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8 Relation by Bria Mcclary Flavor of a Star by Peyton Pitts Splayed on the bench, I kept listening for any dropped words like crumbs. The breeze was lonely, brushing past us like an anxious cat, but still quiet for us to hear the stars crunch together. I pulled my phone from my back pocket and attempted to zoom in on my camera, capturing a shy photo of these stars. They were chunky, blistering stars. A pale color, not at all like the yellow you’d see in those cartoons, but a flesh white, almost tainted blue from the surrounding nothingness. I sat there and pointed to the brightest one, looking over at Will and asking what he thought its story was. He looked puzzled with that furrowed brow and smirk combo as he asked me what sort of question had just leaked from my mind. I felt a rumble as Max laughed beneath me. I had been lying on his chest, feeling a strong heart beat to the rhythm of the wind as I spoke to Will, just a few feet over on the bench. Mira had been lying on top my own chest, though I’m sure she didn’t hear as such a heavy melody. Cody was still off in his own mind, describing the constellation to the west as “Cassie,” his apparent favorite. I didn’t look at Will, I stayed facing the star and paged my curious mind not for answers, but for questions that begged to be. “Genuinely, what do you think its story is? Why does it have to shine so bright and why is it far away from the other; do you think they had a fight?” He was looking at me now, eyebrows raised with the smirk, he knew I was being serious. Mira took his place in the conversation as she tickled my nose with a bud of lavender. “I think they broke up,” her finger erupted into view as it accused my bright star, “and that star is budging up next to that one because she wants to make her ex jealous. They’re lesbians, of course.” I felt Max’s breathing shudder as he prepared himself to provide his own input like an old classic, rusty machine turning its wheels for the first time. “Well, if we’re going on this hypothetical route, they may have been lovers, they may have been friends torn by the seed of jealousy. That star was too bright, and so its friend didn’t want to be out shined and moved away. Shit happens.” The orb seemed even brighter to me now, like I was getting closer to the truth. I felt like it could hear us, of all the small little things the star saw us . I heard Mira arguing with Max on whether or not this star was a lesbian, and the star just listened to all our little theories on what story it could tell. About the Writer... Peyton Pitts is a writer in her third year at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She attended Alpha Workshop for Young Writers and has been previously published Elan. She mainly writes in long-form prose, specifically in the genre of horror. This piece is written about a night from her days at Alpha Workshop. About the Artist... Bria McClary is a 12th Grader at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. At the school, Bria is an arts major who dedicates their life to her artistry. They create art, generally in paints, and many kinds of mixed medias like cloths, collage, embroidery, inks, and charcoal because of the looseness the materials give and create with freedom in creating such pieces. Bria also has been a part of NAHS—National Arts Honors Society, and DA Black Arts Club throughout her junior and Senior year at Douglas Anderson. Entering and winning multiple silver keys and a scholarship from Scholastic Art and Writing Awards is also an accomplishment she is most happy about!

21 Life in a Shadow by Isabelle Woods We Call it Our Mother Tongue by Saria Abedin We Call it Our Mother Tongue because it is the melody that our mothers sang to us in lullabies. Because they were the first ever words to birth the voices of our young minds. Yet ever so often, when I find myself afraid That someday it would become foreign to my ears. I remember the sounds that flow through the blood in my veins have carried this language for years. I carry with me the only language for which the Earth was stained in red, The only language for which martyrs stood unwavering to the gunshots that silenced them in my stead. For a generation of voices had echoed battles cries As they fought for every last word, So that one day when it would reach me, My voice could be heard About the Writer... Saria Abedin is a senior at Perry High School, Gilbert Arizona. She writes about memories and moments in her life that define her and inspire the creativity for her interest in writing. Besides enjoying typing away at her laptop or scribbling thoughts in a journal, she loves reading all sorts of literature and poetry, and cannot live without listening to her favorite music. About the Artist... Isabelle Woods was born in Savannah Georgia and has lived their whole life. She knew at a young age that she was interested in doing art. Some of her influences of doing art have come from her grandmother and mom, who both inspired her with their own art. More people that have influenced her are her teachers. Now, attending Savannah Arts Academy, she is able to be creative every day with multiple different kinds of art.

