The silly thought kept popping into my mind. I wasn’t conscious of thinking about it; it was just there. And it was such a stupid thing to obsess over. But I couldn’t help it. There were so many other things going on at the time that were really important. But not this. Not that one thought.!
She did our wash
She did our wash. I was even embarrassed by it a little. The thought of that sweet old lady, already taking care of her post heart surgery husband, worrying about our wash. It is true that it hung there on the line for three days, and that for two of those days it rained. I guess in a way it looked forlorn. Once important items that kept us warm, or comfortable. Items that lived when we wore them. Just hanging there, getting wet. Dirty. Shirt arms dangling down, reaching for the ground, the weight of the rain and the old, stretched, condition of the cotton line aiding in their quest to touch mother earth. She must have driven by and seen them from the road a number of times. Driving to the drug store for her husband’s heart medicine, again coming home. Driving to the store for an ingredient for the night’s dinner, again coming home. She couldn’t see the line from her kitchen window, too many trees, but it would have been on her mind. That was the kind of lady she was. Tidy, caring. Loving to stray animals. And stray people. She probably pulled in the driveway, creaked her way up onto the porch, and with arthritic fingers aching in the damp, loaded her basket with our wash. She probably drove it over to her house on the front seat next to her. I could tell she had re-washed and added a fabric sheet to the dryer. The clothes were all so soft. Even my underwear, which was what I was most embarrassed about. But I was pretty sure there was nothing for her to see that she hadn’t seen before.
I had come home, exhausted, bone weary, hungry and sad. And almost tripped over the basket in the dark. The motion detector light bulb had gone out last week and I had it down on my weekend work to do list, but considering what happened, I never got around to it. The weekend work to do list. How she teased me about that sometimes. If it wasn’t written on the list, it didn’t get done. The hose of the washer could leak and before I could fix it, it had to be written on the list. I would make that list all week. Coming home after work, a thought would hit me and down on the list it would go. Even little things. Fill the bird feeder. Burn the trash. Get to the dump to recycle. One time I had been dutifully working and crossing off and noticed that she had written ‘love your wife’, and, ‘extra kisses for the wife’ at the bottom of the list. That list I folded and used as a bookmark for many escapes into the world of fiction. It was probably somewhere between the pages of ‘Tom Jones’ or ‘Vanity Fair’. I would have to remember to look for it one day. Well, country life was full of little chores. If I did somehow accomplish something that wasn’t on the list, I would write it on, then cross it off. Obsessive-compulsive. But things mostly worked out right. And the light was on the list. It just didn’t get done. But I do remember that she did get extra kisses that one day. And I already couldn’t have loved her more.
I looked down at the basket and drew a blank. It was an alien thing on the front porch. Out of place. Not like a pumpkin in the fall or a light up Santa at Christmas, or even a pot of flowers in the summer. It was a basket of wash. Folded wash. It didn’t belong there. It belonged in the laundry room. Or on the bed when being emptied. Maybe even as far as the living room if I was helping to iron and a Sunday football game was on. But not on the front porch. So I drew a blank. I looked at it like it had just landed from Mars. I opened the door and brought it inside.
The house was cold. The days were only getting up to about sixty degrees and the nights were in the low forties. I had the heat set pretty low; we always liked the house cool. But without her in it, it was cold. The air didn’t feel comforting. It was hard. But even with those feelings I bypassed the thermostat and put the basket on the bed. I loosened my collar and saw that the answering machine was blinking that it held the promise of, count them, seventeen new messages. Before hitting the play button, I checked the caller ID and scrolled through a dozen ‘unavailable’ numbers. Probably pollsters and sales people. It was almost Election Day after all. The other calls were from my mother, three, my dad, one hang up, (he hated the machine) and one from my sweet neighbor letting me know not to trip over the wash on the front porch. She had pushed it that far to the door to keep it well under the overhang just in case it rained again. I smiled my first small smile in days.
As fate would have it, the first shirt on the pile was actually hers. I picked it up and a flood of memories poured into my addled head. ‘Stripes make me look fat don’t they?’ Well, no honey… ‘But the color is nice’. Yes it will look good on you… ‘But it’s a lot’. That’s ok; I’ll treat you to it… ‘Hmmm, you really think so?’ Well, it looks a bit small for you… ‘Am I getting heavy?’ Oh, no…I didn’t mean that…, but she had put it back on the rack and I had to take it and put it over my arm and carry it through the store until we were done. But we finally bought it. And now here it was. In my hands again.
I put it to my nose to maybe smell her again, but two washes; rain and fabric softener had chased any scent away. I thought I was doing pretty well up to that point, but I cried then. Just a little. And hugged the shirt. I probably looked pretty stupid standing there like that, my starving cat meowing at my feet, slightly rocking back and forth in place.
