- The war ends in 1918, and Vahan is fifteen years old, the oldest kid in the orphanage. There are only 250 orphans from the war, which is nothing compared to the million Armenian people that were killed.
- We get a couple newspaper articles telling us that the Turkish parliament was dissolved, and the Beys were put on trial.
- Vahan has missed out on three years of school, and desperately wants to make up for it, so he is allowed to attend classes. He's finally safe.
- But at night, Vahan feels hollow without his family—he dreams of them and what they might be doing.
- Once a week, he visits the graves and imagines they are the graves of his family members; putting flowers there for them and feeling their presence.
- He closes out the book by sharing with us what he's learned: There are evil things in the world, but character and discipline come out of pain and disillusion. It's what his father seemed to know all along.