Mariam is born the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman and his housekeeper, and grows up hidden in a remote shack.

Nana hangs herself from a willow tree after Mariam spends the night outside Jalil's house and fails to return home.

Jalil's wives arrange for Mariam to be married to Rasheed, a widowed shoemaker from Kabul thirty years her senior.

Rasheed presents Mariam with a sky-blue burqa and declares that a woman's face is her husband's business alone.

Mariam suffers her first miscarriage at the bathhouse and mourns a child she never had the chance to meet.

After seven failed pregnancies, Rasheed forces Mariam to chew pebbles as punishment until two of her molars crack.

Laila is born to neighbors Fariba and Hakim on the very night of Afghanistan's Communist coup.

A rocket bomb destroys Laila's family home and kills both her parents just as the family is preparing to leave Kabul.

A traveling businessman named Abdul Sharif visits Laila and delivers the news that Tariq has died in a Pakistani hospital.

Laila agrees to become Rasheed's second wife after discovering she is pregnant with Tariq's child and needs a stable home.

Mariam and Laila attempt to flee Kabul with a stranger's help but are betrayed, caught, and returned to Rasheed.

The Taliban seize Kabul and distribute flyers outlining strict laws that confine women to the home and ban them from working.

Rasheed declares the family cannot afford to keep Aziza and sends her to an orphanage while continuing to spoil son Zalmai.

Tariq, presumed dead, appears alive at Rasheed's doorstep, revealing he survived in Pakistan and has been searching for Laila.

Rasheed tries to strangle Laila, and Mariam kills him with a shovel; she then surrenders herself to the Taliban and is publicly executed.

Pool 1 follows the central spine of the novel, beginning with Mariam's illegitimate birth and isolated upbringing in a kolba near Herat. After Nana's suicide and Jalil's betrayal, Mariam is married off to the domineering Rasheed and endures years of miscarriage, contempt, and violence in Kabul. The narrative then pivots to Laila, whose promising childhood is shattered when a rocket kills her parents and a false report claims Tariq is dead, forcing her into marriage with Rasheed. The two wives are united by suffering and their love for Aziza, surviving a failed escape attempt before the Taliban's rise makes their confinement total. When Tariq returns alive and Rasheed tries to kill Laila, Mariam's act of violence and ultimate self-sacrifice brings the story to its devastating and redemptive conclusion.

The defining events that drive Mariam and Laila's intertwined lives from first breath to final sacrifice.

Mullah Faizullah visits Mariam at the kolba regularly and teaches her to read the Koran and say her prayers.

Mariam travels alone to Herat for the first time, hoping Jalil will take her to his cinema for her birthday.

Jalil's chauffeur forcibly carries a kicking, screaming Mariam out of Jalil's garden and drives her back home.

After Nana's death, Mariam moves into Jalil's lavish guest room and hears his hollow reassurances with newly disillusioned ears.

Rasheed takes Mariam to Shar-e-Nau Park, buys her ice cream, and presents her a maroon shawl as a true gift.

While cleaning Rasheed's room, Mariam discovers a pornographic magazine and a photograph of his drowned son and deceased first wife.

A stranger arrives at Laila's home to announce that both of her older brothers have been killed fighting in the Mujahideen.

When the communist leader Najibullah falls from power, Fariba rises from her bed and becomes cheerful and energized for the first time in years.

Rasheed proposes taking Laila as his second wife and presents the arrangement to Mariam as an act of charitable duty.

At dinner, Rasheed calls Mariam a harami in front of Laila and appoints Laila as his eyes and ears over Mariam.

Mariam and Laila have their first furious argument after a spoon goes missing from Mariam's kitchen.

When Rasheed raises his belt to beat Mariam, Laila lunges at him and begs him to stop.

Mariam leaves baby clothes she once sewed outside Laila's door, and the two women share tea together in the courtyard.

Laila delivers Zalmai by caesarean section in an unsanitary hospital where the surgeon must operate while Laila wears a burqa.

Laila and Tariq marry the night they arrive in Murree, Pakistan, and settle into quiet work together at a hotel.

Pool 2 explores the significant but quieter moments that fill in the texture of both women's lives, starting with Mullah Faizullah's early influence on Mariam and her first fateful journey to Herat. It traces Mariam's disillusionment after Jalil's rejection and her cautious adjustment to Rasheed's household, including her unsettling discovery of his hidden vices. The pool then covers Laila's background losses and the political shifts that upend her family, before following both women into the tense early days of their shared marriage under Rasheed's manipulative control. A series of small confrontations and gestures — a fight over a spoon, Laila defending Mariam from the belt, a gift of hand-sewn baby clothes — slowly forge the bond between the two women. The pool closes with Zalmai's dangerous birth under Taliban-era medical conditions and Laila's bittersweet new life with Tariq in Pakistan.

The formative experiences and quieter turning points that shape Mariam's early life and the women's fragile bond.

Nana warns Mariam that a harami must endure lifelong pain, while Jalil praises her and brings stories of the wider world.

Mariam turns against Nana at fifteen, believing her mother's sheltering is rooted in envy of a happiness Mariam deserves.

During her rushed nikka ceremony, Mariam recognizes that Jalil is sacrificing her to his wives' wishes to guard his reputation.

Rasheed demands Mariam unpack her suitcase and begin acting as a proper wife, and she cleans the house and bakes bread.

Laila and Tariq share their first kiss as rockets fall on Kabul, after Tariq declares he would kill for Laila.

Tariq tells Laila he must leave Kabul with his ailing parents, and the two teenagers have sex before his departure.

On a trip to the Hotel Intercontinental with Rasheed, Mariam notices a doorman in a cap and sunglasses who looks strangely familiar.

On her wedding night with Rasheed, Laila cuts her own finger and lets it bleed on the sheet to appear a virgin.

Rasheed threatens Laila that he could hand Aziza away and expose his suspicions about the child's true parentage to the authorities.

Laila and Mariam confess their secrets to each other and together plan to escape with Aziza to Peshawar in spring.

Laila repeatedly sneaks out of the house alone to visit Aziza at the orphanage and endures Taliban beatings on the street when caught.

Zalmai tells Rasheed that Laila received a male visitor with a limp, triggering Rasheed's furious accusations of betrayal.

Mariam tells Laila to flee with Tariq and the children, resolving to stay behind and take full responsibility for Rasheed's death.

At a hasty trial with no legal counsel, Mariam confesses to killing Rasheed and is sentenced to death by the judge.

Laila returns to Kabul, teaches at the orphanage Aziza once attended, and resolves to name her unborn daughter Mariam.

Pool 3 focuses on the inner turning points, revelations, and decisions that shape the novel's deepest meaning, beginning with the conflicting lessons young Mariam receives from Nana and Jalil in her earliest years. It traces Mariam's gradual disillusionment, her resignation into marriage, and Laila's desperate deception of Rasheed on her wedding night to protect Tariq's unborn child. As conditions worsen, the pool tracks the growing threat to Aziza and the secret compact between the two women to survive and escape together. Zalmai's unwitting betrayal of Laila triggers the final confrontation, and Mariam's choice to stay behind and face execution becomes the novel's moral climax. The pool ends with Laila carrying Mariam's legacy back into a rebuilding Kabul, honoring her friend's sacrifice by choosing purpose over safety.

The hidden truths and pivotal choices that permanently seal each character's fate.