Fate challenges a boy to find his place in the world in a powerful short story from Abraham Verghese, the New York Times bestselling author of The Covenant of Water.

It’s a New Jersey summer in 1967, and thirteen-year-old Ravi Ramanathan has the makings of a tennis prodigy. His surgeon father encourages his ambition, while his mother dreams of their only child following his father’s path. Surrounded by his parents’ love, Ravi chafes a bit at their daily routines and little traditions. Then one unexpected day, everything changes. Realizing how much he took for granted, Ravi must grow up overnight and find a new role in the life of his family.

Abraham Verghese is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the author of the NBCC Award finalist My Own Country and the New York Times Notable Book The Tennis Partner. His novel Cutting for Stone spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into more than twenty languages. His latest novel, The Covenant of Water, was an instant New York Times bestseller and an Oprah’s Book Club pick. Verghese was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2016. He lives and practices medicine in Stanford, California, where he is the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine.