Chapter 8: The Sauna

The sauna stood at the edge of the lake, a small cedar hut with a stone chimney and a bench seat built into the porch.

Astrid showed it to me that night, with a lantern in her hand and fresh snow squeaking under our boots.

"Mae built it the first summer," she said. "I haven't lit it since."

"Why not?"

"It was hers more than mine."

"Then we don't have to."

"I want to." She looked at the dark lake. "I've wanted to for weeks, and I didn't want to do it alone."

I carried in the kindling while she split the logs, and we stacked a fire in the stove together.

By the time it caught, the little room had begun to creak and tick with warmth.

My grandfather had built a sauna on his lake.

I knew this smell of cedar and heated stone better than I knew my own name.

"Take your clothes off," Astrid said, and then went red to the ears. "For the heat. I mean for the sauna."

"I know what you mean," I said, grinning.

We undressed in the anteroom in the lantern light, and I watched her unbutton her flannel with fingers that were not quite steady.

When she was bare, she crossed her arms over her ribs, though the room was warm.

"You're lovely," I said.

"I'm thirty-six and I've gone gray."

"You're lovely and you've gone a little gray."

She laughed and dropped her arms.

I took her hand and led her into the heat.

The stones hissed when I ladled water over them, and steam rolled up the walls in a soft white sheet.

We sat on the high bench with our shoulders touching, and sweat began to bead on both of us.

For a long time we said nothing, and the quiet was easy.

"Mae used to sing in here," Astrid said at last. "Badly. Old hymns, in Norwegian, which she didn't speak."

"What was she like?"

"Loud. Funny. Always running late." Her voice caught. "She'd have liked you."

"I'd have liked her."

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