<P> Then one day Tariq appears outside the house, and he and Laila are reunited . Laila realizes that Rasheed had hired Abdul Sharif to inform her about Tariq's fake death, so that he could marry her . When Rasheed returns home from work, Zalmai tells his father about the visitor . Rasheed starts to savagely beat Laila . He nearly strangles her, but Mariam intervenes and kills Rasheed with a shovel . Afterwards, Mariam confesses to killing Rasheed in order to draw attention away from Laila and Tariq . Mariam is publicly executed, allowing Laila and Tariq to leave for Pakistan with Aziza and Zalmai . They spend their days working at a guest house in Murree, a summer retreat . </P> <P> After the fall of the Taliban, Laila and Tariq return to Afghanistan . They stop in the village where Mariam was raised, and discover a package that Mariam's father left behind for her: a videotape of Pinocchio, a small sack of money, and a letter . Laila reads the letter and discovers that Jalil had regretted sending Mariam away . Laila and Tariq return to Kabul and use the money to fix up the orphanage, where Laila starts working as a teacher . Laila is pregnant with her third child, and if it is a girl, Laila has already named her Mariam . </P> <Ul> <Li> Mariam is an ethnic Pashtun born in Herat, 1959 to a Pashtun father . She is the child of Jalil and Nana born out of the wedlock . She suffers shame throughout her childhood because of the circumstances of her birth . Khaled Hosseini described her portrayal: "The key word with Mariam is that she is isolated in every sense of the word . She is a woman who is detached from the day - to - day norms of human existence . Really, she just wants connection with another human being ." Despite initially resenting Laila, she becomes a "friend and a doting alternative mother" to her through the "common hardship" of being married to the "abusive, psychologically imposing" Rasheed . </Li> <Li> Laila is an ethnic Tajik . Born in 1978, to Hakim and Fariba, she is a beautiful and intelligent girl coming from a family in which the father is university - educated and a teacher . Hosseini states that compared to Mariam, Laila "had a much more fulfilling relationship with her father, her girlfriends and her childhood friend, Tariq . She expected to finish school and is looking for personal fulfillment . These are two very different representations of women ." Her life becomes tied to Mariam's when she becomes the second wife of Rasheed, Mariam's husband . This originally draws resentment from Mariam, who "(feels) her territory infringed upon". Despite this, "Laila becomes her daughter for all practical purposes" due to Mariam's childlessness, struggles, and abuse they both face during the marriage . Towards the end of the novel she becomes a schoolteacher at the orphanage where Aziza had stayed . </Li> <Li> Rasheed is an ethnic Pashtun, a shoemaker, and the antagonist of the novel . He marries Mariam through an arrangement with Jalil, and later marries Laila as well . After suffering years of domestic abuse at his hands, Mariam bludgeons Rasheed to death with a shovel during a violent struggle . Hosseini stated that he hoped to create a multi-layered character in Rasheed, saying, "Rasheed's the embodiment of the patriarchal, tribal character . In writing him, I didn't want to write him as an irredeemable villain . He is a reprehensible person, but there are moments of humanity, such as his love for his son ." He identified an encounter with an Afghan man four years earlier as the foundation for this character; the man "had a very sweet, subservient wife" and had not yet informed her that he was planning to marry again . </Li> <Li> Tariq, an ethnic Pashtun born in 1976, is a boy who grew up in Kabul with Laila . He lost a leg to a land mine at the age of five . They eventually evolve from best friends to lovers; after a decade of separation they are married and expecting a child by the end of the novel . </Li> <Li> Nana is Mariam's mother and a former servant of Jalil . Mariam's birth is the result of an affair between Nana and Jalil . Jalil's favoritism towards his wives and legitimate children leaves Nana bitter towards Jalil . She hangs herself when Mariam is fifteen after Mariam journeys to Jalil's house on her birthday . Nana perceives this to be betrayal and regards as an act of desertion . </Li> <Li> Mullah Faizullah, a Sufi, is Mariam's elderly Koran teacher and friend . He dies of natural causes in 1989 . </Li> <Li> Jalil is Mariam's father, a wealthy man who had three wives before he fathered Mariam . He marries Mariam to Rasheed after Nana's death, but later regrets sending her away . He dies in 1987 . </Li> <Li> Hakim is Laila's father . He is a well - educated and a progressive schoolteacher . He is killed in a rocket explosion along with Fariba . </Li> <Li> Fariba is Laila's mother . In Part One, during her brief meeting with Mariam, she is depicted as cheerful, but her happy nature is disrupted when her two sons, Ahmad and Noor, leave home to go to war and are later killed . She spends nearly all of her time in bed mourning her sons until the Mujahideen are victorious, and is later killed in a rocket explosion along with Hakim . </Li> <Li> Aziza, born in the spring of 1993, is the daughter of Laila and Tariq, conceived when Laila was fourteen . When the news of Tariq's alleged death arrives, in order to hide the child's illegitimacy and provide for herself, Laila decides to marry Rasheed . Aziza's birth marks the beginning of Laila's fall from favor with Rasheed and the friendship between Mariam and Laila . </Li> <Li> Zalmai, born in September 1997, to Laila and Rasheed . He serves as a redeeming facet of Rasheed, idolizing him despite the abuse to his mother and Mariam . Zalmai remains unaware of the fact that Mariam killed Rasheed and continuously asks Laila about him, who lies by saying that he simply left for some time . After initially blaming Tariq for his father's mysterious disappearance, he comes to accept Tariq as a father - figure . </Li> </Ul> <Li> Mariam is an ethnic Pashtun born in Herat, 1959 to a Pashtun father . She is the child of Jalil and Nana born out of the wedlock . She suffers shame throughout her childhood because of the circumstances of her birth . Khaled Hosseini described her portrayal: "The key word with Mariam is that she is isolated in every sense of the word . She is a woman who is detached from the day - to - day norms of human existence . Really, she just wants connection with another human being ." Despite initially resenting Laila, she becomes a "friend and a doting alternative mother" to her through the "common hardship" of being married to the "abusive, psychologically imposing" Rasheed . </Li>

What is the plot of a thousand splendid suns