When Crickets Cry: a Novel of the Heart

Reese remembers the first time both he and Emma’s family found out about her heart condition, after she had a “spell” that required admission to the hospital. Afterward, she had to take large pills daily, and Emma’s mother made Reese promise to remind her to take them.

Back in the present, Reese experiences a recurring nightmare, which makes it difficult for him to sleep. In the nightmare, Reese holds a cracked pitcher of water while standing next to a dying man. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with the man, but he knows that when he pours the pitcher, the man seems to improve. “But the more I pour, the heavier the pitcher grows, and pretty soon, despite the feeling that I am using both my hands and all my strength, I am unable to hold it any longer” (45). In the nightmare, Reese falls, stops pouring, and the man begins dying again. 

Reese thinks back to his childhood and his serious and logic-driven nature, which made him well suited to becoming a surgeon: “Learning had always come easily for me, especially when it came to books” (47). Emma, by contrast, always thought with her heart. “What Emma knew filtered from her head down into her heart and informed who she was” (47).

Reese recalls asking Emma’s mother if they could just sew up the hole in Emma’s heart. When Emma’s mother said no, he resolved that one day, he would fix Emma’s heart.

Reese drives past The Well, a bar owned by his friend Davis. Although Reese normally eats at The Well every Friday night, ordering the aptly named “Transplant” burger, he heads home instead, musing on the origins of Lake Burton, beneath which an entire ghost town lies. “Burton was once a prospering town, but they flooded it to generate hydroelectric power for the rest of the state” (51). Despite its bleak history, he notes that Lake Burton has become “the weekend vacation spot for the millionaires from Atlanta and their kids” (52). 

Reese remembers an evening when he and Emma sat on his second-story porch: He worked on a puzzle, and she drew until a storm blew through. Afterward, they heard a male cardinal screeching next to his wounded mate. Reese picked the female up and, knowing that cardinals mate for life, told the male cardinal, “Don’t worry, sir. I won’t hurt her. You can look inside my window if you want” (55).

Reese took the female cardinal inside, fixed her wing, and kept her in a cage near the window; while she healed, the male cardinal stayed near. Reese eventually released the female, and she flew back to her mate. “Those two stayed in that nest outside my window throughout high school. And every day they sang their love song to each other” (57). 

Back at Lake Burton, Reese thinks about his property, how he and Charlie “own opposite sides of a little finger off the eastern side of the lake: My view is of his house and vice versa” (58). Reese bought the property before Emma died, and she envisioned “three structures—a house, a dock, and a workshop” (58) on it. After her death, Reese and Charlie built the structures, according to Emma’s vision.