The Stationery Shop of Tehran

The chapter contains another letter from Bahman to Roya. Shahla has had twins, and he is feeling overwhelmed with love and exhaustion in equal measure. Recalling his mother’s harsh treatment of Roya, he discloses that he was his parents’ fifth pregnancy, his mother having lost two children to stillbirth, one to miscarriage and another in the first year of life. He attributes his mother’s subsequent mental health conditions to these losses.

Roya sends a brief letter of congratulations to Zari and Jack when she learns they are expecting their first child. She learns of the birth of Bahman’s twins when she makes her annual phone-call to Jahangir. Disappointed in her hopes of a career in science, she is working as a secretary at Harvard Business School.

When Roya and Walter’s baby, Marigold, arrives, she feels “real” again for the first time since the end of her relationship with Bahman. After a year of life, Marigold dies of croup. Roya is devastated and Walter tends to her. Zari comes to help with her two children, four-year-old Darius and two-year-old Leila. Seeing Leila makes Roya think of Marigold and the future that she might have had.