On The Way Home by Zoë Wagner Papa by Olivia Sheftall His breath paled away, smudged out until his body went still. The world kept spinning . I drove home , wondered why so many people were on the road. I wanted to roar at them. Wherever they were going didn’t matter anymore. I couldn’t help but think how insensitive Earth was, d idn’t the Sun know to lower its yellow noise? That funerals were a place for black silence? When Heaven’s Gate opened before him , t he first thing he did w as scoop up the holy water a nd sprinkle it in our eyes: w ater had never felt so pure until that day. It streamed down sidewalks and cheeks , h olding on with fingers and love alike. I wish grief was simple . I want to give a name to the tight stretch of my heart. I want to bandage my soul, w ait a few weeks and find it healed. I want to know how deep the water is, b race my lungs for impact, k now if I’d ever swim back up. I want the English language to have words h eavier than sadness. But the wanting and wishing o nly makes the days go by slower. And if I were him, I’d be so tire d m y body and soul would shake. I’d miss my wife. I’d want to escape every scrap of bruised skin. I’d be ready. So, I don’t curse the people for living, o r the rain for clearing, o r the sun for rising, I just wake up. About the Writer... Olivia Sheftall is a sophomore at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She is a passionate writer of all genres, but has a personal preference for screenwriting. Sheftall has been in numerous spoken word performances, including LaVilla Showcase 2022 and 2023, Coffee House 2023, the Climate Crisis Poetry Contest at Jacksonville University, and many more. About the Artist... Zoë Wagner is a sophomore at Savannah Arts Academy, where she majors in visual arts, an opportunity she's very grateful for. Her favorite medium to use is acrylic paint, but she is inspired by the master oil painters of history and is starting to experiment with it as well. She hopes to continue creating art and developing her skills.

15 Evergreen by Babafemi Fatoki Tidewater by Grace Thomas “You have to write goodbye ,” he said. “So the ghosts know not to stick around.” I rolled my eyes, but wrote it anyway. He was drunk enough that the Virginia had bled out into his oral posture, vowels bent out of shape with the memory of his father’s tidewater raising. I sound so backwoods, he'd say, laughing with his hand over his mouth as though trying to keep the sound of it trapped inside. When I thought about kissing him, I sometimes wondered whether he’d taste like dogwood and creek beds and sweetgrass baking in the sun, teeth dripping with his childhood home. He bent his head low, squinting at the board to make sure that everything was in check, spots of soft darkness appearing on the paper where the rainwater dripped from his hair. Outside the window, thunder cracked so loud I could feel it in my teeth, and he smiled at the sound of it. “Perfect weather for this, huh?” I shrugged my agreement. He struck a match, lit a candle then his cigarette, hands pale like a drowned boy’s. I flipped off the light. Sometimes, when the nights are dark enough, I find myself thinking through all of the cruelest things I could say to him. I lie on my back and stare up at my shadowed bedroom ceiling, watching the fan carve its slow rotation. My heart beats faster as I picture his hand in mine, picture his face as I say I hate you, I hate you, I’ve always hated you . I don’t mean it, of course. I’d never tell it to him, anyway. But I think that’s why the thought of it grips me so damn hard. Like tossing your phone onto the metro tracks. It’s forbidden, and therefore it calls to me. Tonight, I picture pulling the planchette over and over back to goodbye, hands moving in subtle deceit. He’d get excited at first, try to frame it as a reluctant spirit disturbed from its slumber by our homemade ouija board, our dollar store taper candles. But slowly the disillusionment would set in, and he’d look at me with those sharp-edged, knowing eyes. “Cut it out, will you? This isn’t a joke?”“Then what is it?” I’d reply. He would furrow his brow. I wouldn’t. “Honestly? You can quit all of this ghost hunting bullshit,” I would say. “If you want to see your father again, just keep drinking like him.” The only thing that makes me shiver more than picturing him crying is picturing how his face would feel pressed against my shoulder as I apologized and he forgave me. But I would never say these things to him, of course. Never let him show me the moth-wing shudder of his breath as he sobs. It’s late; I’m alone. The rain beats against my bedroom window like a thousand fists, conjured souls that hadn’t been properly sealed away. I imagine it filling up the gutters and the drainage ditch, then seeping onto the sidewalk like a pot boiling over. It would lift up every broken bottle and glinting puddle of leaked oil and the dead rabbit rotting by my bus stop with its legs splayed out and its eyes glazed and unseeing. All of it coursing down the avenue like the river Styx swollen with memory, washing everything clean. I close my eyes. Tidewater raising. About the Writer... Grace Thomas is a senior at Montgomery Blair High School. She writes poems and short stories, which have been recognized in local publications and competitions. She is the head literary editor of Blair’s literary magazine, SilverQuill. She lives in Maryland, where she enjoys spending time with her friends and her cat. About the Artist... Babafemi Fatoki is a senior at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. At DASOTA, Babafemi is a visual arts major. The medium of their piece is paint.

