Danny Lowell still remembered the day he bought his first guitar more clearly than he remembered the first time he kissed a woman.

He was sixteen. Summer in Fresno. Heat that stuck to the skin like a second body. He had worked two and a half months at a gas station, wiping oil, carrying crates, stocking the coolers with soft drinks, and every Friday he hid a few dollars inside a shoebox under the bed. When he counted it the last time, he was thirteen short. His father gave it to him without asking questions. That was the old man’s way of saying I love you. He did not pat your back. He did not talk to you about dreams. He took out the money, left it on the table, and pretended to look elsewhere.