, whose existence they were previously unaware of, and their father, whom they believed was dead. Jeanne accepts; Simon, on the other hand, seemingly having had a more difficult relationship with Nawal and her apparently unusual personality, is reluctant to join Jeanne on this pursuit. A series of flashbacks reveal Nawal came from a Christian Arab family in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, and that she fell in love with a refugee named Wahab, resulting in her pregnancy. Her family murders her lover and nearly shoots her as an honor killing, but her grandmother spares her, making her promise to leave the village after the birth of her baby and start a new life in the fictional city of Daresh. The grandmother tattoos the back of the baby's heel and sends him to an orphanage. While Nawal is at university in Daresh, civil war and war crimes break out with Nawal opposing the war on human rights grounds. Her son's orphanage in Kfar Khout is destroyed by a Muslim militant, Chamseddine, who converts him into an Islamic child soldier. After traveling to her mother's native country, Jeanne gradually uncovers this past and persuades Simon to join her. With help from Lebel, they learn their brother's name is Nihad of May and track down Chamseddine. Simon meets with him personally, and he reveals the war-mad Nihad was captured by the nationalists, turned by them, trained as a torturer, and then sent to Kfar Ryat, where he took the name Abou Tareq, making him both the twins' half-brother and father; as such, both letters are addressed to the same person.

Like Nawal, Nihad's superiors gave him a new life in Canada after the war. By chance, Nawal encountered him at a Canadian swimming pool and saw both the tattoo and his face. The shock of learning the truth caused Nawal to suffer a stroke which led to her decline and untimely death at age sixty. Nawal gets her gravestone in the aftermath of the letters being sent.