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"Mariam's kolba is still here. When she approaches it Laila sees that the lone windowpane is empty and that the door is gone. Mariam had described a chicken coop and a tandoor, a wooden outhouse too, but Laila sees no sign of them. She pauses at the entrance to the kolba. She can hear flies buzzing inside. To get in, she has to sidestep a large, fluttering spiderweb. It's dim inside. Laila has to give her eyes a few moments to adjust. When they do, she sees that the interior is even smaller than she'd imagined. Only half a single rotting, splintered board remains of the floorboards. The rest , she imagines, have been ripped up for burning as firewood. The floor is carpeted now with dry-edged leaves, broken bottles, discarded chewing gum wrappers, wild mushrooms, old yellowed cigarette butts. But mostly with weeds, some stunted, some springing impudently halfway up the walls."
This moment is a time of solemn reflection. It allows Laila to see through Mariam's eyes, what she would have experienced, and move on from her death.

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"The two Buddhas were enormous, soaring much higher than she had imagined from all the photos she'd seen of them. Chiseled into a sun-bleached rock cliff, they peered down at them, as they had nearly two thousand years before, Laila imagined, at caravans crossing the valley on the Silk Road. On either side of them, along the overhanging niche, the cliff was pocked with myriad caves." (147)
This setting is also a scene from her childhood, in which it became destroyed, thus destroying her past and further thrusting her into the future. (I would have written the excerpt in which it was destroyed, but I could not find it)

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"Mariam waded in. She dug in her heels and burrowed against the elbows, hips, and shoulder blades of strangers. Someone elbowed her in the ribs, and she elbowed back. A hand made a desperate grab at her face. She swatted it away. To propel herself forward, Mariam clawed at necks, at arms and elbows, at hair, and, when a woman nearby hissed, Mariam hissed back" (287)
It is in this hospital scene that Mariam truly understands the hardships she was willing o go through to help the people she held dear in her life. She understood her mother's pain and endurance.

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"First the trees-those that hadn't yet been cut down for firewood- shed their spotty yellow-and-copper leaves. Then came the winds,cold and raw, ripping through the city. They tore off the last of the clinging leaves and left the trees looking ghostly against the muted brown of the hills." (229-230)
The scenery symbolizes the hardships and suffering that is coming with the winter and the Taliban

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"Nana had been one of the housekeepers. Until her belly began to swell."(6)
Both girls have something to do with love outside of marriage. Mariam was the child, and Laila the mother.

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"As for you, you are the queen, the malika, and this house is your palace." (223)
When both girls arrive, they are treated like queens, he shows respect and love, however, after a time her begins to abuse and show power over her.

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"Sometimes Mammy had good days. She sprang out of bed bright-eyed and playful. The droopy lower lip stretched upward in a smile. She bathed. She put on fresh clothes and wore mascara. She let Laila brush her hair, which Laila loved doing, and pin earrings through her earlobes. They went shopping together to Mandaii Bazaar. Laila got her to play snakes and ladders and they ate shavings from blocks of dark chocolate, one of the few things they shared a common taste for. Laila's favorite part of Mammy's good days was when Babi came home , when she and Mammy looked up from the board and grinned at him with brown teeth. A gust of contentment puffed through the room then, and Laila caught a glimpse of the tenderness, the romance, that had once bound her parents back when this house had been crowded and noisy and cheerful."(119) "Another groan. A hand emerged, like a submarine periscope breaking surface, and dropped." (122)
Both female characters had parents in their lives in which they loved and looked up to, but didn't get to see very often, as they were preoccupied with other children.

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"But he wasn't fast enough. Mariam saw. A gust of wind blew and parted the drooping branches of the weeping willow like a curtain, and Mariam caught a glimpse of what was beneath the tree: the straight-backed chair, overturned. The rope drooping from a high branch. Nana dangling at the end of it." (36)
This scene shows, later, a recurring pattern between our two main female characters, who both lose parental figures, and their innocence with it, before starting their lives with Rasheed.

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"But then his upper lip curled back into a spiteful sneer, and Mariam knew the futility, maybe even the irresponsibility, of not finishing this. If she let him walk now,  how long before he fetched the key from his pocket and went for that gun of his upstairs in the room where he'd lock Zalmai? Had Mariam been certain that he would be satisfied with shooting her, that there was a chance he would spare Laila, she might have dropped the shovel. But in Rasheed's eyes, she saw murder for them both." (348-349)
It is in this moment that Mariam realizes what she must do, and that she it willing to do it for the sake of Laila and her children. She also, in that moment, accepted her fate

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"Then Laila punched him. It was the first time she'd ever struck anybody, discounting the playful punches she and Tariq used to trade. But those had been open-fisted, more pats than punches, self-consciously friendly, comfortable expressions of anxieties that were both perplexing  and thrilling. They would aim for the muscle that Tariq, in a professional voice, called the deltoid. Laila watched the arch of her closed fist, slicing through the air, felt the crinkle of Rasheed's stubbly, coarse skin under her knuckles.  It made a sound like dropping a rice bag to the floor. She hit him hard. The impact actually made him stagger two steps backwards."(299-300)
In this passage, Laila learns her willingness to attack her fears for her child's sake. It shows her sudden gain of courage and a realization of the fact that Rasheed is not immortal or impenetrable.

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"It's all I have to give her, Mariam had said to Laila, this knowledge, these prayers. They're the only true possession I've ever had." (298)
The acknowledgement of Mariam that her prayers were her "only true possession" shows that she has learned to live without physical items

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"For the first time that day, Mariam cried a little."(369)
This action on Mariam's part, on her way to her death, shows that she had been holding in her emotion for a long time, and even when faced with death, she only allowed herself a few tears.

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"Laila dropped the books at her feet. She looked up to the sky. Shielded her eyes with one hand. Then a giant roar." (193)
The destruction of her home symbolizes the ending of her old life. It symbolizes the destruction of her innocence of the real world and begins her hardships

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"Laila saw three drops of blood on the rug, her blood" (183)
The blood symbolizes her love for Tariq and her shame in her actions

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"Mariam slowly grew accustomed to this tentative but pleasant companionship. She was eager for the three cups of chai she and Laila would share in the yard, a nightly ritual now." (251)
The ritual she shared with someone she once hated is a symbol of continuity in a turbulent country.

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"One sunny morning that week, Mariam picked a spot in the yard and dug a hole." (96)
The burial of her premature child was a symbol of how she moved on from her hardship, and it shaped her by preparing her for more