A new story - it came to me in a dream!

I hate when people say this, but it really happened... this story came to me as I was trying to sleep early this morning.
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THE SWEAT LODGE

They sat in complete silence. Dad didn’t like to be interrupted when he was doing his sweat lodge. That’s what he called it, even though it was a sauna. The sauna was its own little building at the start of the orchard path, but close to the house. Shawna liked to sit in there with her dad, but she brought a toy with her because Dad didn’t want her talking to him. She would just talk to her toy, inside her head.

She’d been in the sweat lodge with Dad a lot of times but she still wasn’t quite used to the heat and closeness of it. It was a small room with no windows, except for a piece of dark glass in the middle of the door that you couldn’t see out of. They’d found it in the dirt when they were raking and leveling the ground for the sauna, and Shawna asked if they could use it in the building. Dad said that would be a good use of it, like the ancestors using all the parts of the deer in the olden days.

Tonight, Shawna’s toy was a doll mom bought her at WalMart. Dad didn’t like them shopping there because he said they weren’t fair to their workers. But mom said they didn’t have much of a choice because they didn’t grow money on trees, just apples. Shawna liked the doll anyway, because it had darker skin and long shiny black hair like her, and you didn’t see a lot of dolls like that. It had a pretty dress on too, and little red shoes. She’d been trying to get the shoes off since mom bought it for her. Tonight in the sauna, she managed to get one of them off. But her hands were sweaty and she dropped the shoe between the slats of the top bench she was sitting on, and it fell to the floor. She set her doll down on her bench, and climbed down to the bottom bench, where Dad was sitting on the other side, by the wall. He didn’t move or acknowledge her.

Shawna spotted the red shoe at the back wall, and crawled under the bench to retrieve it. She turned around to climb back up and realized the stones needed to be wetted. Being eight going on nine, she felt very grown-up when she helped with this step. Dad showed her the right way to do it and she was careful not to splash the water from the cup.

She was starting to feel a little claustrophobic so she decided to step outside for a minute. Fresh steam followed her as she went out the door. Dad said she could leave when she needed to if it was just the two of them, but if she was in the sauna with other grown-ups that she would need to stay in the whole time they were there. Some grown-ups didn’t like kids going in and out and letting out all the steam. But Dad didn’t care if she went outside sometimes.

In early September, it was still light this time of evening. Dad said that was because of where they lived. He said that in this part of the country with the time change, it stayed lighter longer. Shawna didn’t know why the sun being out late had anything to do with the clocks in their house, but Dad knew a lot of things, and she was pretty sure he was right. The sauna didn’t get a lot of use through the summer while Dad was busy working in the orchard, getting just the right combinations of fertilizers and bug sprays on the apple trees. Once school started again, and the apples were ready to pick, he spent more time in the sauna because they had all the pickers come in and do the work.

In the dimming light, Shawna could see that there was someone in the orchard. She squinted to see if the person had a picking bag with them, if it was one of the workers coming in from the back acreage. From his size, she was pretty sure it wasn’t one of the women, and she didn’t see a bag in his hand. He seemed to be walking towards the sauna. Something didn’t seem right and she got scared.

She went back inside the sauna and said quietly, “Daddy, there’s someone in the orchard.” Her voice wavered a little bit, even though she was trying to be brave.

Her father opened his eyes and turned his head to her slowly. “Do you know who it is?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. She climbed up to the top bench and tightly hugged her doll, who had one shoe still missing.

“I’ll take a look,” he said, getting up from the bench, patting her leg as he stood. His waist and thighs covered with a bright white towel, which seemed to glow in contrast to his summer-darkened skin, he stepped out the door. As the door opened, Shawna saw the very big man already a few feet away from the sauna. The sun had begun setting quickly and it had started getting cooler; Shawna saw steam coming off her dad as he walked from the building. Her father stopped in front of the man and took his regular stance, crossing his arms over his chest.

Shawna got down from the bench and listened at the glass. She could only hear that they were arguing. Or, the big man was trying to get her dad to argue with him. Her mom always said it was impossible to get Dad to argue with anyone, because he was so calm about everything. Shawna remembered her grandfather being the same way. Her grandfather had died last year and she was still sad about that. Shawna opened the door to hear better.

“…and I don’t care that your girl is right there,” said the big man, very loudly and pointing at the sauna.

“She has nothing to do with it,” said her dad, standing completely still with his arms crossed.

“Well, you just better watch her carefully, and you know what I mean,” said the man, turning and walking away towards the road. Shawna and her dad watched the man until the darkness made him disappear.

Her dad turned back to the sauna, his arms still crossed, and he looked at the ground as he walked. When he got closer, he saw her poking her head out the door, and he frowned a little. He came back in to the sauna and shut the door.

“Come here,” he said sitting on the lower bench and patting a spot next to him. Shawna clenched her doll and sat carefully. Dad looked mad.

“What did he want, Daddy?”

“There are some people around here who get upset this time of year when the pickers come in. They say the pickers are taking jobs from the white people.”

“But there are white people who come to pick apples too,” Shawna said.

Her dad smiled. “Yes, but they pay us to do that, then they go home. The pickers come and work all day and we pay them to get the apples.” He looked at the door, as though the man were still out there. “There are people who don’t like that we hire the pickers every year from the same place. Lots of white people around here don’t have jobs right, so they get mad when they see any other people working.”

Shawna thought for a moment. “Kind of like when I see Tina’s doll and I want one too?”

Dad smiled again. “Something like that.” He saw her clenching her fist and said, “What’s this?”

She opened her hand and they both saw that the red doll shoe had made an imprint on her palm from her holding it so tightly. “I got the shoe off and it fell, and then I got it from the floor but I forgot to put it back on.” A shiver went up her back and she realized the steam had faded from the sauna rocks.

“It’s getting cool out here, let’s go in now.” Dad pulled her close in a side hug, and they both stood and went out the door. But Shawna noticed that her dad still looked out at the road once as they walked to the safety of the side porch light on the house.