with a verse that will later prove essential in the operating room. Encounters in the present, including a confrontation with Termite over a pornographic magazine, a stolen look at Annie's heart scans, and Annie's startling confession about waking paralyzed under anesthesia, each press Reese closer to action. The full weight of Emma's death settles over Reese in a key flashback where Charlie is blinded in the chaos of Reese's desperate kitchen surgery, followed by a sober chapter in which Reese admits he disappeared from his own life for eight months. The pool builds toward Reese finally naming himself to Annie and accepting the role of her surgeon, then closes on the storm that nearly kills Annie before Reese's emergency intervention saves her life.

The discoveries, confessions, and emotional shifts that force Reese to confront his past.