Summary

The final section follows Raja as his story arcs from an ill-fated trip to the United States back to Beirut, where he loses his aunt and then his mother, and is forced to reconsider what forgiveness, community, and family have meant in his life. After being courted by the American Excellence Foundation, Raja reluctantly agrees to spend a semester on a Virginia horse farm owned by philanthropist Victoria Rutledge, who promises him a comfortable cottage and time to write while teaching a small group of students. His friends bombard him with advice about cash, packing, and jet lag as if he were an inexperienced teenager, ignoring that he has traveled more than all of them combined (215). The journey quickly goes wrong: only one leg of his ticket is actually business class, his credit card stops working, his flight is delayed, and he must pay...