Page 66 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

“Mary is a pain in the ass, isn’t she?”

“Sure is. But what the hell would Laura have done without her? Go on, Bee, play the next one.”

They watched until they both began to drowse on the couch, the drawl of Ma and Pa humming in the background. Calla giggled in her sleep, waking Vivi. In that moment, a smile still on her lips, her lashes long on her cheeks, Calla was eight again, a ruddy-faced kid running in the woods.

Vivi reached over to slip the antler ring from Calla’s hand. She placed it onto her own finger, unable to discern whether it was a relief or a discomfort to claim the ring’s warm weight again.

“My turn,” she whispered.

To: Paul Quân [[email protected]]

From: VivianNguy?n[[email protected]]

Subject: Re: an offering

Paul,

You won’t believe where I am. Or maybe you will. Below me, the mountains of Kazakhstan sit beneath a tattered afghan of clouds. The peaks jut through every so often, like bony kneecaps, and even though it’s almost night, I can make them out. I’ve never been to Kazakhstan. I’ve never been to LongXuyêneither, but that’s where I’ll be in a few short hours. And then, when I return, I’ll move backward through time zones again, reclaiming whatever I lost along the way. Hopefully.

First: thank you. Your offering changed everything for me. The location you sent pointed me to a town inVi?tNam, as you said. I have a strong belief that K. P.Lýwas born at that spot, or at least, spent time there. Maybe that’s even where she disappeared to in the end. Yes, she.

Because you’ve given me trust—companionship—during this pursuit, I can give you something too. Forgive the way I’m about to tell this story. I’ve always thought flying in an airplane to be a dissociative experience—we’re between places, between fields of consciousness. The pressure in my ears makes me feel dizzy and odd, but also clear and wise. So my narrative will likely reflect the strangeness of my circumstance.

Here we go.

Imagine at the start of our story a young woman, an artist, born between a vast fold of farmland and the press of a river that once carried emperorsand pestilence, flower petals and frog innards alike. Within this contradiction of sublimity and crudeness, the artist honed her eye for beauty and molded her spirit to accommodate horror. Her name,Tâm, means “heart,” and for all the betrayals she would endure and inflict, that heart remained steadfast in the things she most loved...

Chapter 21

To the customs agent at TânSonNh?t, Vivi and Calla declared that they were visiting family. Vivi half expected to have to explain the mixed circumstances of the word to the man at the counter, but he only stamped their passports with a thud and waved them on.

The humidity of Ho Chi Minh City gummed in their throats. Within the inexorable crush of bodies the sisters were led along like sprats in a teeming school. Oblivious to the annoyed glances around her, Vivi paged through her guidebook, waving her phone in front of her as she tried to hook onto some reception. Calla tutted, then grabbed her arm, pulling her through the crowd to the taxi stand.

“You’re going to get run over, slowpoke.”

“We don’t know where we’re going,” Vivi protested.

“We’ll figure it out.”

Vivi had to admit that Calla was a more capable traveler. Where Vivi fumbled her way through her foreignness, Calla barreled ahead, certain that she’d be welcome wherever she landed. It was this confidence—uniquely American, perhaps, but certainly unique to Calla—that made others want to give her what she asked for. One couldn’t learn charisma, Vivi thought with a sigh.

“I can’t believe this is the first time I’m here,” Calla said. “He promised he’d take us someday.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Well, after Mom left—died—he hardly ever left Deer Creek.”

“He wanted to, I’m sure.”

Tu?n, traveling home years ago, back when he was strong and whole and alive, would have parted the crowds deliberately, the way a bull moves through a pasture, with no regard for jostling shoulders or swerving luggage carts. Maybe his relatives welcomed him when he landed, wrapping him with news and gossip that created silken threads of connection to lure him from the half-remembered routines of Deer Creek.

Once, snooping in her father’s luggage after one of his trips, Vivi found a photograph ofTu?nwith his arm around another man. They sat in front of a noodle stand, serious and unsmiling. Above them, white cirrus filaments, the flustered canopy of a bodhi tree. The men were turned to each other with an intimacy that she’d rarely seenTu?nexhibit. She’d counted the photograph among the mysteries he hid from her and her sister, but now wondered if it might have beenKi`êu, the lost brother he rarely spoke of.

Calla said, “But Dad didn’t go. That’s the thing. He stayed with us. And that counts for something, doesn’t it?”

Soon, tucked with their luggage in a taxi, the sisters flew through the city center to their hotel, a persimmon-colored building with tiny rooms and a broad view of the packed city streets. A fan swiveled from the corner, stirring flecks of dust from the tiled floors.

Calla opened the window and let in the smells and sounds of the city. The same, in some ways, as those they’d find in Chicago; and yet, here, they took on a different texture entirely, one that gave the sisters an unexpected sense of rootedness.