The ending to Sold is unsatisfying… And that's the point. In case you need a quick brush-up on how things wrap up, here you go:
I see my American. There are other men with him, Indian men, and the American lady from the picture.
"My name is Lakshmi," I say.
"I am from Nepal. I am fourteen years old." (177.TheWordsHarishTaughtMe.27-29)
These are some of the Indian words that Lakshmi knows. In many other contexts, these sentences would be polite phrases spoken in introductory conversation—but here Lakshmi is giving a name to her face and an indication that there are many other people who worked to bring her to India (whether or not she knows that this is what her words do). And finally, she gives her age—fourteen. She is the age of an American girl in ninth grade, yet she has lived a lifetime in the Happiness House. And Lakshmi isn't even the youngest girl in the house.
Significant too is the title of the last chapter: "The Words Harish Taught Me." It's these words that have anchored Lakshmi to herself and to her hope while in Happiness House, and these words that help her escape the brothel—both literally and figuratively.
So why end here? There's no resolution, and we don't get to see Lakshmi recover in a home or Mumtaz get her just desserts.
This uncertainty and the lack of resolution is meant to reflect what happens to human trafficking victims in real life. Because in reality there's no tidy ending, and there's no guarantee that the perpetrators of the abuse and violence get what they deserve. There's no certain future for girls rescued from human trafficking.
Often the people in their villages won't welcome them back, similar to how Monica's father and family drove her back to the city. And even though the victims did nothing to deserve their treatment, they may still be treated with shame and abandoned by those who first professed to love them. And so just like these girls, when Sold ends, we're left wondering what comes next to Lakshmi. In some ways, her journey's only just begun.