In the autumn of 1849, Dr. John Drew, a Protestant minister and scholar, is struggling in his Irish rectory to complete the translation of a six-line cuneiform text from Persepolis. His wife Eliza is visiting her sister in London. Neither Eliza nor John Drew have been able, up to this point, to come to terms with the terrible loss of their son Edward. Now, isolated from one another, the past floods in. It becomes a question of how they will deal with this new reality when they meet again.