It's true, poverty is a cruel little thing. When there's dust to eat and the kids are crying because it's hot and there's no bed to sleep. It's different in the worst of ways because there was before war and it didn't used to be this way. There was laughter and sweet nothing whisperings in corner alleys, there was running around and freedom and education. Hamshira, then there was after war. Mothers lose their children, and then lose their minds. Fathers endure. Parents are dead and it's lost hope when no one comes home. Sometimes even if you lose a lot, you don't see it much when you had not much to lose. Especially when it's war at home and the greatest enemy is all you have to depend on. Then again there are times when two wives come together to protect their children against their misfortune. Then chai and halwa under the starry skies and braided hair and dreams of knowledge and endless possibilities flourished. Some lovers come back too later. And if one wife murders a husband to protect another, you cannot justify against the child that loved his father. But a man's heart doesn't stretch like a womb does to accommodate. A wretched little thing. Poverty and survival is crazy. Some kind of suffering must cease to exist. Man down and one warrior woman rock stone hearted dead. Perhaps they all just wanted to die with love. Laila will tell little Aziza, Mariam, that she is the noor of your eyes and the sultan of your heart. If you had to commit these sins and all these bad decisions, it had to be forgiven. Grief is love persevering under a thousand splendid suns. Somehow the war never ends.