December 14, 1871
John dropped the washing in the mud.
Not the whole basket. Just enough to watch my face. A corner of sheet slid through the split wicker and came away brown. He stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting for me to call him something he could repeat to Ma.
I thanked him for offering to wash it again.
That spoiled his pleasure. I had him carry another pail before he could decide whether I was serious.
The air outside was sharp enough to make my teeth ache. I wore the blue work dress beneath a wool shawl and kept turning my back to the wind. After yesterday I wanted a task that required no sitting still, and no empty chair in front of me.
Ma had found a musty smell in the spare linen. She wanted it washed before the next traveler could complain of it. A man may arrive with half the road on his boots and still expect a sweet pillow.
I hung the sheets where they could be seen from the road.
There is comfort in another woman's washing. It promises a kitchen, a fire, somebody troubled by ordinary dirt. A man riding past might think of his mother. He would not need to think of mine.
I arranged the cleanest sheet on the outside.
By noon the shirts were stiff at the sleeves. The clothes pegs had left little teeth of ice in the hems, and the line creaked whenever the wind pulled it taut.
One sheet still moved softly.
I touched its edge. Frozen. Farther in, the cloth yielded under my fingers. There was a patch of warmth near the middle, no larger than the breadth of a man's shoulders.
It had come from the bottom of the linen chest. I remembered lifting the lavender bag from it. Nobody had warmed it in bed and carried it outside to make a fool of me.
John came round the corner with an armful of wood.
“Is that dry?”
“Nearly.”
He let a stick fall and looked at me again. I waited until he picked it up.
I ought to have asked him to touch the sheet. It would have been easy. One word, and someone else might have felt what I felt.
But he would have called Ma.
Then there would be her hands in my washing, her mouth making an explanation, and whatever this was would belong to her by supper.
I took the sheet down myself.
The frozen edges crackled as I folded them over the warm place. It settled into the basket with a weight I had not expected. I thought of the blue-flowered plate and straightened the other linen over it.
Inside, Ma asked whether the sun had done any good.
“Enough.”
I carried the basket upstairs before she could inspect it.
The little room at the end of the passage was cold. I made up the bed, drawing the warm part of the sheet beneath the pillow, then smoothing the coverlet until there was nothing to notice.
If something meant to stay, it could stay where I put it.
I have made that mistake with men before.
At the door I turned to look at my work. The pillow had sunk a little in the middle.
While I watched, the hollow turned toward me.