If my dad hadn’t called back right at that moment, I don’t know how long I would have stood there. By the third ring, I realized what the noise was, but he had hung up again. Even though he couldn’t work his ‘complicated’ VCR after owning it for two years, he did catch on that on the fourth ring, the machine picked up. I really didn’t blame him, he knew his number would show up, and it was intrastate long distance, and he was on social security. He didn’t have to pay for yet another message. But I was glad he called at that time. He broke the spell of the memory. God works in funny ways sometimes. This day, at that very moment, he got my cat fed. Because that was the next thing I did after putting the shirt back into the basket. He did still have water, and his dry food bowl was almost half full, so he was meowing mostly for attention. Which I gave him after he ate.
Hugging him was warmer than the shirt, and he purred. The shirt didn’t. But then again, the shirt didn’t drool. He did.
I knew I should call my mom back, but even though I hadn’t eaten much that day (a breakfast bagel sandwich while I drove), I opted for a beer. My wife would always keep them cold for me, even though a ‘big’ drinking weekend for me was three beers while watching the Buffalo Bills lose in the last minute of the game. I popped the top and it felt cool going down. I picked up the phone to call mom, to put her mind at ease that I was home and safe. But I stopped and checked the clock. Not because she would be in bed, but I had to gauge if her daily blood pressure dose was wearing off or still going strong. She tended to be a bit edgy and combative if her pressure was high. I didn’t think I could deal with a helping of guilt at that time. Not that she would have meant it. I just took it that way. I decided that it was still safe and spoke to her for the duration of the entire beer. Two minutes.
I popped the top on another, tossing the empty into the recycle bag under the kitchen sink. I knew I was avoiding that basket of wash that sat on the bed. Beckoning me. Staring at me through the walls. Calling me in to empty it. The nice ladies basket, not full of clothes, but of memories of last Saturday. Of us doing the wash. Of me hanging it. Of her yelling out from the kitchen ‘Did you remember to put the softener in?’ And of me yelling back, ‘yes dear’. Of the scent of cleanser as she cleaned the tub. The smell of ‘instant’ carpet freshener mingling with catnip. The vacuum sitting silently like a sentinel waiting for me to push it around the house. The cat rolling on the floor, little mini sticks of herb poking out of him like splinters. His squeeze toy being scratched to shreds by his back paws. Me thinking, ok happy boy, I turn this thing on and you will be flying under the couch.
That damned basket. Luring me in to re-live a day I didn’t want to. Because I knew it would inevitably lead to a crisp fall sun set at 4:52pm. To the sound of her car starting. To the sight of her blowing a kiss through the windshield as she left the driveway to run, not five miles away, to get us a Saturday night video to watch. We had a billion cable channels and nothing was on. She volunteered to go. I was still on the last two items on my list or I would have gone with her too. That basket was going to make me watch her drive away again. And never come home.
A third beer went with me into the bedroom. Surprisingly efficient, I emptied the clothes. I hung up those of mine which needed hanging (no ironing involved, that had been done too), put those of mine in the drawers which needed to be put in drawers and then stacked hers neatly on her side of the bed, next to the cat who, with belly full, was splayed across the covers. But the stack looked lonely there. So I moved it to her dresser. Then I remembered she would not be putting it away. So I did it. Sort of. I probably did it wrong though. I was amazed that I did not know which closet what went into. Which drawer awaited these items, which drawer those. Such a simple thing. And I was stumped. Stumbling. Afraid of doing it incorrectly, as if it mattered. I learned something about her right then and there. Something I had not known in seven short years of marriage. She was not obsessive-compulsive like I was. Socks had broken free of her sock drawer and had mingled with her under things, menacing cotton and lace. Colored tee shirts were folded right in with the whites. I quickly finished what I was doing and hoped for the best.
I put the empty basket on the floor. The cat saw me do it and jumped in. I went back to the kitchen, recycled the can, and looked into the fridge. Hungry, but not hungry enough to do something about it. I wandered into the living room. The past days had seemed so busy, as if there weren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish all that had to be done. People everywhere, helping me, touching me, all around. I longed for quiet. For some time to myself to sleep. Time to not have to answer questions and be fawned over. How I looked forward to resting. I was so tired.
Then why was I sitting here, fully dressed, seemingly wide-awake, hungry but not hungry, longing for company? By that time it really was too late to call my dad back, and the sales people and pollsters didn’t leave their numbers so I couldn’t bother them either.
I thought about putting the television on for noise, but I irrationally blamed it for what happened (if there was something on and she didn’t go out for the movie…). That made me wonder where the rented cassette was anyway. She had been on her way home after all. She must have had one. Was it still in the car as they towed it away? Or did it fly out of one of the broken windows as the car rolled over and over and over and over?
I was lost. I didn’t know what to do. So I got another beer, opened it, placed it on the table next to the couch and went back into the bedroom. The cat was still in the basket. I picked him up and walked back to the living room. I sat on the side of the couch were she used to sit. Where she would do everything from painting her nails to reading her mail, to watching movies with me.
I was still full dressed, but now, the exhaustion, and the beers were kicking in. I was getting drowsy. I sipped, put the can back down, hugged the cat tight to me, and cried like I had never cried before in my life.