About Grace

Winkler buys roses and drives to Shadow Hills, where he and Sandy once lived. He looks around the neighborhood, surprised to see no evidence of the flooding. In addition, he discovers that most of his neighbors are no longer living in their homes, and new homes have been built in the area. He approaches his old home and imagines Grace living inside. However, when he knocks, he learns that the home is now owned by a family named Lee. He gives the woman who opened the door the roses and leaves.

Winkler goes to the Chagrin Falls Library and is told that a man named Gene can help him. Winkler explains that he’s trying to find his wife and daughter. Winkler offers to pay Gene to use the internet to find them. Gene searches for several hours but has no luck finding anyone named Sandy or Grace Winkler in Ohio or Alaska. He tells Winkler to leave and come back in an hour. Winkler goes to have lunch and then returns. Gene isn’t there but has left him an envelope. Inside the envelope is the money Winkler gave him, a list of nine Grace Winklers in the US, and an obituary for Sandy Winkler. The information and picture in the obituary prove that this is Winkler’s wife. Sandy died two years previously of ovarian cancer. The obituary has no information on Sandy’s family, however. He returns the money to the envelope and leaves it for Gene.

Winkler gets a motel room and calls the mortuary that handled Sandy’s service. He asks to speak to someone who might remember the family, but the pastor who handled the service has since moved to Houston. Winkler studies the list of Grace Winklers that Gene gave him. Nine are in the US, but none are in Alaska. Winkler decides to visit each woman, beginning in New Jersey, traveling to Texas, through Arizona to California, and finally ending in Idaho.

Winkler arrives at the home of the first Grace after 11 o’clock at night and knocks despite the late hour. A boy answers the door. He doesn’t speak, but Winkler can hear women’s voices nearby. He goes into the home and finds a group of women playing cards in the basement. This Grace clearly isn’t his daughter but offers him a drink and a place to stay. The boy who answered the door, Jed, offers through Grace to tell Winkler his future with a machine he built. The boy tells him that all the Grace Winklers are the real Grace Winkler and that his journey will never end.

Winkler leaves early the next morning, placing a $100 bill in Grace’s mailbox. He writes to Soma before traveling to Virginia, where he meets a Grace Winkler with two large dogs. They speak for a moment, and she wishes him luck. Winkler buys several large bags of food for this Grace and arranges to have them shipped to her home. He visits the third Grace in Tennessee, and she is a young woman who lives with her grandfather and works in a bakery. Stories of Grace’s childhood convince Winkler that she isn’t his daughter. He slips out during the night, leaving a $100 bill on the bedside table.

The fourth Grace lives in Nebraska. She’s recently married and gives him the best macaroni and cheese he’s ever eaten. In Austin, Texas, he trips up the stairs to the fifth Grace’s home and bites his tongue. She offers him comfort while explaining that her father lives in Manchester, England.

Winkler writes to Soma again about changes in technology and other things he’s noticed on his travels. He mails $100 bills to the fourth and fifth Graces. He finds the sixth Grace in New Mexico. She’s too young to be his daughter. Rather than drive all the way to California, he calls the next two Graces. A man answers at the first number, explaining that Grace is having dinner with her mother. The second is a woman whose father just died five months ago.

In his frustration, Winkler writes to Soma and suggests he might go to visit Naaliyah in Alaska. His car begins to have mechanical problems as he drives to Idaho. As Winkler approaches the home of the final Grace Winkler, he begins to despair that if this woman isn’t his daughter, he’ll never find her. He’s once again afraid that Grace drowned 25 years ago.

Early in the day, Winkler parks in front of the home of the final Grace Winkler and waits for her to arrive home from work. When she arrives home shortly before the sun goes down, he thinks she looks like Sandy. He goes to the door, which is open, and calls out to the woman inside. No one answers. He goes inside and finds a pile of pictures on a table. He studies them, disappointed to see that this woman has a family that doesn’t include himself or Sandy. Before he can leave, Grace comes out of the bathroom. He attempts to explain, but Grace grabs a potted ficus tree and swings it at him. The pot falls heavily on his right foot. He runs from the house, and she follows as she calls 911. He leaves the area, driving randomly away from her home until the car quits. He takes his things from the car and heads out on foot despite his injured right foot.

Winkler sleeps in the open and opens the emergency pack he found in the car the next morning. He eats a few crackers and begins walking north, hoping to find another town. It’s hot, but not as hot as the day before. He worries that he might not find a town going north and considers turning around. He wanders for days, concerned that he might be lost. He stops at night, lights fires, and warms cans of soup he brought with him. This is the only fluid he has to drink.

The wind begins to blow, and Winkler can smell smoke. He worries that he might burn to death in a wildfire. He finds a river and drinks from it, losing his glasses in the process. He decides to follow the river, hoping that it will lead him to a road. Without his glasses, he’s nearly blind. He passes dangers he’s unaware of and crosses two traveled roads without knowing it. On the ninth night, he eats his last can of soup. He continues forward the following day, finally coming to a road where he can hear cars passing.

A truck driver picks up Winkler and takes him to a gas station, where he catches a ride with another truck driver. This driver, Brent Royster, provides Winkler with food and makes a call to Naaliyah for him. Winkler learns that Naaliyah is doing research at a place called Camp Nowhere in the Yukon near a town called Eagle. Brent tells him he can get a bus to Eagle and drives Winkler to Prince Rupert in Canada. He gives Winkler a pair of shoes and advises him to get his ankle checked out. Winkler sends $600 to the final Grace Winkler and boards a ferry.

After 30 hours on a bus, Winkler arrives in Eagle. He asks around for Naaliyah and eventually learns that she’s further north on the university grounds. Exhausted, Winkler collapses but manages to get up and find refuge inside a plane hangar. He’s ready to give up. A voice comes to him, asks him questions, and then takes him to a truck. It’s Naaliyah.