< Table of Contents Lurking by Sophia Gapuz the disease called home. By Anayelli Andrews-Nieves The machinery hums its familiar tones. Lyrical stories and medicinal lies Course through my veins, And yet, even with that saccharine anesthetic, I can’t get it out of my sight— the way everything in the house seemed to live , how each system pulsed and breathed, and my survival hinged on all of it. “Bougainvillea petals are floating in my IV.” Bougainvillea petals are floating in my IV. i can see the tree from that hospital bed’s window. i picked the petals from the concrete and mixed them in myself. Their memories leak out and The color seeps in. My skin is colored a shade that looks so wrong, Blooming from blemished skin. it’s a shade that once meant i was home. I’m dyed down to my bones In the colors of a dead man. they were supposed to save me. the systems have already stopped sending signals. the house became pallor and cold a long time ago, and yet the curtain hasn’t been pulled over it. “allow me,” and “i wouldn’t dare,” the heart monitor screams as my fingers run along white fabric. sometimes i think i must be a corpse still attached to life support, endless wires connected jaggedly to my veins. they stretch and tear and dig into my rotting, festering flesh. when (if) it ends, will these marks be burned away? there is no remedy for what isn’t a disease, and a decayed heart cannot beat again, so what am i to do? sweetening my senses until there’s nothing left, swallowing down falsities, i’ve changed nothing. that place is still so very far, so far that i shouldn’t be able to say “i still, i still, i still,” but the words form the sound of my pulse, and the words stab into my heart. i still hear birds chirping in a cage on the front porch, i still find myself in sync with the whirring of an oxygen machine, and i have such a weak heart that it will beat in a different rhythm if it believes its going at the wrong pace. But for my own sake Even with my weakened body, I can stand At the gravestone of a memory. About the Writer... Anayelli Andrews-Nieves is a student at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in the Creative Writing department and a member of the Black Arts club. She is a biracial, queer writer and was born and raised in Florida. She enjoys writing and reading fantasy stories that have a balance of character and plot focus. A side from fiction, she also has an interest in free verse poetry that uses visceral descriptions to get across intense emotional ideas. About the Artist... Sophia Gapuz is a visual artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida. She majors in drawing and painting, and explores the world in an emotionally abstract lens, continually searching to create something new.

Giana Bradshaw Giana Bradshaw is a senior in the Creative Writing Department at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She enjoys writing fiction and performing spoken word.

Astrid Henry Astrid Henry is a senior at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, where she is majoring in Creative Writing. She is the Senior Managing Editor of Élan, and Co-Chair of the Student Homecoming Committee.

