The tiny overalls came around again in the dryer window.
She hadn't meant to wash them. They'd been in the bottom of the hamper since March, wadded under a bath towel, and she'd scooped the whole armful without sorting. By the time she noticed them tumbling — that flash of red corduroy in the porthole — the cycle was already fifteen minutes in.
She could have opened the door. Pulled them out. Folded them into the drawer with the other things she kept. She'd done that with the hospital bracelet, the tooth in its plastic capsule, the drawing of a horse that looked like a potato.
Instead she watched.
The overalls came around every eleven seconds. She counted without deciding to. Red flash, dark tumble, white towel, red flash. The snaps on the straps made a faint ticking against the drum that she could hear if she held still.
He was at school now. Second grade. He'd gotten tall over the summer and serious about which shoes he'd wear and she'd started finding his socks balled up inside the shoes, the way his father did, and she'd thought: oh. That's it, then. That's how it goes.
The overalls were size 3T. He'd worn them the day they drove to the orchard and he'd stood under the lowest branch reaching up with both hands and she'd lifted him by the waist and he'd pulled an apple off the tree and held it against his chest with both arms, as if it might escape.
Red flash. Dark tumble. Red flash.
She could feel the exact weight of him at that age. Not the number — she'd never known the number — but the particular heft of him on her hip, how he'd lean back to look at her face and she'd have to tighten her arm to keep him balanced. How he fit into certain spaces: the curve of the car seat, the bend of her elbow, the red overalls with the apple inside them.
The dryer buzzed.
She opened the door. The overalls were warm. She held them a moment — they weighed nothing, that was the thing, they weighed nothing at all — and then she folded them once, twice, small enough to fit in her palm, and put them on top of the dryer.
She took the towels out and carried them upstairs.