- In present day, unable to sleep after her dream of Grace, Mattie reads Grace's last letter.
- In the letter, Grace says how she is planning to meet Chester and has said goodbye to the things that need goodbyes.
- Mattie thinks that Grace knew, somehow, that Chester wouldn't really elope with her.
- After the finality of the letter, Mattie bundles all the letters together and reties them. She hears Grace's voice in her heart and recalls that Miss Wilcox used to define voice as what's inside a writer, the thing that makes a writer sounds like him or herself.
- As Mattie gets ready for the day, she wonders who will hear Grace's story if she burns the letters.