bdaef953-30b4-4207-acd3-a2a92ccdebf0 Pisgah by Audrey Lendvay The Willful by Nayra McMahan The garden in my backyard is dead. I planted it in a spring long past, dug my small hands into the rainy earth and poked holes small enough for my seeds— Roma tomatoes, pickling cukes, pumpkins— to find comfortable. I spent hours planting, kneeling before the boundary I’d created between grass and fresh earth until it felt something like home. Summer never brought me the growth I was seeking, though. An unforgiving sun fried the tomatoes before they were green; the pumpkins and cucumbers never even sprouted. Weeds, teeming with barbed seeds, took root in the earth that I had worked in. No gloves could keep my hands safe. I let my hands bleed, dripping life into the soil. Now, relentless yellow Florida grass clumps where the tall weeds aren’t. It settles its roots into the home I made, inserts itself where it was not welcome, and grows. Grows, despite it all. Despite the weeds above it taking the sun, even when they’re dead and dry and browning, selfish corpses. Florida grass doesn’t worry about its yellow. It doesn’t care that it’s splotchy and rough on bare feet. It fights for sunlight. I want dirt under my nails again. I want grit and bitter yellow in my blood, the strength to have roots that live through frost, through fire. Roots that find comfort in my beating, beautiful Florida sun and grow new green leaves as soon as they burst up, stubborn and singing, through the dirt. Return to Table of Contents

Élan is a literary magazine publishing the best writing and art from high school students around the world. This page has all the information you need to submit your writing and art to Élan. Fall/Winter submissions are closed. Poetry Poems can be any length and style, but must be single-spaced and in 12-point Times New Roman. Creative Non-Fiction Essays up to 3,000 words may be submitted with excerpt, 1,200 words or under, clearly noted. As with fiction, if a piece is selected and over 1,200 words, the excerpted section is the only portion that will receive publication. Must be 12 point double-spaced Times New Roman. Plays & Screenplays Submit full manuscripts with potential excerpts clearly noted. Pieces over 1,200 words must have a marked excerpt. All excerpted submissions should include the full manuscript with the selected portion clearly marked. If a piece is selected and over 1,200 words, only the excerpted portion will receive publication. We ask that all plays and screenplays be submitted as Word documents. You may use sites such as WriterDuet, Final Draft, Word, or Celtx. However, we ask that you convert your PDF scripts to Word documents. Some sites that are available for you to use are Smallpdf or Simplepdf Convertor. GET NOTIFIED WHEN THEY OPEN We welcome student produced visual art including photography, drawing, painting, ceramics, sculpture, mixed media, and printmaking. All art pieces must be submitted as a jpeg or a png. Please provide a high quality image (at least 300 dpi and 2MB.) We are looking for diverse artwork which seeks to tell a story. Take a look at our recent issues to see the kind of work we are publishing. Art GET NOTIFIED WHEN THEY OPEN Hybrid Hybrid pieces written on a Word document should be submitted under Writing Submissions while pieces containing artwork should be submitted under Art Submissions. "Bloom" by Hannah Botella View More General Guidelines Élan accepts original fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, plays, and art of all mediums from students ages fourteen to eighteen anywhere in the world. We produce two online editions a year, one in the Fall/Winter and another in the Spring/Summer. The two editions are combined into a single p rint edition each s ummer. All writers and artists who have their work chosen for the Fall/Winter or Spring/Summer Edition will be mailed a free copy of the print edition in which their piece appears. Élan holds first serial rights for material that we publish. The copyright automatically reverts to the author upon publication. We will not accept any art or writing pieces that are graphically sexual or gratuitously violent. Minor profanity is acceptable so long as it’s not excessive. We only accept original work. If you submit work that is not your own, we will not publish it. After we have reviewed all submissions, accepted submissions will be sent a confirmation email. This email will confirm the title, spelling of first & last name, along with serial rights (full right to publish and use work for marketing/ social media purposes) from the submitter. Upon being sent this email we give seven calendar days to receive confirmation. All submissions should be sent to elanlitmagazine@gmail.com . All submitters may