When Lyle Arnolds is seven, his parents drive to pick up Sara, who is eight—they are going to the state fair in Des Moines, Iowa. It is summer, and the sun hurts. The month has been full of storms. Lyle doesn’t know this will be his last anchored memory of Sara Morales as a young child. A year later, she will move to Kansas. Other memories float: he and Sara chase shadows along the Iowa River, unless it is Lake MacBride; it is March or it is April. That afternoon at the fair is certain. It is 1999, it is August, and Sara’s hair is loosely braided.
Sara runs from the house to the parked car and sits next to Lyle. His parents promise they’re only getting out to “say a quick hello,” but Lyle knows the adults will take forever.
Sara says, “Your parents and my parents, they’re like birds. They go tweet tweet for no reason, no reason.”
Lyle says, “My mom is the biggest bird.”
“There should be a hunter who doesn’t kill her. He would just tell her she’s not a bird. And she’d say, ‘Yes sir.’” [ . . . ]
————
Digital subscriptions to American Short Fiction are coming soon.