Summary

Shiri opens Chapter 8 with her definition of love, which to her is “to be courageous, to take risks, and to be disciplined” (108). She recalls a story that her father once told her. The story opens with a happy couple with a baby. The husband is much older than the wife, who one day falls in love with another young man. The man convinces her to poison her husband and to run away with him. When she protests, he says that she does not love her. They poison her husband, and when the lover tells her to drown her child, the woman again obeys. This time the lover is disgusted, leaving the woman alone and disgraced. Her father concluded the story by cautioning Shiri not to abandon her principles for the sake of love.

Meanwhile, Shiri’s mother told her that she would meet two...