only send three pieces. Fiction Poetry Creative Nonfiction Plays & Screenplays Art Hybrid Email Submission Guidelines : Writing (Required) The subject of the email should be the writer’s full name and then “Writing Submission.” (For example: Sara Rodgers Writing Submission) In the body of the email, please include the writer's name, age, primary email, school, city, and home address, followed by the titles and the genre (ie, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, etc.) of each piece being submitted. If applicable, include a sponsoring teacher’s name and email address. Include a professional biography (150 words maximum, in 3rd person). Example: Sara Rodgers is a sophomore at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. They love writing poetry, and riding horses in their free time. Each piece must be attached as a separate WORD DOCUMENT and the file MUST be named the title of the piece. Élan only accepts editable WORD DOCUMENTS at this time. Élan only accepts original work, and fanfictions will not be considered for publication. Do not include your name in the body of the document, as all submissions go through a blind reading process by our staff. Make sure your piece title is included at the top of the document. If you want to submit work to Élan that has been rejected from a previous edition, the piece must have first gone through major revisions or else it will not be considered for publication. Any piece submitted that uses any form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will not be considered for publication and the submitted will be blacklisted from submitting in the future Douglas Anderson students will submit through the forms posted around campus—not through email. You may not submit more than three pieces in a single submission period. Email Submission Guidelines: Art (Required) The subject of the email should be the artist’s full name and then “Art Submission.” (For example: Sara Rodgers Art Submission) In the body of the email, please include the artist’s name, age, primary email, school, city, and home address, followed by the titles and the medium (ie, oil on canvas, charcoal, photograph, print, etc.) of each piece being submitted. If applicable, include a sponsoring teacher’s name and email address. Include a professional biography (150 words maximum, in 3rd person). Example: Sara Rodgers is a sophomore at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. Their favorite medium to use is acrylic paint, though their watercolor paintings have also won awards. Name each art file “Piece Title (Full Name)”—example, “Water (Sara Rodgers).” The art pieces must be a jpeg or png file. Submit the highest resolution quality format that can be sent as an attachment – 300 dpi or higher, and at least 2 MB. If your art does not meet the dpi requirement, there is no guarantee your art can be published. Ensure that the photo of your art is clear and taken from a straight angle so that all aspects of the piece are visible with minimal glare. Élan only accepts original work, and fan art will not be considered for publication. If you want to submit work to Élan that has been rejected from a previous edition, the piece must have first gone through major revisions or else it will not be considered for publication. Any piece submitted that uses any form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will not be considered for publication and the submitted will be blacklisted from submitting in the future Douglas Anderson students will submit through the forms posted around campus—not through email. You may not submit more than three pieces in a single submission period. Fiction Poetry Creative Nonfiction Plays & Screenplays Art Fiction Micro-fiction, short-stories and excerpts of larger stories up to 5,000 words are acceptable. Pieces over 1,200 words must have a marked excerpt. All excerpted submissions should include the full manuscript with selected portion clearly marked. If a piece is selected and over 1,200 words, only the excerpted portion will receive publication. Must be 12 point double-spaced Times New Roman.

75fbf722-74e2-4369-a394-331442371c4a Wasting Time by Elizaveta Kalacheva Recursions by Nolan Lee I couldn’t cope with the stone in my brain when Sir left. Things vomited words like pills from a pink gullet. Water swimming by like a fish. Sound’s sound. Visions of my dog having caught his own tail turning red turning into a snake, turning. I could not see red but the color of red, not myself but the one acting as myself, etc. Hereness, thereness, sameness: The mannequin in the department store’s Men’s section, a good clean knife, crossing out your annotations on Pygmalion. Here there Sir you’d written nonsense dictionaries filled them with invectives segueing to non-sequiturs made me understand them. You’d said a stone is made for throwing. You’d see the lean dogs hung on their own bones and tell me throw the stone. I didn’t question yourself. Flew as cruel as its own silence. You’d said stop staring at your eyelids. The bird was leaving with a stone in its beak. I say to Sylvie, your brag couldn’t last thirty years: “I am, I am, I am,” but Morning alone is just a dish of ash. I’ve seen the sun careen and crash like a man without children. It is okay, I say. I am my own child. Return to Table of Contents

