Henry, a poet, and Nell, an architect, are both professors teaching at different universities who meet by chance at an academic function. Henry falls in love immediately, and Nell cancels her flight to spend more time with him and learn about who he is out in nature away from others.

The two are soon married, and move to Seattle together. Nell is designing a masterpiece of a building, down to the molecular level, but Henry has no job or appointment at any nearby university. Henry never felt quite like he was growing with Nell so much as growing on her, but she seemed okay with supporting him in whatever way he needed.

Nell's new building is finally completed and it is breathtaking to all who look at it. They have sex in the terrace garden that Henry used to quell his thirst for nature while in the city, in view of the new building, and it is the best sex they've ever had. Later Henry gets an offer to be a visiting professor at Stanford, possibly because of his connection to the best architect in human memory. He accepts and they begin to move to the Bay Area. Until Nell is informed that the UN is accepting her proposal to build a moon colony and she must live there for five years.

Henry can hardly consider going to the moon, as there is no life or nature, the focal point of most of his poetry. He ultimately declines to join her, and they go their separate ways. She tries to make their remaining time together matter, but he knows she's distracted and barely sees her as it is. She leaves and he moves into a log cabin in the Georgia woods to write poems. He is able to visit the moon once a year, but he can't figure out if he's excited to go or not. Virtual calls are debilitating for him.

One day, he receives a surprise call. The nanobots building the moon city mistook Nell for refuse and broke her down into molecules, killing her instantly. But she left something for him on a crater, and he has to visit the moon to see it. There, Henry discovers it is a crater full of nanobots creating the shapes of nature, of tomato vines and bushes, bringing "life" to the moon.