Danielle Swanson fiction short story Tradish
Title image by Tina Berrier, Wolf Moon 11 by 14 Acrylic and gold leaf on paper, 11″ by 14″, 2021.
Tradish
When I’m nervous, I sweat buckets, and right now, my nerves are on high alert. I pull my shirt away from my skin, trying hopelessly to fan away the wetness under my armpits as I walk through the airport to the baggage claim terminal where I know Lexi will be waiting on me. I don’t want my sophisticated daughter’s first image of her mom to be one with giant circles of sweat under my arms, but the situation is pretty much hopeless at this point.
I hop into the bathroom and shove some paper towels under my pits, a feeble attempt that makes me even more uncomfortable but does nothing for the sweat, before making it to our designated meeting point.
I hate that visiting Lexi makes me nervous. We spent eighteen years together under one roof, but now, I nearly have a panic attack every time I see her.
This is her final parents’ weekend, her senior year of college, and I don’t know what happens after this. Her whole life has been school, and once she is finished what will she do? Come home and find a job that makes her happy? Happy is a lot to ask for in Oklahoma.
When Lexi graduated, she went to one of those schools out East that has been here as long as the colonizers and with a name that everyone recognizes. A good school. Not a community college like me, no O-Triple C for my girl. She got a big scholarship that covered food, housing, and tuition: everything she would need to succeed.
Money is still tight, though. Lexi can’t afford the designer clothes that her friends wear, so she has become a thrifting expert. She spends hours scouring the racks to find brand names that she can afford on her tribal education stipend. I’m impressed with her creativity, how she can see a piece of clothing and make it into something better, can instantly have a styling idea for it. She even taught herself to sew so she could alter things to fit or fix small tears in the abandoned pricey clothing of her peers.
Today, though, when she picks me up, she’s not in a fashionable designer outfit. Standing at the corridor for visitors waiting for arriving passengers, Alexis is wearing a “Land Back” shirt, her Doc Martens, and a rainbow colored ribbon skirt. Her hair is braided, and it’s longer than I’ve seen it since she was a child. Instead of her normally well-polished and contoured makeup, she’s only wearing mascara and some lip gloss. Beaded earrings hang down to her shoulders.
She looks young and beautiful and like she’s trying really hard to be something.
“Mom, I’m here,” Lexi says, confirming she is, in fact, the girl I’m staring at.
“Hi,” I say. She draws me into a hug; I worry about my sweat spots and try to keep my arms close to my sides. Pulling back, she gives me a big smile.
“Yá’át’ééh,” she says to me. I stare at her, confused.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a Diné greeting that means hello.” Lexi rolls her eyes, “You should know more about Native language.”
“Lexi, I’m Kickapoo. That’s not my language. ”
“I know, Mom, but you are around First Americans a lot at the clinic,” she says.
“First Americans?” I ask. “Who is calling us that?”
“It sounds better than Indian,” she says.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it is better.”
“Anyways, I’ve been learning Diné on this language app,” Lexi says.
“Diné?” I ask.
“That’s the correct term for the Navajo people.”
“Oh. I don’t know many Navajo. I think they are more out west,” I adjust my travel bag on my shoulder and can feel the sweat spots growing.
The sideways glance and deep sigh she gives me in response feel like a knife to my abdomen, an indication of my wrongdoing. It is always that way with Lexi. The girl is able to cut me to pieces with the politest of facial expressions.
I try to recover, to say the thing she wants to hear. “But that’s good, I guess, to learn something new.”
“It is. Language preservation is so important.”
“I’ve been taking language class at the tribal center.” Honestly, I’ve only been a couple times, mainly when Cousin Trudy wanted to go before our Thursday night bingo games, but I have been, and Lexi doesn’t need to know how few I’ve attended. I want her to be impressed I’m even trying.
“Wow. That’s cool, Mom.”
“You could come sometime, you know, to learn your ancestor’s language.”
“I’d love to, but I can’t just hop to Oklahoma.” Lexi shrugs and smiles.
“Maybe we could Zoom you in sometime,” I suggest.
“That might be cool.” She shrugs again, nonplussed.
“The tribe has some other things. An online dictionary. A recording from Berkeley in the 1960s.” I want her to know that I am not dumb about these things, that I, too, know about language preservation.
She looks at me thoughtfully, and I think maybe I’ve found some common ground for us.
“I love that. Could you send me links? I want to share them with my followers.”
