Maya Shulman-Rubin

Maya is the novel's main character. She is Alex's wife, Max's adoptive mother, and Eugene and Raisa's daughter-in-law. During the narrative, the reader sees two different Maya’s. One is full of life, has dreams, and is sensitive and mystical. This is the Maya that Alex meets and the one that emerges again by the end of the novel. Between the two timeframes, however, Maya loses her spirit. She is doing a medical job that she does not like and that she had tried to avoid doing. She lives a quiet life with her husband and in-laws who do not live with them, but eat dinner with them almost every day. She does not have friends of her own. Even communicating with the woman who finds Max is difficult for her. Maya is also afraid to do things that people in the United States do on a...