Nomos (The Law) Ninah Gibson Nomos (The Law) Ninah Gibson Return to Table of Contents

Dear Linh Kate Kim My grandma’s backyard still looks the same. The potted little yellow flowers on the veranda. The shady arbor wrapped in twisting branches and climbing vines. The wooden bench, splintery and peeling, yet sturdier than any store bought seat. The rows and rows of strange and exotic fruits and vegetables, all in various stages of growth. The large oak tree, with its leaves healthy and lush, its branches stronger than ever. I like to think that everything is the same. But it isn’t, and that is everywhere. Images of my grandpa repairing the brown picket fence, humming nonsensical tunes to his own whimsy, flash by like mirages. Pictures of him on his knees, working alongside my grandma in the garden, and with his deep, throaty laughter as he spun small children around with his arms. He seems to have taken Bà’s soft smile, her airy laugh, and sparkling eyes along with him. The fried scent of bánh tai heo , “pig ear” cookies wafts into my nose as I look around, temporarily wiping any melancholy thoughts away. I trace the scent to the backyard door, where Bà is carefully walking towards me, holding a bright red porcelain plate stacked with her signature treat. She sets them down on the table, the plate thudding dully on contact. “How are you, dear Linh?” she asks, her words slightly stilted from her accent. She slides into the chair and folds her hands together. Her thinning white hair is pinned up, although wispy frontal strands drift astray of the ponytail, brushing against her tanned, wrinkled skin. “I’m good,” I mumble through a mouthful of crisp, sweet cookie. “Oh, lovely,” she says softly. She strokes the kitty, Maggie, absentmindedly and her gaze clouds over as she stares off into the distance, as if covered by an invisible film of sadness. “Ngoại ?” I say tentatively. “Unh?” She shifts in the chair to smile at me. The corners of her eyes crinkle into their well-worn lines. “Are you all right?” “Oh, yes.” She bobs her head in a nod. Under my doubtful stare, she pauses, as she seems to play with the right words, and simply adds, “I . . . miss him.” There is a palpable weight on my stomach when I say, “I’m sorry.” My grandmother, my bà ngoại, so strong, who has gone through so much, looks so fragile. So sad. I don’t know what to say to help ease her pain. “I miss him too,” I bumble. She smiles sadly, then pats my hand. “Cám ơn con ,” she says. Thank you . The effort in her voice to lighten the conversation is apparent. She takes a deep breath and resettles her shoulders, a reset, if in posture only. “You see that tree?” she asks, looking over at me to make sure I am understanding. “Chú Quang and I are going to cut. We build a greenhouse. Much better for plants.” Her stilted words and long pauses leave broken holes in the sentence. It takes me a second, then the crushing meaning of the words falls down on me. "Oh,” I say. My cookie tastes like cardboard now. “When?” She reaches for a cookie of her own. “Quang is coming by next week,” she tells me, seemingly oblivious to my thundering heart. “We try to finish by end of January.” She bites into the cookie, then makes a face. “This is not good,” she spits. “Bá ngoại did a bad job.” She pushes the plate away. “It is too cold out here,” she says. “Inside?” “. . . Yes, of course,” I say, after some hesitation, and push my chair back to stand up. She gets up from her own chair, much more slowly than I. She strains to get up; her hands tremble as they press against the armrests and a strenuous pink blossoms across her cheeks. Somewhere in the back of my head I know that something’s not right, but I bury it deep, deep down. Bà is okay; she is healthy and strong . I convince myself that saying this makes it true. But fear lingers in the back of my head, sticky and creeping and sending chills down my spine. She has to be okay. “You… you did it,” I whisper, my mouth falling open. “You cut it down.” It’s April, and the sun is finally overcoming the crisp chilly air. It’s been three months since Bà’s fall—right after Tết, the Lunar New Year, and almost two months since her return from the