I sigh. Lexi has something like 100K followers on Instagram or TikTok or some social media something. She tells me it is a big deal and sometimes she gets paid to share different things with people. Companies send her things, PR boxes she calls them. A lot of them she sells to be able to keep up with her roommates’ lifestyles.
I want to tell her that our language is sacred, that these resources are for her and not the whole world, but we’ve had that fight before. Lexi doesn’t understand how we are supposed to preserve our culture if we don’t share it. I try to explain that, for our ancestors, sharing led to everything being taken away, to the government telling us what we could and could not do, how we needed to be in order to be white like them.
Lexi and I are seeing each other for the first time in over a year. I don’t want to start a fight, and the resources are already out there on the web, so I agree to send the links despite my hesitations. I can always forget when I get back home.
“A’he’hee,” Lexi says. “That means thank you in Diné.”
“You’re welcome,” I reply in English, which we both understand.
At the car, Lexi puts my suitcase in the trunk, and I take a seat in the front. She’s still driving the car I bought her using the inheritance from when my dad died. He didn’t own much, but he did own a little house by the lake that the tribe had built for him decades ago. My brother decided he wanted to move in, so he bought it cheap. We split the money, all five of us siblings, and I had just enough to buy Lexi a nice used car for her sixteenth birthday.
I’m staying at a hotel, so Lexi drops me off there. We spend the drive catching up: how classes are going, who is dating who back home, what’s new at the IHS clinic. It’s nice and cordial, the kind of conversation I’d have with a stranger in the supermarket.
“I’ll pick you up for dinner in a couple hours,” she says when we arrive at the hotel. “Opal recommended a restaurant. It’s supposed to be really good.”
“Sounds lovely,” I say. I wonder if I will be able to afford to pay for both my and Lexi’s dinner without breaking into my savings.
Opal is one of Lexi’s roommates, all of whom have more money than God. Lexi said they aren’t as rich as the people on campus whose parents donated a new science lab or a famous piece of art, but I can’t tell the difference. All I know is none of the other girls in her apartment depended on WIC for food as children or grew up in tribal housing.
When the girls decided to get an apartment together, Lexi’s housing allowance was not enough to cover her share. I was already pulling shifts at the Amazon warehouse after my job at the clinic to send Lexi money for books and to go out from time to time. I thought about asking Lexi’s dad for the money, but I hadn’t spoken to him in years and had no clue how to get a hold of him. In the end, I told her she either had to get a job or keep living in the dorms. She didn’t talk to me for over a month in protest.
Then, she had a fight with one of the girls, and she called me crying, forgetting completely how awful it was that I made her work. A girl always needs her momma, no matter how big her britches get.
“Is Opal joining us for dinner?” I ask before I get out of the car.
“No, it’s just us,” Lexi says. “Everyone’s parents are in town.”
“Ah, that’s good,” I say. I am glad to not have the pressure of trying to figure out how to act around Lexi’s friends. It’s hard enough knowing what my daughter wants from me, let alone her wealthy roommates.
Lexi gives me a quick hug. “Hágoónee,” she says.
“Goodbye in Navajo?”
“No,” she laughs. “Diné don’t believe in goodbye. It means okay. But that is what people say when they depart from each other.”
“Ah,” I say. “Well, I’ll see you later.” I wave at her and watch as she gets in the car and drives away. I go check in, and once in my room, I lie on the bed, fully dressed, exhausted from my flight and the brief interaction with my daughter. Staring at the ceiling, I wonder how I raised a child both so similar and so different from me.
When Lexi comes back to pick me up, she’s still in the ribbon skirt but has changed the top to a chiffon blouse and added a bright turquoise necklace.
“Where are these things from?” I ask her.
“Oh, my skirt? I bought it from an Anishinaabe in Canada, and the necklace is from an indigenous artist in New Mexico. Don’t you love them?”
“They’re beautiful, but they’re just so different from what you normally wear.”
“I want to connect with our culture,” she says.
“I don’t know that these are our culture.”
“You know what I mean, Mom. Native culture.”
I nod my head. I do know what she means. I’ve seen booths selling these items at the powwows, and Trudy’s friend makes ribbon skirts to sell online. I just never thought of Lexi wearing these things.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” I say. “Trudy sent you something.” I dig in my purse, finding the little pink bag. Inside is a pair of earrings from the costume jewelry that Trudy sells for $5 a piece. It’s cheap, yes, but Trudy uses the extra money to help pay her bills since she got a divorce.
