When Crickets Cry: a Novel of the Heart

Reese goes into town and meets Annie, a girl who has a visible scar on her chest and is “small for her age. Probably six, maybe even seven, but looked more like four or five. A tomboy’s heart in a china doll’s body” (1). Reese learns that Annie sells lemonade to pay for the heart transplant she needs. He introduces himself and learns that Annie’s parents, who were missionaries, have died, and she now lives with her Aunt Cici, or Cindy, who works in the store behind the lemonade stand.

Reese starts to walk away but looks back and sees a bread delivery truck swerve out of control and hit Annie. “She managed to raise one hand, taking most of the blow, and began rolling backward like a yellow bowling ball, her hat sailing in one direction, her legs and body flying in the other” (11). Reese rushes to her side and checks her vitals, realizing that she has an enlarged heart. Aunt Cindy and several townspeople are suspicious that Reese, a man they’ve never met, may be a pedophile rather than the trained surgeon that he is. Ignoring the bystanders, Reese gives orders to Cindy, who hesitantly cooperates. When the ambulance finally arrives, the townspeople realize that Reese’s skill has kept Annie alive.

Chapter 2 flashes back to the time when, after Emma died, Reese discovered a safe deposit box she left for him. Inside were three letters: “[One labeled]To be opened now. The second read After one year. And the third After two years” (17). Emma’s $100,000 life insurance policy is in the first letter—something Reese hadn’t known about. In the second, Emma told Reese never to forget that he’s supposed to “bind up the brokenhearted” (19) in spite of his grief. Although five years have passed since Emma’s death, Reese has yet to open the third letter.

Reese and multiple townspeople wait in the hospital waiting room, eager to hear how Annie is doing. Reese finds out that Annie’s “doctors in Atlanta gave her six months almost 18 months ago. And because she has no insurance, she’s filled that five-gallon water jug seven times, raising over $17,000 to help cover the cost of her own surgery” (22). Cindy questions Reese about how he was able to save Annie’s life; because he’s doesn’t want her to know about his past profession, he brushes her off. 

Reese secretly attends a cardiology conference in Florida. “These conferences served two purposes: They kept guys like me current on the latest information, the practices and techniques that don’t make it into the journals but take place every day; and they brought colleagues together” (29). 

After Reese returns from the conference, he and Charlie go rowing on Lake Burton in their two-man canoe, a morning ritual. Reese and Charlie bond during these rows, whether talking or sitting in silence: “Rowing is a sport unlike any other. On the surface, it’s the only one where you don’t constantly look ahead. More often than not, where you’ve been—your hindsight—tells you where you’re going” (33).