Summary

This section begins with “Part 3: Home is Not A Country” again with flowers and weeds on the page. Page 193 is titled “The Portal” and is one full page, no stanzas. Nima feels pulled back towards her old world and an overflowing bathtub. But she wants to hold on to see as much as she can and learn as much as she can - whether about her grandmother or Haitham’s father. She wants to know more of why they left, and undo the damage of war. She wants to see her mother in her yellow dress, dancing and not feeling tired. She feels the pull of the portal and tries to grab a bedpost but her hands move “clean through it like it’s water” and everything starts to dissolve (193). The next page ends as everything blurs away and “the portal moving up...