I dragged myself to the laundromat after a night shift, my seven-month-old daughter asleep in my arms. I was so tired I fell asleep while the washer ran. When I woke up, my laundry was folded.
But what I found inside the washer made my hands shake. I work at a pharmacy, and I tell myself I’m on day shift to get through the week. But the truth is harder than that.
When another worker calls in sick or the store is short on help, I take any shift they offer because extra pay is the only thing keeping baby formula and diapers from becoming “maybe next week.”
My baby girl, Willow, is seven and a half months old. She’s at that sweet age where she smells like warm milk and sunshine, and her tiny smile can make me forget the pile of bills on the microwave. Her dad left the second I told him I was pregnant.
“I’m not ready for this,” he said, like being a dad was a shirt that didn’t fit. I stopped checking my phone for his messages around my fifth month. Now it’s just me, my mom, and Willow against the world.
Mom watches her when I’m at work, and I tell myself the tight feeling in my chest is thankfulness, not guilt. Because the truth is, my mom already raised her kids. She didn’t sign up for late-night bottles and diaper changes at 61, but she does it without one complaint.
We live in a small rented apartment on the second floor of an old building. The rent is okay, but there’s no washing machine. When laundry piles up, I have to carry it all down the street to the laundromat on the corner, the one with the blinking neon sign and the always-sticky floor.
That morning, I got home after a long night shift. My eyes burned like sand was in them, my body hurt in places I didn’t know could hurt, and I could hardly think straight. But the second I walked in the door, I saw the laundry basket was full to the top.
I let out a long, tired breath. “Guess we’re going to the laundromat, baby,” I whispered to Willow, who was dozing in my arms. Mom was still sleeping in her room after staying up most of the night with Willow while I worked.
I didn’t want to wake her. She needed sleep as much as I did. So, I bundled Willow up in her jacket, stuffed all the dirty clothes into one big bag, and headed out into the early morning.
The laundromat was quiet when we got there, just the steady hum of machines and the clean smell of soap in the air. There was only one other person, a woman in her 50s, pulling clothes from a dryer. She looked up when we walked in and smiled warmly.
“What a beautiful girl you have,” she said, her eyes crinkling. “Thanks,” I said and smiled back. She grabbed her basket and left, and then it was just me and Willow in that bright-lit room.
I loaded all our clothes into one washing machine. We don’t have much, so everything goes in together: Willow’s onesies, my work shirts, towels, and even her favorite blanket with the little elephants. I put in the quarters, hit start, and sat down on one of the hard plastic chairs against the wall.
Willow started fussing a little, making those small sounds that meant she was getting uncomfortable. I rocked her gently, swaying back and forth until her eyes closed again. The problem was, I didn’t have anything clean to cover her with.
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