The earrings, necklace, and bracelet I’m wearing all came from one of Trudy’s live shows she does on the internet. It seems like most of the buyers are our family. It’s actually a lot of fun chatting with each other in the comments. Trudy is always making us laugh. Then, when we see each other in person, we all compliment each other on the jewelry and wink knowingly, like we are in some sort of secret club.
“Oh, nice,” Lexi says. She takes the earrings and buries them in her own purse, where I wonder if they will ever be seen again. “Well, we should be going.”
The restaurant Lexi takes me to is called Buffalo Fork. I can tell from the looks of it that it is going to be one of those places that serves tiny bites of food for big prices. She poses outside and tells me how to get the best angle for taking her picture. We take each photo about ten times. I think about asking for one together, but I haven’t ate since breakfast. I’m starving and don’t have time for a whole other photoshoot.
Inside, the restaurant is dark and decorated with lots of leather and black iron metal with accents in red, orange, and teal. There are pictures of prairies that remind me of home, and there are desert sands that I’m sure are from somewhere further west. It seems out of place for this Eastern college town.
When the waitress comes over, she explains that the items on the menu are small-plate, upscale items based on the chef’s Native heritage. She recommends the raw bison with a hominy drizzle or the locally sourced fish with a salmonberry glaze.
“Those sound amazing,” Lexi says. I stay quiet. I don’t want to tell Lexi my thoughts on the food. The waitress takes this as a cue that I’m unsure of what I’m ordering, still deciding, and so she leaves us for a few more minutes. The restaurant is not very busy, so she just goes and stands by the hostess stand.
“What are you thinking?” Lexi asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. I really don’t. This food is not only pricey, but it sounds unfamiliar, and I am not sure of anything.
“Well, I’m going with the salmon,” Lexi says. She closes her menu and sets it down. I swallow hard, staring at the price of the salmon.
“Why does everything have to be so made over?” I ask. “Why can’t the chef just let something good be something good?”
“It’s art, Mom,” Lexi says.
“Yes, but maybe it doesn’t need to be. Maybe it should just be food.”
“Food is always art,” Lexi says. “Maybe this is just too refined for you.”
“Lexi, this is supposed to be my kind of food. Native food. And I can’t even find a dish I want to eat.”
Just then, the waitress comes back over. “Is everything okay?” she asks.
“Yes, it’s just not what I expected,” I say. Lexi stares at me, her teeth clenched in an expression that I know means she thinks I’m being a shit ass.
“Oh,” says the waitress. She seems flustered by my response. “Let me send the chef by. He can better explain the choices.”
“Sure,” I say.
“That’d be lovely,” Lexi adds. When the waitress is out of earshot, my daughter scolds me. “Mom, you didn’t have to be rude to her.”
“Rude? I was rude?”
“Well, you could have been nicer about the food.”
I’m quiet for a minute. “Maybe,” I finally say. I don’t know what she wants me to say. I never do.
A few minutes pass, and then the chef comes out to our table. He is a handsome young man, about the same almond brown as me, with dark eyes and jet-black hair that is cut short. His features are all sharp, and he has a big smile. He stands at the edge of our table, nervously fingering the towel he has tied at his waist.
“The waitress told me you had some concerns about the food.”
“Yes, it just seems so … different from what I expected,” I say.
“My mom, she’s visiting from Oklahoma. We’re Native,” Lexi says.
“Kickapoo,” I add. “Of Oklahoma.”
“She’s not used to upscale dining like this.”
“I’m Rodney,” the chef says. He explains that he studied culinary arts in France, but his heart is always in Arizona, where he grew up on the reservation. “Everyone thinks I’m Navajo, but I’m not. I’m Hopi, but I grew up with a lot of Navajo.”
“I’m Alexis. I go to school here. I’ve always wanted to go out West.”
“You should,” Rodney says. “It’s beautiful.”
“Someday,” she says. Her voice is wistful, a different tone than I’ve heard in a while.
“Is this the kind of food you ate on the rez?” I ask, breaking up their conversation. The only reservation I’ve been to is one in Montana that the Indian church visits on a missionary trip to lead vacation Bible school each summer. The food there was nothing like this.
Rodney laughs. “No, ma’am. I grew up on Indian tacos and meat pies.”
“Ah, that’s more like it.”
