The Laundry Room

The Laundry Room

On top of a pile of dirty sweatpants, pullovers, underwear, thermal socks, and long johns, I found his University of Ohio sweater and clenched the front of it to my nose; it still smelled like vanilla and rainforest. Painful, but better than the stench of the room. I cried, having sense enough to move the Tide box before I crumpled to the floor beside it. My stomach shook.

I know what it feels like when someone dies. My grandma died when I was twelve. It’s different from the pain of a break-up. It’s more hollow. This was worse than Grandma. This reached inside me and ripped out my fucking soul. Everything that was me was just a pile of last week’s dirty clothes. And the heather gray pullover I was wearing, and the black pants with white socks, smudges on my toes and heels because I didn’t have the strength to put on my slippers and shuffle around. I barely managed to pull back my hair in a limp ponytail to do a load of clothes.

I wiped my eyes and dragged myself off the floor. For a moment, I leaned against the washing machine with my fingers spread eagle on the cool white lid and decided not to wash his sweater. I wasn’t ready. I managed to put some clothes in given that my arms felt like useless, flappy bean bags. When I paused to remove his socks from the bundle I was about to wash, the sound of keys jingling tickled the hair on my arms. I stared at my naked wrist before I realized I wasn’t wearing my watch. Usually at about three-thirty in our apartment, we heard the sound of keys outside the front door, like a ghost forgot he didn’t live here anymore. In my mind, I sensed his combed-over hair and black hole eyes, but truthfully I’ve never seen him. Jon said ghosts weren’t real. But how do you explain the keys like clockwork every afternoon? Maybe it’s the guy upstairs, he’d said. Yeah right. I know what I heard.

To my left, I caught the movement of indigo and turned to look.

Jonathan.

He wore his T-shirt and red flannel pants—what I always saw him wearing around the house. That wasn’t what he was wearing when he died. I remember because he asked me to iron a blue button-down that morning, and blue looked dazzling next to his hair. A gloomy light drowsed on his shoulders from the window behind him. When he grinned, my heart exploded, but I remained where I stood, my back pressed against the washing machine.

Neither of us spoke, but I was dying to hear his voice, even smell the spearmint on his breath. What was funny was he said ghosts weren’t real, and yet…here he was. Or was he some part of my imagination? If he was a hallucination, I wasn’t about to make myself more crazy by talking to him. Then he winked at me and sucked in his bottom lip—the way he always did before he told me what he’d been thinking.

Trembling started in my hands and, as I watched him, moved to my thighs. Every hair on my body was alert. For some reason, I was suddenly embarrassed I hadn’t shaved my legs. As if he were real…as if we’d really…

“I knew it,” he said. I still couldn’t talk to him—to it, I mean, so he—it went on. “You want me.”

Of course I do. God, I lay in bed and kissed his pillow every night like a twelve-year old girl. I wore his unwashed pants and masturbated through the fabric. He—it had to be a hallucination to know that, but Jonathan always knew my dirtiest secrets.

“Come here and touch me,” he said. His voice was as precise as the day he told me we wouldn’t say until death do us part in the vows. Why? I asked. It was tradition. “Because even death couldn’t keep me from you.”

“I can’t,” I said, “you aren’t real.”

“Touch me and find out how real I am.”

Now he—it, goddamn it, it was playing with me. It was…it was. The washing machine, was it even on yet? I checked and turned the knob. Water poured into the reservoir.

It spoke over the rush of water. “I’ve missed you.”

Jonathan removed his shirt. The happy trail of dark brown hair caught my eye. His chest was sprinkled with soft curls. If he wasn’t real, how could the cold air harden his nipples? But he was thinner than I remembered; I could see his ribcage.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting ready. Go ahead, take your clothes off.” He slid down his boxer briefs and pajama pants at the same time.

I removed my socks, but only to humor him. The washing machine started shaking, sloshing water around in the silence between us.

“Take off your shirt.”

“It’s too cold,” I said.

“You know you want to. Look, I’ll beg.” He fell to his knees.

I still wore the ring. Couldn’t take it off my finger. The last time he was on his knees, we were in the park. I fed popcorn to the geese even though we weren’t supposed to. He knelt in front of the bench, and I stood up because it wouldn’t be right if I was sitting down when he proposed.

“Stop it.” I covered my eyes. I won’t cry. I won’t. My forehead ached from the tension trying to hold it in.

He got on all fours and looked at me. Grinning, he grabbed my ankle.

“Ow,” I cried. I lifted my pants leg and saw a red handprint wrapped around. The washing machine vibrated.

We were lucky to have our own laundry room because that’s rare even in a small city. The downside is sometimes the door locks and won’t open from the inside. My dumbbell had it propped open, but when the blue weight rolled back to the dryer, the door slammed, locked.

He grinned.

The blood vessels in his eyes popped, causing red tears to run down his cheeks. He laughed. With his head bending forward between his arms, he twisted his neck to face me. I heard the bones crunch like dog teeth biting into chicken marrow. Blood poured from his mouth with a string of obscenities, some of which I never heard Jonathan say. He laughed again. “You can’t leave. The door’s shut. Angie wants to leave; Angie wants to leave. Don’t go Angie, come here and touch me. Don’t you like the way I move?” He twirled his head so that his nose pointed to his chest, and tilted his head back. Blood dripped on the floor. The whites of his eyes glowed opaque. “If you try to leave I’ll chase you.”

I touched the knob and he stepped forward. I let go of the door.

“You’re stuck with me.”

“Why?” I cried. My voice was choked.

“Come here and touch me. Jon burns in Hell with Granny; he won’t notice. Don’t touch that door,” he rolled his head.

The washing machine rattled in the spin cycle, knocking the fabric softener off the above shelf on the wall.

I closed my eyes. Because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. When I opened them again, he was dangling from the ceiling. “He burns in Hell with the only woman who loved you. They hold each other and cry; they call out for you Angie. They call out for you. Angie, why you cry? Those boys are fools; don’t listen to their talk. They don’t know a sweet girl when they see one. Where’s my sweet girl at? I’m gonna find you! Oh Ang, don’t stop. Ang, where’s the milk? I love you, Angie. I really do. I know I say a lot of shit I don’t mean sometimes when I’m mad, but I do mean this. Because even death can’t keep us apart.”

“That’s not what he said.”

“Yes it ‘tis, Angie. Don’t you touch that door. Don’t you dare touch that door you bitch! You bitch!”

My head swung left and right as I threw myself against the door. The wood splintered and the metal squeaked. I blew off the side of the door frame bursting through.

It crawled fast to the floor, but when I opened the door it stopped. I ran out of the laundry room, outside to my car. I slammed the car door and waited, but nothing came out. After five minutes of waiting, my skin hot and stony, I sink into the steering wheel and cry.