Doing the Laundry

I’m taking a button-up off the clothesline when my husband comes outside. He puts the linen shirt in my already half-full basket and takes my hands in his.

“I’ve bought you something.”

I leave the basket and clothespins outside in the grass and follow him back to our overgrown cottage.

“Close your eyes,” he says, tugging me behind him. I oblige.

I feel the familiar creak of wood beneath my worn boots as we cross the threshold.

“Alright. Open ‘em.”

As my vision re-adjusts, I look to the round wooden table in the kitchen. In the center, resting on a mass of powder-blue gingham fabric, is a small, glass bluebird.

“What do you think?”

I arrange my face into a placid smile- not too big, and not too fast. Slowly letting it spread across my face, then nodding a reply. Once, twice. That should be enough.

“Found it in town today. Isn’t it just the loveliest thing?” He stands by the table, hands on his hips, proudly peering down at it.

I have the sudden urge to snatch it up and move it as far away from him as possible. Instead, I gently walk over, the smile straining my cheeks, and cup it in my palm.

It is lovely. A perfect, transparent, true blue, with slight indents for the wings, and a large circular bottom to rest on. Turning it in my hand to savor its cool weight, I notice a chip on the bottom. I quickly cover it with my fingers and place the figure back on the table.

My eyes start to blur with tears as I turn to my husband, smile still fixed in place.

“Oh, honey, don’t cry.” He says, pulling me into a tight, breathless hug. Keeping my arms at my sides, I fiddle with my skirt, bunching it then smoothing it, then bunching it again. He pulls back to look at me, pity and glee smeared across his features. “Why don’t you finish up the laundry, hm?”

That night, I dream I am out in the tall grass with the laundry basket on my hip, yards of gauzy white fabric billowing in the wind. It is bright, but there is no sun. At the edge of the property, where the fence meets a pocket of oak trees, stands a man. Instead of a face, he has a mass of Van Gogh-esque dots for features. He breathes with me - in, out, in, out - and as I tilt my head, his moves in sync. I take the pins off the white fabric on the line, folding it into my basket. As he walks over, I take each sheet down one by one, knowing he will be here by the time I finish. I relish the feel of the slippery sheer fabric on my hands. I hold it to my nose. It smells like my childhood bedroom. I put the last of the fabric in my basket as he stands behind me.

“It will not continue like this.”

I turn. Past him, where the valley meets the mountains, rainclouds have gathered, bathing the field in a misty grey-blue. My eyes follow the sharp inclines of the mountains, the fluffy green trees, the pasture peppered with red and gold and purple from the budding wildflowers, stretching up, eager for the storm.

It wouldn’t happen now. It would be a drizzly, muddy day in March, after I’d forgotten to eat breakfast or stubbed my toe or the roof started leaking. It would be a moonless, stuffy August night, after the grass had turned to stiff, pale-yellow straw, and there was no breeze to rustle the curtains. It would be a day or night absent of beauty and peace, when there is nothing left of the world to appreciate.

I glance at the fabrics in the basket. They are gone. When I look back up, we are at the edge of the field. He is holding my hand.

“This is where it will happen. You must understand, it is non-negotiable now.”

I want him to tell me he is sorry, to say he is mistaken, and that he will wait. A desperate, urgent panic rips a hole in my stomach. I haven’t finished the laundry. I grip his hand tighter, but there is nothing there.

In the morning, I rise before my husband. I go outside, to the tall grass, where the fence meets the pocket of oak trees. It has rained. There, on the post, sits a single bluebird.