Par­vana and her moth­er returned home late from vis­it­ing the prison, with exhaus­tion con­sum­ing them. Par­vana, weak­ened from the long jour­ney, leaned on her moth­er for sup­port, her body aching from head to toe. Upon remov­ing her san­dals, Par­vana was hor­ri­fied to see her blis­tered, bloody feet, and her mother’s con­di­tion was even worse. It dawned on Par­vana that her moth­er hadn’t stepped out­side since the Tal­iban seized con­trol in Kab­ul a year and a half ago—she had cho­sen to remain inside, com­fort­ed by her husband’s encour­age­ment to stay home and write when she could have ven­tured out.

Their father had often insist­ed that Fatana, Par­vana’s moth­er, need­ed to observe the world to cap­ture its essence in her writ­ing. Despite his sup­port­ive nature, a truce had emerged dur­ing their con­ver­sa­tions; he believed the edu­cat­ed should stay and help rebuild Afghanistan rather than flee. Par­vana remained obliv­i­ous to her mother’s suf­fer­ing dur­ing their ardu­ous trek.

When they final­ly reached home, instead of being active about her con­di­tion, her moth­er col­lapsed into tears on the toshak, ignor­ing Noo­ri­a’s attempts to help. Par­vana was then cared for by Maryam, who strug­gled to pro­vide com­fort as her sis­ter faced the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al toll of their sit­u­a­tion. With con­cern for their miss­ing father, Par­vana con­fid­ed in her sis­ter that they had received no news about him.

As night fell, Par­vana dreamt of sol­diers, their harsh­ness while her moth­er seemed in dis­tress. The next morn­ing, Par­vana real­ized her moth­er lay on the toshak, unre­spon­sive to offers for food. The days dragged painful­ly, with Par­vana and Noo­ria keep­ing the younger kids qui­et while their moth­er con­tin­ued to sleep. The atmos­phere grew tense as their food sup­ply dwin­dled, lead­ing Par­vana to con­front her moth­er with the dis­heart­en­ing real­i­ty that they were out of food. Unable to awak­en her, Noo­ria stopped her, assert­ing their moth­er was in a deep depres­sion.

Frus­tra­tion brewed among the sis­ters as the prospect of star­va­tion loomed. Par­vana hes­i­tat­ed, her feet still sore and tired, yet the bur­den of feed­ing the fam­i­ly weighed heav­i­ly. Ulti­mate­ly, see­ing the des­per­a­tion in her sib­lings’ faces, she decid­ed to brave the out­side world for food, sym­bol­iz­ing her shift­ing role with­in the fam­i­ly as the respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide began to fall upon her shoul­ders.