A teenage girl living in Virginia spends her summer riding horses and thinking about her boyfriend, who recently enlisted in the army. She wrote to him, so, she checks the mail every day, but there’s nothing for her there. She occupies herself with taking care of a sick horse her family recently decided to take care of, named Notes. Notes and another one of the girl’s horses, Otter, fall in love. One day, Notes dies, and Otter lingers around the fields, alone. The girl finally receives a letter from her loved one that day, but she decides that she was put to wait too long. She hides the letter under other items in her desk, but long after that letter came and was ignored, she writes to the boy, explaining why it was that she didn’t respond to him, that summer long ago.