Spin Cycle
(Click here for a printer-friendly version)It was laundry day, a Tuesday, and Harriet was thankful, since it always gave her time to think. Time away from the house. Joe was a First Lieutenant in the army, so they never had any reason to buy a washer and dryer of their own, always moving from one base to the next. Often at nights, when she sat at her mirror combing her shoulder-length permed brown hair (a perm was about the only luxury she allowed herself, every couple of months or so), staring back at her dry hazel eyes, Harriet would remind herself that she missed her husband, afraid that she might forget that fact, maybe forget Joe altogether. But it was true. She did miss him.
Most of the other wives used the laundromat offered to them right on base, but Harriet did all she could to avoid conversation about the war. To her, it was more than just laundry. Or it was less. Either way, the methodical nature of washing her family's clothes slowed things down for Harriet. It simplified them. Wash, dry, fold, repeat. Nicholas � Boy's Medium, boy's size eight waist. Sarah � Girl's Large, girl's size ten waist. Joe � an assortment of greens, browns, running shorts, and undersized T-shirts that showcased his chiseled muscles, which Harriet rarely had the privilege of touching or even seeing these days. It was an equation she had come to learn offhand. One that allowed her mind to focus on something other than the three-bedroom apartment that needed a good dusting, or elementary homework to be done while she prepared the roast that was currently sitting in the slow cooker on the kitchen counter, and the dirty dishes next to the slow cooker, and the awkward hellos as she passed the other military wives on her way to the market store on base to get the can of beef broth she mistakenly thought she
had purchased the week before.
It wasn't that Harriet didn't love her family, her children. She did, exceedingly. But with a husband, a little boy, and a little girl, things just seemed too symmetrical. Or maybe asymmetrical. She could never decide which it was, but something about it all dissatisfied Harriet. It didn't matter. She left the reasoning to her therapist, whose most recent suggestion involved soothing music as therapy. Harriet decided the rhythm of the spin cycle would suffice.
As was her ritual on laundry day, Harriet checked the Lost and Found for any stray socks that might closely match the unpaired ones she had stocked in a cupboard at home. It was a habit she learned from her mother, and though she couldn't be sure, probably her mother before her. Harriet's mother said, �A good wife is a thrifty wife.� And she never forgot hard-working. On this morning, however, Harriet found something she was not expecting. Amongst the regular mundane items � the mismatched buttons in assorted shapes and colors, some Mexican coins that didn't work in the machines, a set of house keys � was a man's golden wedding band. She picked it up and examined it, ran her fingers across the engravings � a series of lines and loops that danced all around the outside, and a phrase on the inside, �Always and forever.� It was nothing like Joe's, a smooth metal ring.
�Nothing fancy,� he had said the day they went looking. �That one.� It was supposed to be a whole-day event. He bought the ring, and they went home.
Harriet pressed her hand against her chest, where her husbands silver band dangled from a silver chain. He never took it with