Rodney laughs again. “Wait. Don’t order anything. I’ll send you out something special.” He smiles at me, winks at Lexi, and turns and leaves.
“Mom,” Lexi says as soon as he’s out of hearing range. “You were rude again!”
“What?” I ask, unsure what I did wrong.
“He’s clearly worked hard on this menu, and you insulted him about it.”
“Lexi, quit being dramatic.”
“Mom, fry bread isn’t even traditional,” she says. “It was made because that’s all people could create with the commodities given to them. You should have at least tried his food to understand what real Native food is like.”
I roll my eyes at my daughter. “Lexi, there are few things more real to Natives than fry bread.”
She just exhales loudly and gives me a look that hurts my soul. It’s the same look she gave me when I met Opal’s family and made a comment about her mom’s expensive purse, but now, she’s giving it to me because I can’t be Native enough for her.
We sit in the thick quietness of the table, both of us avoiding making eye contact – or any contact – with the other.
A while later, the waitress returns with a big tray on her shoulder. Indian tacos, hominy soup, meat pies, and even blackberry dumplings cover the tray. The woman spreads the food out across the table and smiles. “The chef said to enjoy!” she says. “It’s special for you.”
“This looks delicious,” I say, and I mean it. As soon as the waitress is gone, I start to eat, but before I can take a bite, Lexi stops me.
“Wait,” she says. “Let me take a video.” She goes around the table, naming all the dishes and takes at least a hundred pictures. I’m starving and want to dig in, but I watch her patiently. She’s more animated and excited than she has been my entire trip, and it reminds me of her eighth birthday party, how she’d explained each gift with the same enthusiasm she is now showing on her camera for the food.
Finally, she gives me a signal, and we start eating, her recording the first bite of everything and discussing her response.
“This is going to make such good content,” she says between takes. I don’t know what that means, but the food is amazing. Everything is perfectly cooked and there are little surprises, like cumin and curry blended into the different meat pies and a hint of mint among the blackberry dumplings. Once Alexis is done with her videos, she is also caught up in how good the food is and cannot resist. She eats like she is starving.
We are nearly finished with everything when Rodney comes over again. “How was it?”
“So good,” Lexi says.
“Perfect,” I add. “Like my aunties’ but better.”
“Come on now,” he says, “nothing is better than the aunties’ food.”
“I swear, but you better not breathe a word of this to them.”
He laughs. “You have my word. I’m just happy I got to feed you lovely ladies.” Then he excuses himself and heads back to the kitchen. Lexi and I sit, content with our full bellies. After a few minutes, the waitress stops by and asks if we need anything else.
“Just the check,” I say.
“Oh? The chef didn’t tell you?” she asks. “He said the meal was on the house.”
“What? No,” I say.
“He insisted,” she says.
“But…” I start.
“Tell him thank you for us,” Lexi speaks over me. She is once again her elegant self, the one she has trained to be.
“I will,” the waitress says, and then she walks away.
“That was so much food to just give us,” I say.
“I think you made him very happy.” Lexi smiles, and I smile back, taking her comment as a compliment. I leave two twenties on the table, if nothing else, a tip for the waitress, and we make our way to the car.
Lexi hums along to the radio as we drive back, but neither of us really talks. When we stop, she turns off the car, and we both stare out the windshield at the black pavement of the parking lot. We sit there for at least five minutes before Lexi breaks the silence, her voice shaking.
“Mom,” she says, “I want to make you proud.”
“You do, honey.” I want to tell her that I want the same thing, to make her proud, but I’m confused about how to do that and what she wants me to be. Then, I remember I’m the mom and I shouldn’t burden her with those feelings, so I don’t say anything about me. “You do,” I repeat.
“Yeah, but I want to do more. For years, I hid who I was. Now I’m not even sure what I was hiding, who I really am.”
I look at her face, and it’s like looking back into a time machine. “We all go through that.”
“You knew exactly what you wanted to do,” she says.
“I didn’t have choices. I never knew what I wanted to do because I was so busy doing what I had to do.”
She thinks this over for a few seconds before speaking softly. “Do you think if you’d had choices you would have had me?”
Now it’s my turn to think. I want to say the right thing. We both know the answer is not “Absolutely” like so many moms would say, and I don’t want to lie to my girl.
“Maybe not the way I did,” I confess. “I’d still want you, just like you are, but maybe later or with a different guy, one that would be around.”
