transference in the laundry room

To fold a fitted sheet, you put your hands into two corners so the seam makes an inside-out mitt. You tuck those mitts into the other corners, then fold those two on top of two. In the end there is one gathered corner. Folding the rest is easy.

My mother taught me this. Likewise, she taught me that the print side of the flat sheet goes face down on the bed. This is so it’s pretty when you fold down a corner before bed. Printed sheets with a frilly top edge show this: the print seems to be upside down, but really it’s for the effect of the dainty sight of a perfectly turned-down bed.

She showed me how to sew buttons, how to sew patches, how to hem skirts and darn socks. In the quiet summer days when the boys were elsewhere, we did our minuet with the laundry, folding queen-sized sheets between us in the bright hot family room. We'd stir up hurricanes of dust motes and carry two chin-high piles of towels up the stairs to the second floor. I'd nestle my chin into the soft pillow cases on top, and sniff them.

Folding a queen-sized sheet in a muddy-floored laundry room with nothing but a rusty table and a collection of linty forgotten bikes... well, it leaves something to be desired. I want two more strong hands. I want a friend who knows the steps.

I think of my mother at home with her piles of towels and sheets. She must be lonely when she folds laundry without me.