With a polite nod, Hlee wrapped a warm bun with a napkin and grabbed a second for the boy outside. He was cutting ineffectually at the sculpture again, the slight curve of his mouth indicating he wasn’t worried about his lack of skill. The sculpture in question was supposed to be a crane, its slender neck extended.

“Um, Niam Tais was wondering if you wanted one,” she said as he looked up again. The genuine joy in his face as he took the proffered sweet bun made her insides squirm.

“Thanks.” He took an enormous bite. His eyes fluttered shut, the pleasure in his expression so acute that it was almost indecent.

Her face went hot, and she looked away. Nearby, a chicken perched on the stone cap of a large mushroom sculpture. She shooed the bird away and took its place on the mushroom.

“I’m Argus,” he said between bites.

Making small talk wasn’t a talent she possessed, so she said nothing. Instead, she watched the chickens putter about the yard as she ate through the middle of the sweet bun, where it was stuffed with vibrant green pandan jelly.

Argus shoved the last of the bread into his mouth, swallowed thickly, and asked, “So what’s your story?”

Brushing crumbs off her fingertips, Hlee raised one eyebrow and repeated, “My story? Like . . . where’d I come from?”

She hated that question. Where are you from? It immediately set her apart, made her something other. Her parents had lived in Boston when they had her, and then moved to Little Nova when she was two. Hlee was Hmong, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t also completely American.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “Where you’re from and what your story is can be two completely separate things.”

She didn’t know what he meant, so she shrugged one shoulder. He seemed not to mind, because he retrieved the knife from the dirt and held it out, handle first.

She shook her head. “I’ll ruin it.”

“Not any more than I already have.” He grinned. “If it makes you feel better, she said I could resculpt it however I wanted.”

Niam Tais rarely let anyone touch her mismatched lawn sculptures. Hlee supposed that if the woman had welcomed this boy into her home, he couldn’t be anywhere near as bad as the kids in Little Nova. She rose from the mushroom cap, and they swapped seats.

“Niam Tais has been chipping away at this thing for years,” she said, running her fingers along the jagged indentations left by Argus.

“Yeah, I think she just wanted to keep me from doing any more damage in there,” he said. His ears turned pink as he grimaced. “I threw out a bunch of the bark shavings she’d left on her counter.”

Hlee’s eyes went wide. “Those are her medicines. She sells those.”