She looks out the window. “That wouldn’t be me, then.”
“Not the same you, but a version of you. Like a different universe Lexi.” We both absorb the truth of our realities: me, the mom who made poor decisions, and her, the daughter who feels unwanted. Time is passing so slowly in the car; I need to escape, or I might just shatter back into stardust.
“It’s getting late,” I say, even though we both know it’s only eight o’clock. I leave her there, but she doesn’t start the car right away. She waits till I get to the building, watching me to make sure I’m safe, just like I did her when she was a child.
The next day, I know what to expect. We’ve been doing these parent weekend things for three years now, so it’s like an old hat. I dress in a blouse and comfortable slacks, a pair of canvas shoes, as I have learned that is what the other moms wear. Lexi shows up early and we ride to her campus, a few blocks away, together. There’s a football game, but she’s not interested in that, so we walk around and she shows me what’s new. We stop in front of a huge slab of granite. It’s a land acknowledgement the college has built, and around it are busts of several Natives from the tribe that used to live here. We both stare at the monuments.
“It’s wonderful,” I tell her, even though I’m never sure if these kinds of displays are to support the tribe or to make the administrations at the institutes feel better.
“It is,” she says. At least I got the right words out this time. Lexi asks me to pose among the statues, to stand a certain way while I’m reading the acknowledgement, so that she can get photos, more content I guess. I can tell Lexi is happy, but the whole thing makes me feel like a relic, a museum artifact. I wouldn’t do this for anyone except her, and even still, I feel odd in taking photos like this. Do these ancestors want to be on Instagram?
After our photo shoot, we walk over to the student union, where we are meeting one of her professors before the two of them are scheduled to present on a panel for social science majors. The professor appears to be in her early fifties with gray hairs popping up among her curly blonde locks. Her tiny red glasses, camel color trouser pants, and delicate cream top make her look rich and well-educated, like no one would ever say she wasn’t used to upscale dining.
“Ah, Alexis, there you are! And this must be your mother,” she says as we approach. She extends a hand to me. “I’m Dr. Olivia Scott.”
I take her hand, which feels tiny and frail compared to my thick and meaty one. “Nice to meet you,” I say. “I’m Rainey Black.”
“Dr. Scott is one of the professors in our Indigenous Studies program,” Lexi says.
“Oh, nice.” In truth, I already knew this information. “Lexi has loved your class, Dr. Scott.”
“And I have loved having Alexis as a student.” She smiles at my daughter. I can tell they share things I could never understand. The three of us make our way toward the auditorium. Outside the room, students, parents, and professors are grouped up in threes or fours, having conversations. We stand off to the side of the door, Lexi and I with our backs to a wall, and Dr. Scott across from us. I wonder if those other parents feel as awkward as I do.
Dr. Scott is as nice as all the professors always are. She gushes about Lexi with the same reports I’ve been getting since the girl was in Pre-K: she’s such a pleasure to have in class, so knowledgeable, so eager to learn, so amazingly talented, going to do big things.
“I’m so proud of her,” I say and mean it to my core. Lexi is all the things the professor has just listed off and more. She is the very girl I wish I could have been but never could.
“You should be, especially with her acceptance to UC Davis’s Native American Master’s program. That’s such an amazing accomplishment.”
Lexi pales at this statement, biting her lip and looking up at me.
“Oh?” I ask. “Where is UC Davis?”
“California,” the professor says. “It’s the best program of its kind in the country.”
Lexi nods eagerly and I stare at her, wondering when she was going to tell me about this secret.
“The University of Oklahoma has a good Native Studies program, I’d imagine,” I say.
“They do, but, well, not the same as the one at UC Davis,” Dr. Scott says.
“I see.”
“Mom,” Lexi says.
“Congratulations,” I interrupt her before she has any chance to explain anything. “That’s so exciting.” It is exciting and it is amazing, and I am proud, but I’m also a bit heartbroken and surprised.
Last summer, Lexi did not come home for the first time. Instead, she spent the break in the Hamptons with Opal’s family. Daily she sent me pictures of the food the chef made for them and called to tell me about the parties she attended, the blueness of the ocean, the architecture of the homes. She said over and over it was such a good opportunity and that the networking she was doing could help her in the future.
All summer, I missed her. So much. It was the loneliest summer of my life. Knowing that she is going to be gone for however much longer, I already start to feel that same ache. It must show on my face.
