Near the end of the novel, Laila discovers that Tariq is alive. Having heard that Laila recently received a visit from Tariq, Rasheed viciously attacks her. Mariam saves Laila's life by hitting Rasheed with a shovel, killing him, and eventually paying for his death with her own life.

In chapter 48, the narrative skips forward to late summer 2001. Laila and Tariq now in live in Murree, Pakistan, with Aziza and Zalmai. After tumultuous years apart, they finally "married the day they arrived in Murree."

Tariq’s boss Sayeed helps arrange the marriage ceremony and gives Tariq some money to purchase

two simple, thin wedding bands. [Laila and Tariq] married later that night, after the children had gone to bed.

Their marriage is especially rewarding since many external forces—politics, war, patriarchy, Rasheed’s cruel duplicity—kept them apart. The ceremony itself is matter of fact; their seemingly anticlimactic wedding night contrasts their much earlier union:

That night, they lay in bed as husband and wife, as the children snored below them on cots. Laila remembered the ease with which they would crowd the air between them with words, she and Tariq, when they were younger, the haywire, brisk flow of their speech, always interrupting each other, tugging each other’s collar to emphasize a point, the quickness to laugh, the eagerness to delight. So much had happened since those childhood days, so much that needed to be said. But that first night the enormity of it all stole the words from her. That night, it was a blessing enough to be beside him.

No longer in the throes of energetic youthful passion, Laila and Tariq now share a mature bond of unspoken and domestic love. They do not need to speak to each other to express their feelings; their silence and physical intertwining speak volumes of meaning after years of torture and separation.