“In Transit” by Laila Stien, published by The Dial

He rests his hands on the steering wheel. They’re strong for someone who’s mostly only worked with paper. Broad wrists, but delicate. His knuckles are a bit swollen — arthritis, the doctors have established. They hurt now and then, but he doesn’t make too big a fuss about it, just tends to massage them gently, distractedly, when he’s watching TV for example. But he’s had to take off his ring. It won’t go over the second knuckle of his ring finger anymore. He took it off while he was still able. Now it sits in a little box and has her name inscribed on the inside. Yours — it says. Or, it doesn’t really say that. It says Yours in his language — Du. She’s mastered Sámi, but it’s been memorized, it’s sitting in her brain somewhere, the right or left side, she’s not sure which. For him, the word du is spoken like a kind of reflex, something that’s just there. For her, it’s practiced, learned: the possessive for another person.

Read the full translation on The Dial.