“Oh, Alexis hadn’t told you yet?” Dr. Scott asks. Her forehead wrinkles in worry, and I can tell she truly did not know.
“No, Lexi had not told me yet,” I say, “but I’m happy for her.”
“Yes, we all are,” Dr. Scott says. She still looks worried and glances over at Lexi, who looks down at the ground. Before we can discuss this anymore, a young man comes to gather Lexi and Dr. Scott for their presentation. I go into the auditorium, taking a seat near the back. Even though I sit through the whole thirty-minute discussion, I’m not sure what the panel is about, what they say, or even if I applaud at the right times.
Instead, I keep thinking that Lexi is not coming home.
Or is Oklahoma even her home? Maybe it is just mine. I don’t know. I don’t know her, I think. Not as well as this blond woman with glasses. Not who Lexi- Alexis- is now.
After the panel, there is a reception, and the three of us stand at a table eating vegetables with ranch dip and drinking lemonade. We talk uneasily for about fifteen minutes before Dr. Scott says she needs to mingle among the other students.
“It was so nice to meet you,” the professor says. She squeezes my hand one more time and then leaves, walking over to another parent and student set.
Lexi turns to me. “Are you mad?”
“No, I’m not mad,” I say. I’m sad and disappointed. But I am not mad.
“Mom, you couldn’t expect me to live my life in Oklahoma. There’s nothing there.”
“Your family is there,” I say.
“You know what I mean. There are no jobs. No opportunities. I want to go out and help people. I want to do something important with my life.”
“Every day, I help people. When someone has diabetes, I guide them to the proper treatment. When a mother needs care for her baby, I find the resources. When someone loses their family member, I’m a shoulder to cry on. I help people,” I say. “What I do is important. It matters.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she says, shaking her head. “I know you help people and it is important. I just want to do something bigger.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like teach others about Natives.”
“You could do that at the tribal center.”
“Mom, no.” She is silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts with the same look I’ve seen on her face since she was a determined toddler first trying out words to tell me what she needed. “Mom, I want to study our ancestors – all of the tribal ancestors. I want to go out and show others who we are and why we matter, that Native people still exist. And as much as I love you and our family, I can’t do that from Oklahoma.”
“Is this about your followers?” I ask. “Because they all live in California or something? Because that’s where influencers go?”
“What?” she says. “No, mom, this is about me and who I am and who I want to be. This is about what I want to do. The social media stuff will all fade away, I’m sure. What I want to be left with is… I don’t know… something bigger than that. I told you I’m trying to figure out who I am.”
We are both quiet for a moment, and I think everything we need to say may have been said.
“Maybe, I’ll go out to California and hate it. Maybe I’ll fall in love. Maybe I’ll end up back in Oklahoma after all. I don’t know, but I have to try.” Her anger is starting to shift into a calm sadness, and I feel bad that I can’t be happier for her leaving me.
I nod my head in response, unable to find words to express what it is I’m feeling.
“We should go,” she says. I agree and follow her back across the campus.
As we pass by the sculptures and land acknowledgement, I can’t help but look at the monument again. It has always been hard for my daughter, living between these two worlds of education and our family. As a mom, I should help make it easier for her, and I know I’m not doing a great job of it right now.
I take a deep breath. “Okay, but will you come home for summers? And holidays?” The words hurt, but her face brightens just a little. Enough that I know this is what she is looking for: my acceptance.
“Sure, Mom. And you can come out and visit, too.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to California,” I say.
She pulls me in for a hug, and we’re not the same as before, but we’re okay for now. Then, we make our way back to the car, and she drives me to the airport. When we arrive, she asks for a selfie.
“Just for me. For us,” she says. I smile and lean into the photo with her while people honk and merge into the traffic all around us. “Thank you.” She gives me one last hug.
“Sure. No problem.”
I tell her I love her, and she says it back, and then I turn and roll my bag into the airport to find my flight back to Oklahoma, to Trudy and the tribal clinic, to home where I belong.
Danielle Swanson, an enrolled member of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, is a writer living in Atlanta, Georgia. She worked as a print journalist and attended the American Indian Journalism Institute before teaching college writing courses for the majority of her career. Danielle has a Masters in Professional Writing and American literature. Currently, she is studying Pilates, making TikTok posts, and spending time with her daughter’s dog, Mr. Darcy, while focusing on her creative pursuits.
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