HE PARK AT RUBY PIER REOPENED THREE days after the accident. The story of Eddie's death was in the newspapers for a week, and then other stories about other deaths took its place.

The ride called Freddy's Free Fall was closed for the season, but the next year it reopened with a new name, Daredevil Drop. Teenagers saw it as a badge of courage, and it drew many customers, and the owners were pleased.

Eddie's apartment, the one he had grown up in, was rented to someone new, who put leaded glass in the kitchen window, obscuring the view of the old carousel. Dominguez, who had agreed to take over Eddie's job, put Eddie's few possessions in a trunk at the maintenance shop, alongside memorabilia from Ruby Pier, Including photos of the original entrance.

Nicky, the young man whose key had cut the cable, made a new key when he got home, then sold his car four months later. He returned often to Ruby Pier, where he bragged to his friends that his great-​grandmother was the woman for whom it was named.

Seasons came and seasons went. And when school let out and the days grew long, the crowds returned to the amusement park by the great gray ocean—not as large as those at the theme parks, but large enough. Come summer, the spirit turns, and the seashore beckons with a song of the waves, and people gather for carousels and Ferris wheels and sweet iced drinks and cotton candy.

Lines formed at Ruby Pier—just as a line formed someplace else: five people waiting, in five chosen memories, for a little girl named Amy or Annie to grow and to love and to age and to die, and to finally have her question answered—why she lived and what she lived for. And in that line now was a whiskered old man, with a linen cap and a crooked nose, who waited in a place called the Stardust Band Shell to share his part of the secret of heaven: that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.

The author wishes to thank Vinnie Curci, of Amusements of America, and Dana Wyatt, director of operations for Pacific Park on the Sant Monica Pier. Their assistance in researching this book was invaluable, and their pride in protecting fun park customers is laudable. Also, thanks to Dr. David Collon, Of Henry Ford Hospital, for the information on war wounds. And Kerri Alexander, who handles, well, everything. My deepest appreciation to Bob Miller, Ellen Archer, Will Schwalbe, Leslie Wells, Jane Comins, Katie Long, Michael Burkin, and Phil Rose for their inspiring belief in me; to David Black, for what agent-​author relationships should be; to Janine, who patiently heard this book read aloud, many times; to Rhoda, Ira, Cara, and Peter, with whom I shared my first Ferris wheel; and to my uncle, the real Eddie, who told me his stories long before I told my own.

THE END