Mrs. Weera returns to the house­hold and tells Par­vana she’ll be mov­ing in, which ener­gizes Moth­er and cre­ates a new dynam­ic. Togeth­er, Mrs. Weera and Moth­er plan to start a mag­a­zine, assign­ing var­i­ous tasks to the fam­i­ly mem­bers: Noo­ria will care for the younger chil­dren, while Par­vana will work out­side. Par­vana shows them the mon­ey she has earned, which brings joy to her moth­er despite Nooria’s sar­cas­tic remark about their father earn­ing more.

After lunch, Par­vana accom­pa­nies Mrs. Weera, who, despite wear­ing a burqa, has a dis­tinct way of walk­ing that makes it easy for Par­vana to keep up. They dis­cuss the dan­gers posed by the Tal­iban, but Mrs. Weera express­es con­fi­dence in her abil­i­ties to fend for her­self. Par­vana learns that Mrs. Weera has lost many fam­i­ly mem­bers to the ongo­ing vio­lence, her hard­ships evi­dent but not accom­pa­nied by any desire for pity.

Even­tu­al­ly, they fetch Mrs. Weera’s belong­ings, and Par­vana helps load a karachi. Among the few belong­ings is a medal Mrs. Weera proud­ly dis­plays, declar­ing it a sym­bol of her achieve­ments in ath­let­ics. After a busy day, Par­vana sug­gests tak­ing her younger sis­ter, Maryam, to fetch water. With some reluc­tance from their moth­er, they go out togeth­er. Maryam, unused to the out­side world, finds joy in the sim­plest expe­ri­ences, like splash­ing water on her face.

As days pass, a rou­tine set­tles in. Par­vana works at the mar­ket, earn­ing enough for her family’s sus­te­nance, while attempt­ing to keep Noo­ria engaged and involved. Parvana’s pro­pos­al to escort her moth­er and Noo­ria out­side to enjoy sun­light brings some resis­tance, but with Noo­ria agree­ing, the sib­lings begin ven­tur­ing out. They expe­ri­ence fresh air togeth­er, while grate­ful for moments spent in the sun.

Par­vana con­tin­ues to earn a mod­est income, and even though the fam­i­ly doesn’t open­ly mourn their father, the chil­dren show faint signs of their sad­ness. One day, in an emo­tion­al moment, Par­vana believes she sees her father in the mar­ket but real­izes it’s a stranger. Soon after, she finds mys­te­ri­ous items—a piece of cloth and a bracelet—that seem to come from the win­dow of some­one near­by, hint­ing at a con­nec­tion yet to unfold. Final­ly, in a humor­ous twist of fate, Par­vana dis­cov­ers that a tea boy is actu­al­ly a girl from her class, adding a new lay­er to her dai­ly expe­ri­ences.

This chap­ter cap­tures a mix­ture of resilience and the gen­tle stir­rings of hope amid ongo­ing strug­gles, as Par­vana nav­i­gates her role in a chang­ing fam­i­ly dynam­ic.