A female Albanian immigrant named Antonia ruminates over her marriage with her husband Richard. She remembers a moment when he had been teaching a sophomore genetics class while finishing his PhD and her attraction to him. He lectures about Gregor Mendel.  Antonia flashes back to the days of her childhood when she would help her grandfather, Tati, in the fields and how she was sexually harassed by Tati’s German boss, Leiniger. Tati saved her by attacking Leiniger, and Leiniger fell and hit his head. While courting Richard, Antonia does not mention this story and instead, tells him that she knows a lot about Gregor Mendel from Tati. Continuing her memory of Tati and Leiniger, Antonia describes how Tati became very protective over her. Leniger, however, died after his injuries from the fall.  As Tati and Antonia walk behind their house one day, Tati tells Antonia of his childhood when he met Gregor Mendel. He had helped Mendel open pea plants and transfer pollen. Mendel had sent his ideas about his findings on peas to a famous botanist named Nageli. As an expert of hawkweeds himself, Nageli had told Mendel to focus on hawkweeds instead of peas, and Mendel immediately followed his suggestion. The difficult and nebulous results from the hawkweeds frustrated Mendel and he had given up on his research. Though Mendel passed away, Nageli published his findings that echoed some of Mendel’s own but gave Mendel no credit.  Antonia tells this story to Richard in an attempt to impress him and get him to propose to her.  Continuing the story of the childhood assault, Tati had died of a stroke before his trial ever commenced, and her father passed away soon after. Antonia fasts forward to when she gives Richard one of Mendel’s drafted letters to Nageli, and Richard proposes to her. They have two daughters.  Fast forwarding several years, Richard completes his PhD, and Richard’s young research partner named Sebastian Dunitz flies from his lab in Germany to live with Richard and Antonia. Antonia tries to befriend Sebastian as she shares Tati’s story about Mendel. She makes a harmless, rather affectionate, gesture towards Sebastian as he is telling a story about Nageli, and he accuses her of sexually preying on him. She is astounded and mutters the German swear words that Tati had yelled at Leiniger. Sebastian leaves their residence.