In the third chap­ter, Par­vana and her fam­i­ly grap­ple with the after­math of their father’s arrest. As the chap­ter opens, Moth­er care­ful­ly places her sleep­ing chil­dren, Ali and Maryam, on the floor before ini­ti­at­ing a cleanup of their disheveled home. The phys­i­cal strain of tidy­ing up is pal­pa­ble, par­tic­u­lar­ly for Par­vana, who feels the ache in her back and legs, and sees her Moth­er’s slow move­ments, a reflec­tion of their shared bur­den.

After restor­ing some sem­blance of order, the fam­i­ly pre­pares for bed, but Par­vana is unable to sleep, haunt­ed by the absence of her father. Mem­o­ries of his com­fort­ing snore dur­ing nights of uncer­tain­ty fol­low her thoughts. Her imag­i­na­tion races with fear about his well­be­ing in prison, a grim con­cept shaped by her aunts’ sto­ries of past incar­cer­a­tions, as her moth­er would state that know­ing some­one in prison is a part of being Afghan.

As night drags on, Parvana’s rest­less­ness leads her to sug­gest light­ing a lamp to guide her father’s return. How­ev­er, her pleas are met with resis­tance from her moth­er, who is wor­ried about draw­ing atten­tion. The family’s sit­u­a­tion is com­pound­ed by the Tal­iban’s oppres­sive rules that pre­vent women from being in pub­lic with­out a male guardian or offi­cial per­mis­sion.

The fol­low­ing morn­ing, Moth­er announces her inten­tion to res­cue Father, treat­ing the daunt­ing task as casu­al­ly as a trip to the mar­ket. Par­vana is struck with a mix of trep­i­da­tion and intrigue about vis­it­ing a prison. A note from Noo­ria gives Moth­er some sem­blance of offi­cial per­mis­sion to be out, though doubt is cast on its effec­tive­ness.

As they make their way through the streets of Kab­ul, Par­vana keeps a tight grip on her moth­er’s pres­ence, know­ing that los­ing sight of her in the sea of burqas would lead to pan­ic. They brave the pris­on’s intim­i­dat­ing atmos­phere togeth­er, despite the increas­ing anx­i­ety in Par­vana, who wish­es to embody the courage of her role mod­el, Malali.

Upon arrival, Moth­er demands to see her hus­band, but the guards respond with hos­til­i­ty, dis­miss­ing her pleas and dis­re­spect­ing her by tear­ing up Father’s pho­to­graph. Vio­lence erupts as the guards strike both Par­vana and her moth­er, forc­ing them to retreat under the ris­ing threat. Despite the chaos, they man­age to help each oth­er away from the prison grounds, their attempt to seek jus­tice end­ing in hard­ship but rein­forc­ing their bond as they face their bleak real­i­ty togeth­er.