I am no longer afraid of it

I tossed the sheets and blankets on the floor. We’d gotten a sticky grease on the contour, so I wondered if I needed to wash the mattress pad, too – no, the stains didn’t make their way through. He wouldn’t find out from the mattress pad alone. It took a minute to remove the pillowcases. They liked cocooning the pillows and didn’t want to give, but I won in the end.

I took the dirty sheets down to the laundry room. I stood there for the entire cycle and watched them through the round glass window. Hot water steamed into the machine. Frothy white soap squirted into the water. The white sheets and their milky stains surrendered. Forty minutes later I put them in the dryer.

I’d have to tell him, of course. Upstairs I picked out the new sheets, white with navy blue stripes. When he came home from Florida he’d make a happy remark and then I’d blurt it out like I always did. How could he complain? He hadn’t given himself to me in a year. I had to find it somewhere.

I fitted the contour on the mattress. I made hospital corners with the top sheet, patted the sheets flat down. Not a wrinkle anywhere. Funny how the pillowcases went – the pillows didn’t want to let go of the pillowcases when I tried to remove them, but they sure didn’t cooperate when I tried to stuff them into the new ones. When I lay the pillows on the bed, two for him and two for me, I stepped back and looked at the bed. Our bed was back in order.