In 1975, Beth watches five-year-old Grace expertly guide ewes and newborn lambs across Top Field and remembers Grace proudly helping deliver a lamb the day before. Seeing Grace’s confidence makes Beth think back to Grace’s birth, which came eight months after Frank’s trial ended. Once Beth was safely past the danger of miscarriage, Beth told Frank by prison phone that she was pregnant with his child, and Frank responded with overwhelming joy because the baby meant a future and a blood child of his own.

After Grace is born, Beth writes to Frank and asks him to choose the baby’s name; Frank chooses Grace, which Beth understands as a sign of forgiveness and renewal. Beth longs to bring Grace to see Frank in prison, but Frank repeatedly refuses because he wants Beth and Grace’s first sight of him to be at home, not in prison. After Beth angrily challenges him, Frank explains in a letter that the image sustaining him is returning to the farm on a bright spring day and meeting Grace there for the first time.

Frank’s imprisonment reshapes the family’s life. Beth’s parents leave their teaching jobs in Ireland and return to Dorset to help run the farm, and their presence allows the farm not only to survive but to change: Beth’s mother develops Blakely Cheddar into a successful business, while Beth’s father keeps Frank involved by bringing farm problems to him during monthly prison visits. Aside from Beth’s father, Gabriel and Leo become Frank’s most regular visitors.

When Gabriel comes to the farm, Gabriel asks Beth for permission to tell Leo that Bobby was Leo’s half brother, believing the truth will help Leo understand why Frank accepted prison after Jimmy’s death. Gabriel and Leo then visit Frank every week, and their conversations about Bobby and the accident gradually help both Frank and Leo heal. In time, Frank tells Beth he is ready to let Gabriel go. Meanwhile, Gabriel publishes a melancholy novel and eventually moves with Leo to California. Later, Leo makes another brave gesture by secretly telling Nina the truth; Nina comes to Beth heavily pregnant, admits Frank’s confession never made sense, and the two women share a tearful reconciliation, though not a full restoration of friendship.

Back in the present, Beth reflects on the dead who still shape their lives as Grace talks to the sheep the way Bobby and Jimmy once did. Then Beth sees a man in a navy suit climb the fence and walk up the field: Frank has been released earlier than expected and has come home in the suit he wore at their wedding. Grace recognizes him from his photograph, runs to him shouting “Daddy,” and Frank lifts and spins the daughter he has never held before. As Frank cries out that he is home, Beth’s father urges Beth to run to him, and Beth does, joining Frank and Grace at the beginning of their new life together.