Empty Nesters

First we bonded over our unusual pets. Then we bonded over butchering them

- YASUKO THANH

I’D DO ANYTHING for love. My boyfriend, Shon, bought a shotgun house in Prince ton, BC, on the traditional territory of the Upper Similkameen people. I’m learning to love the small town, roughly four hours by car from Vancouver Island, where I live. I’m learning to see beauty in the old copper mine and the abandoned cabins that stand in waist-high weeds, though I’ve always had more of an affinity for cities. Concrete. Hard, even surfaces that leave nothing to the imagination.

When I visit Shon, he gives me pointers on catching frogs and grins when I plop one into the bucket with my bare hands.

He has a penchant for unusual pets. “Chickens,” he said one day. By then, we’d co-parented four crows, a water beetle, and a Rocky Mountain wood tick we kept in a pill bottle. He asked if I had seen the photos he’d sent me. “They’re so cute. You’re going to love them.”

We returned to his place late one afternoon with the first two chicks in a thrift store cage. I named them Eyeliner and Crybaby because Eyeliner looked made up and Crybaby’s black markings reminded me of tear-drop tattoos. Shon’s idea of a joke was to name the third Drumstick, the fourth Satan, and the next three after world dictators.