Grennan returns to his mother’s home in New Jersey after his second volunteering stint at the Little Princes. After working in Prague, volunteering in Nepal, and traveling the world in between, “For the first time in ten years, I had come home to stay, to find a job, to settle down” (98). The author’s friends celebrate his homecoming by offering dinner, drinks, and potential matches with eligible women. While still living at his mother’s house in New Jersey, Grennan begins to search for jobs in New York City. Although the experience at the orphanage fundamentally changed him, Grennan acknowledges that it appears as just a single line on his resume.

News of Nepal’s worsening civil war is making headlines in the United States, which often distracts Grennan from his job search. Due to severe fighting between the Maoist rebels and King Gyanendra’s royal army, “Nepal had reached a boiling point” (99). After some weeks at home, Grennan receives an upsetting email from Viva Bell, the woman who runs the Umbrella Foundation. Bell informs Grennan that despite her many efforts, her team was unable to retrieve the seven children and bring them to the orphanage. Golkka, the child trafficker, had found the children and trafficked them across Kathmandu in an attempt to hide the evidence of his illegal operation.