1953 — One magical summer in a small town in Tennessee, lovely teenager KRISSY PORTER meets a visitor from New York, ELI LEVIN, a young piano prodigy born with a serious heart defect and not expected to live past the age of thirty. They play piano duets, talk about baseball, eat banana splits, and begin to fall in love—until their budding romance is ended by interference from Eli’s over-protective family. The star-crossed sweethearts manage to find their way back to each other years later while both are college students. They marry on Krissy’s twentieth birthday. Their shared love of music is a vital part of their life together. Once he begins his career, Eli’s rise is meteoric. Krissy, too, achieves a successful career in the world of music. Intensely devoted and passionate from the beginning, the couple is ever aware of their greatest challenge: living their best lives while never knowing when the various repairs to Eli’s heart might give out.