Home of the Brave

The group’s first major challenge is crossing a six-lane highway, a process that becomes more complicated when Gol decides that the grass and flowers in the median need to be eaten. They finally get Gol moving across the next three lanes, but the light has changed and traffic is coming. Frightened, Gol stops moving and brings traffic to a grinding halt.

As traffic continues to back up, the group is subjected to the yells of the drivers stuck around them. The police show up, but even they cannot get their car through to the cow. The police officers walk over to the group to find out what’s going on. Hannah tells them that they’re taking the cow to the zoo. The police officers are skeptical, calling Gol “a bag of bones” (234). Kek insists that Gol is going to be part of the petting zoo and tells the officers how she likes to have her ears scratched.

With help from the officers, Gol is forced across the rest of the road. The police are worried that the situation could turn dangerous, so they offer to be an escort for the remaining miles to the zoo. Kek feels like the president, with the police car’s red, white, and blue lights whirring behind the group as they walk. He even tells Ganwar that Lual, his older brother, would have loved to be there.

The zoo employees are initially surprised to see the group show up at their gates with an old cow and even more shocked to find out that Kek wants to donate Gol to the petting zoo. He encourages the zoo boss to scratch Gol’s ear, to prove that Gol loves to be petted. When he does so, the boss is charmed by the cow. Hannah points out that the petting zoo doesn’t have a cow, and Ganwar chimes in that Gol is free.

The zoo boss is reluctant to take on a cow who is so “geriatric” (240), but Gol bats her eyes at him and he relents. Ganwar tells Kek that he is amazed by his efforts. Everyone says goodbye to Gol, and Kek leans against her and whispers in her ear. Then, like Kek and Ganwar, Gol is off “to her new land to begin again” (241). On the ride home, Hannah asks Kek what he said to Gol. Kek tells Hannah that he told Gol a variation on his mother’s old advice, that “if she can moo, she can sing” (242).

Fifteen months later, Kek waits at the airport with his family and friends. Hannah stands by his side and he can see in her pocket the letters that her mother has written back to her. He smiles and thinks about the state of hope, how it fluctuates, and how much hard work it is to hold onto.

Kek thinks of how he hoped for silly things when he was a child, and now he hopes for bigger wishes, to “make my new life work, to root to this good, hard land forever” (246). He waits as people disembark from their planes and move through the airport. Finally, he sees the person he is waiting for: his mother. He hears her voice “like laughing water on my thirsty heart” (247) and she embraces him hard. Kek notices the blue-and-yellow scarf around her neck. Kek is speechless, at a loss for words in either of his languages. He walks out of the airport hand in hand with his mother. As they approach the escalator, Kek’s mother is too scared to step on, much like Kek was once. He reaches out to take his mother’s hand and says, “Welcome home” (248).