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.