Hema and Marion land in Addis Ababa at dusk. Marion has been gone seven years, and when he returns to Missing he can see how worn down the buildings look. He asks the taxi to stop and gets out at Shiva’s tool shed; he tells Hema he will walk the rest of the way. He passes the spot where a motorcycle felled its rider, but he feels no dread. As he walks up the hill, Marion is flooded with memories of his childhood with Shiva and Genet. Near their cottage, he sees a group gathered around Hema; when they see him, Almaz, Gebrew, and Matron turn to him and wait.

Three days after his return, Matron asks Marion to Casualty. A young girl has been gored in the abdomen by a bull and is bleeding out as they watch. She will not make it to another hospital, so Marion takes her to Operating Theater 3 and locates the bleeder. The rest of the surgery is routine, but Marion feels as if he is on “consecrated soil”: Thomas Stone, Ghosh, and Shiva have all stood here. As he turns to leave, Marion looks up and sees Shiva in the glass that now separates Operating Theater 3 from the new Operating Theater 4. He remembers Shiva asking their parents, when Koochooloo’s puppies were killed, if they would forget if someone killed either of them. Marion tells his brother he will never forget, and as he says it his future is decided.

Marion finds an odd key among Shiva’s belongings, and he knows it once belonged to Zemui’s motorcycle. In the tool shed, Marion finds a strange-looking motorcycle. Hema tells Marion that Shiva bought it secondhand several years ago and kept tinkering with it, but too many of the parts look familiar. When he starts it and hears the roar of the engine, Marion knows this is Zemui’s motorcycle.

Marion operates three days a week, and when his return ticket to New York is about to expire he takes no action. Shiva’s liver functions as if it were his own, year after year. Marion takes Hepatitis B immunoglobulin shots, and eventually blood tests show he is not a carrier of Hepatitis B and cannot infect anyone. Matron insists it is a miracle, and Marion agrees. Five years after his return, in 1991, Marion stands at the gates of Missing as he had when he was a child and watches the Tigre People’s Liberation Front and other freedom fighters move into the city. There is no looting and no mayhem; the only looting is done by Mengistu, who empties the Treasury and flies to Zimbabwe.

Every night Marion checks on Matron before he goes to bed. She is old and tremulous, bent with age, but she still has her joy. As he sits with her, Matron looks at him as if she always knew he would return. Matron had asked God to take her while she was praying or sleeping, and He honors her wish. It seems as if the entire city, the rich and the poor, come to her funeral. Almaz and Gebrew are retired and have special quarters in the Missing complex. They can now spend their hours any way they choose; Marion is not surprised they choose to spend their time praying.

The Shiva Stone Institute for Fistula Surgery is thriving. Hema is the titular head, and every day she works with young gynecologists from many other countries who come to learn and train. The Staff Probationer has become a skilled assistant under Hema’s teaching and now operates confidently on her...