hospital. We’re standing in her backyard, staring at the stump of a tree that, not even a week ago, proudly stretched high in the sky. “I did,” she says simply. “Now there is room for the greenhouse!” My eyes feel like they are bubbling, and my face feels hot. Grandpa planted that tree thirty years ago. Gone. Gone, gone, gone. “Linh,” she says gently as hot tears spill down my cheeks. “Oh, dear Linh.” Her comforting words don’t help me; her wrinkled, tanned hands, capable of soothing any injury, heal nothing. The change in the air is unbearable. The tree is gone, and she’s so fragile , and I don’t know what to do. I can’t control anything right now. I need things to be the same. “Bà —” “Oh, good, dear Linh.” My grandma’s frail, wrinkled hand reached up and pats my hand cheerfully, like she isn’t lying in a hospital bed surrounded by chirping, humming machines whose purpose I can’t even begin to fathom. “How are you feeling?” I ask, settling into one of the plastic armchairs that sit by her bed. My uncle is in the other, his eyes closed. I’m not sure if he’s sleeping. He’s been fussing over my grandma all day. “Okay,” Bá hem-haws. “I have many people taking care of me. How about you? You are good?” “I’m good,” I say hesitantly. “Good?” She inspects me closely, scanning my face. “No, I do not think so.” Her warm fingers brush against my forehead. “I am,” I say, but it’s hard to swallow. She touches my cheek. “Linh,” she says calmly. “Look at me. Tôi đang lành lại —I am getting better every day. You can’t do any -thing.” This last part is said rather bluntly as she leans back on her bed. “I fell. We cut the tree. It happened. All done. Now we just focus on how to fix.” She pauses, thinking. “Or how to grow.” Her words are clipped, blurred, mixed up in the space between her native tongue and English, but I know what she’s trying to get across. I marvel at how my small little grandma can use the few words in her limited English inventory to land such a hard punch. Beside me, Uncle Quang lets out a loud snore. “Is there anything I can do?” I blurt after an extended period of silence, surprised that coherent words are able to tumble past the rock in my throat. “Oh, yes,” she says, looking pleased. She draws herself up and starts rambling off a list of things in Vietnamese. “I need my sewing basket, my cup—” “Hang on—” I scramble for my phone and jot down all her wish list items. She continues. “—book on my bed table—ahhmm—pillow? Mmm . . . kem đánh răng —how do you say?”—she jabs Uncle Quang awake and asks him something in rapid-fire Vietnamese, who replies groggily, “Toothpaste?” (“Ah! Yes!”), then continues, “Picture of Ông Ngoại …and pretzels.” The corners of her lips curve into a smile. I don’t know why she loves Snyder's pretzel rods. She always keeps a stockpile of at least three king-size bags in her pantry. I read the list back to her to double-check. She nods, pleased, once I’ve finished reciting it. I kiss her on the cheek, then get into the car and drive to her house. Maggie is right at the door when I unlock it, mewing at me angrily. “Hello, Maggie,” I giggle, slipping my sneakers off. “I know. I’m sorry. Bà being sick is tough on you too, isn’t it?” Maggie stalks across the floor. “But she’s shown us she can fight.” I pause, thinking about her struggle these past few months. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned about her, it’s that she’s one tough cookie. . .She’ll get better soon.” I continue my monologue as I pour some cat food for Maggie. First on Bà’s list is her mug. I’m already digging through the cupboard for her floral peony mug when the window catches my eye. I walk outside, Maggie at my heels, and sit on the bench, facing the stump with a clear view of the expansive backyard. I lean back and take a look at the potted little yellow flowers on the veranda. The shady arbor wrapped in twisting branches and climbing vines. The handcrafted wooden bench, splintery and peeling but sturdier than any store-bought seat. The rows and rows of strange and exotic fruits and vegetables—longan, grapefruit, guava, all carefully selected by Bà—all in various stages of growth. . .and the oak stump. I take one long look at it, in all its glory, and walk towards it, inspecting it closely. Yes, things aren’t the same. But that’s okay. I think it is. There’s nothing more to do—nothing I can do. My gaze falls on a few forgotten planks of wood by the stump, and I think of the abandoned efforts to build a greenhouse. Bà’s words in the hospital come drifting back to me. Now we just focus on how to fix. I slide my fingers along the smooth bark, wondering. Or how to grow. With an effort that’s almost painful, I wrench away and walk back to the house. Bà is still waiting. Return to Piece Selection