Kelley Citrin

Arkar followed the collapsing wall that marked the edge of his family’s property, its stones the spine of some long-dead ambition. From the road, the house was indistinguishable from any other in the hollow, just a tired old clapboard thing with a sagging porch. Nothing about it would seem out of place to a passerby, except for the faint smell of lemongrass.

The other clue was the front door. A small American flag hung above it, faded but intact. Just below was the Karen flag that his A-phwa wiped clean every week. That second flag might have bothered some folks in town, had anyone known enough to begin asking what it was. 

Arkar didn’t use that door anymore, not since his uncle had converted the living room into a makeshift office. Instead, he followed the muddy path worn into the side yard to the kitchen door. He pushed it open and stepped inside.He had to squeeze between the edge of the refrigerator and a table, his hip bumping a stack of empty pickle jars.

His grandmother was perched on a step-stool in front of the stove. Oil from her pan popped through stream of chatter that passed between her and Arkar’s mother, who was taking her day out on a counter of cilantro. The smell of Chet tha hin had already overtaken the house, crowding out the faint scents of Pledge and lavender essential oil.

“Arkar, ah! There you are,” she said. “Come, come. Taste for A-phwa .Tell me if it needs more salt.” She held the wooden spoon out, a drop of golden curry clinging to its tip.

Before Arkar could take a single step, his mother had eyes on him. “He can taste in a minute,” she said, eyes flicking from her mother to her son. “First, hang up your jacket properly, take that stack of pickle jars down to the basement, and then get the big rice pot for me. The one on the top shelf.”

His grandmother’s smile didn’t falter, and she shrugged. Arkar turned and crouched, gathering the awkward stack of cool glass jars into his arms. They clinked unsteadily as he straightened up.

His path to the basement door led him directly past the stove, and he kept his eyes on the precarious tower in his hands.He didn’t see the ambush coming. As he drew level with the step-stool, a wooden spoon shot out like a hummingbird’s beak and met his mouth. He had no choice but to open up.

Lemongrass, turmeric, and ginger. The deep chili burn. He swallowed hard as his grandmother leaned in and whispered, “More salt?”

“It’s perfect, A-phwa ,” he managed, knowing it would never be perfect until his grandmother said so.

“Now, the truth. More fish sauce?” Before he could answer, his mother pointed at him with the handle of her knife. “The jars, Arkar. Go. Before you drop them and I have to clean up the glass.”

The wooden stairs groaned into the cool damp dark. Arkar set the jars on a shelf, and when he did, a whine huffed from the corner. Their old dog Poe was dreaming again. His paws twitched, chasing something through a field of old blankets. Arkar knelt, and the dog’s tail gave a slow thump against the concrete as he scratched behind his ears. The twitching stopped. Poe sighed, settling deeper into sleep.

“Sleep, old man,” he whispered. With a final pat he left elder Poe to his dreams.

Coming up from the basement, he saw the rest of the family were bundled in their cubbies like groceries just brought in. His uncle Aung sat at the card table, cycling between spreadsheets on his laptop and occasionally announcing updates from the evening news. His aunt was now face-down on the living room sofa, dead to the world and snoring just under the kitchen’s frequency. At the far end of the hall, Arkar’s younger cousins played some game involving shouting and a soccer ball.

Arkar ducked away into the hall, settling on the floor with his back against the wall. He pulled out his algebra book and the battered sketch paper he kept hidden within its pages. Propping the textbook up on his knees, his drawings behind cover, he was shielded from the rest of the house.

He managed the first delicate point of the Eastern Phoebe’s beak, then lost the line as a shriek erupted from his cousins’ game and made his fingers waver. The house was rushing in: sputtering oil, the wet gargle of his aunt’s snores. He tried again but the sounds had already erased the bird from his mind.

He glanced at his uncle, whose attention was split three ways. “Uncle Aung, is it okay if I go out for a little bit?”

Aung looked up, his brow furrowing. “Homework is finished?”

“Math and science, yeah. I just have to finish the English thing.”

His uncle eyed him, the way he always did when calculating the exact number of lies in a sentence. He nodded toward the kitchen. “That’s not for me to say. Go ask your mother and A-phwa.”

Arkar’s shoulders slumped. The harder way. He turned and walked back to the kitchen doorway, where the chopping and sizzling were a wall of sound.

“Ma?” he said, hovering. “Can I go out for a little? To the woods?”

His mother didn’t look up from the cilantro. “For what? To get your knees muddy before dinner?”

“Let the boy get some air,” A-phwa said, turning from the stove with a smile. “His head is full of school. Go, Arkar.”

She poinited at him with the handle of her knife. “You are back here the minute I call you. Not one minute later. And take the flashlight. I don’t want a repeat of last week.”

“I will. Thanks, Ma,” Arkar said, already backing away. He grabbed the flashlight and binoculars from the hook in the mudroom, and shrugged into his grandfather’s jacket.

The air outside was ten degrees cooler. At the edge of the yard, a shallow gully ran behind the property, threading through tangles of bramble and black-raspberry canes. Arkar followed it, ducking beneath limbs and into the corridor of muddy green.

Only here did his thoughts begin to unspool.

He moved quietly, a habit from years of birding with his grandfather. Arkar could walk a quarter mile and leave barely a footprint. Even so close to the edge of town, the wilds pressed in. White pines towered overhead, their boughs obscuring the fading light. Beneath the canopy, the floor was carpeted with Canada mayflowers and the yellow blossoms of lady’s slipper. He loved the curve of their petals and the way the sun lit their insides like tiny lanterns.

His phone vibrated in his pocket but he ignored it. Instead, he flipped open his binoculars and scanned the upper branches. His grandfather had taught him to start at the treetops and work his way down, like reading a story from headline to fine print. 

His destination was the old sugar shack, a minute or so beyond the last trace of the backyard. It was a relic from the days before the town’s edge advanced in slow, uneven pulses. The shack was half-standing but its roof still kept out the worst of the rain, and inside there was a battered folding chair and the remains of a fire pit. Arkar had claimed it as his outpost last summer, fixing the hinges on the door with duct tape and stashing a couple of granola bars in a sealed jar on the shelf. He imagined himself as caretaker of the place, its only human resident. 

Then a little grey-brown bird zipped past and settled in the corner of the rafters. A moment later, its partner followed, carrying moss. There they were,a bit of moss. His Eastern Phoebes. Arkar held his breath, a slow smile spreading across his face. He just knew they were the same two from last summer. These teeny tiny little birds had flown thousands of miles to somewhere warm and lush, and for some reason had come all the way back. Not just to the same forest, but to this same little shack.  

He opened the journal. With the world held at a distance, he could find his pencil line again. His breathing slowed to a calm rise. He found the eye; the world reduced to this point.

After time, his Phoebe appeared on the page, a piece of the wild made true, a quiet answer to a loud day.