The Professor's daughter Grace is celebrating her twentieth birthday at their home in Newfoundland with friends, but when the kids begin drinking, the Professor leaves them. He goes to his room to find a picture of Grace's mother, also named Grace, and the letter she wrote to him when he was away at college. The Professor met Grace when his father moved farms when the Professor and Grace were both thirteen-years-old, and they became neighbors. Their immediate friendship turned into love as the years progressed. When the Professor turned eighteen, he was accepted into college in St. John's. The night before he planned on leaving, Grace and the Professor made love, whispering poems and lies to each other. Grace's stomach was protruding ever so slightly, but she told the Professor that it was merely the weight that girls gain as they become women.

After the Professor left for college, later becoming an English teacher, Grace sent him a letter, the one that he reads on the night of his daughter Grace's birthday. Grace's birthday is also a day of mourning for the professor because it is her mother's death day, as she died in childbirth. In the letter, Grace professes her continued love for the Professor and lets him know that she is pregnant, but she did not tell him when he was home because she wanted him to go to college and become a teacher. She also tells him that she has been kicked out of her home by her father for the pregnancy, that sometimes her pregnancy is painful and bloody, but she has a doctor and a nurse caring for her. The baby will be born "by the charity of strangers." Grace feels that the Professor is with her, even though he is not, because she always has with her the coin that he gave her. She speaks of the places they have been, the landscapes they have seen, and the places they will one day go.