This chapter-by-chapter summary contains plot spoilers!

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Navigate the Summary Parts: Part 1: Mariam waits for her dad Part 2: Mariam follows her dad Part 3: Mariam gets married Part 4: Mariam gets pregnant Part 5: Young Laila misses Tariq Part 6: Laila goes on a field trip Part 7: Plans to evacuate Kabul Part 8: Laila gets married Part 9: The Taliban shows up Part 10: Conclusion

Summary of A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini:
Pages  179 - 243

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(Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com)  Part Three.  Chapter 27: Mariam tends to Laila who suffers shock, permanent hearing loss in her left ear, and tremendous guilt over the loss of her parents. A man named Abdul Sharif comes to the door and asks to speak with Laila. She says she knows no such man.

Chapter 28:  Laila ventures out to the front room of the house to speak with Abdul Sharif.  He tells her that he was hospitalized in Peshawar and met her friend Tariq who'd been terribly injured in a rocket blast that struck the truck in which he and his family and other refugees were traveling. Both of Tariq's parents died.  Later on, at the hospital, Tariq himself died but not before making this man promise to bring news of his death to Laila.  Laila, sitting there listening, goes into shock and drifts into a daze.

Chapter 29:  Rasheed attempts to muster a few shreds of what passes with him for charm. Over the next few days, he tries to say comforting things to Laila.  Mariam realizes that he intends to court Laila, and Mariam confronts him. He casually admits that he wants to make Laila his first wife and relegate Mariam to second-wife nonstatus.  He is more than sixty years old by now, Mariam is 33 years old, and Laila is only 14. Numbly, Mariam delivers his proposition to Laila who accepts it.

Chapter 30:  Laila has just realized that she's pregnant with Tariq's child from their one and only sexual encounter. She also knows that she won't get far on her own in a chaotic nation torn by war and famine. She allows Rasheed to rush her through a hasty marriage ceremony. That night after they have sex (not described), she cuts her finger and marks the sheets with her own blood so he'll think that she was a virgin.

Chapter 31:  Mariam feels great humiliation at being set aside in her own house. Rasheed smugly tries to set the women against each other.  Laila tries to resist this and make friends with Mariam when they're alone. However, Mariam asserts herself and says that she will not be a servant, Laila has to do a share of the chores, and Mariam wants to be left alone with no attempts made at friendship.  Laila says she's sorry, and Mariam says she should be.

Chapter 32:  Laila tells Rasheed that she is pregnant, and he delights in the chance to be cruel and spring the news on poor Mariam. Winter comes and it's 1992.  Laila has to put on the burqa and accompany Rasheed to his shop where he attempts to describe what he does for a living. Laila thinks about a shouting match she and Mariam had earlier when he wasn't home yet over a misplaced spoon.  She realizes that she and Mariam feel better when they can vent the anger they dare not express towards him on each other.

Chapter 33:  Mariam feels slightly vindicated when Laila has a daughter and falls from Rasheed's so-called esteem.  Rasheed, of course, gripes constantly about the trials and tribulations of having a baby around.  Laila is consumed with love for her daughter whom she names Aziza.  Mariam starts to feel sorry for Laila who has to put up with Rasheed's constant complaints and nastiness.

One night, Rasheed bursts into Mariam's bedroom and threatens to beat her with his belt because he thinks she has something to do with Laila denying him sex. Laila runs in and throws herself on Rasheed, attempting to stop him.  When Laila realizes she can't physically stop him, she gives in and agrees to have sex with him to save Mariam from a beating.  Mariam is amazed; no one has ever tried to defend her before.

The next morning, Mariam finds Laila and the baby asleep on the kitchen floor. The baby wakes up and wants to hold onto Mariam's finger; Mariam feels a wave of affection for the little girl.

Chapter 34:  Laila fends off some obnoxious questions from Rasheed as to whether or not she and Tariq were ever lovers.  He is coming close to guessing that baby Aziza is Tariq's rather than his. Laila knows that he would kill her if he knew she's been taking money from his wallet and saving up in order to run away. 

Mariam gives Laila all of the old baby clothes that she once sewed in hopes of having her own baby.  The two of them sit outside and have tea, and realize that they've become friends.

Chapter 35:  Over the weeks and months to come, Mariam comes to love Aziza and Laila.  The two women do their chores together and spend all their time together with Aziza.  Mariam finds herself confiding the unhappiness of her childhood to Laila as Laila braids her hair.  Laila reciprocates by telling Mariam of her plans to run away with Aziza and asks Mariam to go with them.

Chapter 36:  It's spring of 1994, and time to run according to Laila's plan. The two women wait until Rasheed goes to work. Then they each put on a burqa and take Aziza to the bus station.  Since 1992 when the Mujahedeen took over, women have not been allowed to travel without a male escort. So they need to find a man willing to pretend to be related to them.

Laila approaches a kindly looking man with his family and explains that she and Mariam are widows with no male relatives to travel with them, and they would like him to help them out.  He agrees to do so and takes their money to go buy bus tickets. Then he turns them over to the cops. The cops haul them off and interrogate them for a few hours, and then turn them back over to Rasheed who beats them both savagely.

Rasheed locks Mariam in the toolshed in the yard.  Then he locks Laila and Aziza in a bedroom and nails boards over the wall.  He gives them no food or water for two days and Laila screams for help from the neighbors, afraid that her child will die in the stifling heat.  Finally Rasheed lets them out, threatens to kill them, and kicks Laila hard in the kidneys.
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