The machine was already humming on the spin cycle, shaking the small dryer beside it.
“Arthur?” I asked, staying by the doorframe.
He did not turn around to look at me, keeping his back straight.
“Go back to bed, Nora,” he said.
“It is nearly midnight,” I said. “What are you washing?”
“I can handle my own laundry from now on, Nora,” he said.
His hands were flat against the vibrating metal lid of the machine.
The rhythmic, heavy thumping of the washing machine spin cycle vibrating through the kitchen floorboards.
By seven the next morning, Arthur was already gone from the kitchen.
He had left only a cold mug of black coffee on the counter.
The house felt too quiet without the sound of his morning radio.
I went back to our master bedroom to make the bed and pull the thick curtains against the grey morning light.
As I smoothed the quilted bedspread, I noticed the bottom drawer of Arthur’s mahogany dresser was not quite closed.
A strip of dull grey fabric peeked through the gap like a trapped tongue.
I pulled the heavy drawer open, the old wood resisting with a small groan.
Beneath his neatly folded winter socks lay a plastic package containing a brand-new set of grey pajamas.
I took them out of the wrapper and ran the fabric between my thumb and forefinger.
The label read one hundred percent polyester.
It was made in a factory overseas, packaged in cheap cardboard with a red clearance sticker on the back.
It felt slippery and cheap, the kind of synthetic knit that traps body heat and sweat against the skin instead of letting it breathe.
Arthur had worn nothing but breathable blue cotton sleepwear for forty years, always complaining about cheap materials.
I laid the stiff grey set back in the drawer and pushed it closed.
My mind kept spinning back to the sound of the washing machine running at midnight.
At ten o’clock, his truck rumbled in the driveway, and I walked out to the porch.
Arthur was tossing a small canvas duffel bag into the passenger seat of his pickup.
“Where are you going with a suitcase?” I asked, walking down the gravel path.
He did not look at me, keeping his back turned as he adjusted the side mirror of the truck.
