She waits until the third day to fold it, and I do not blame her, because folding was always the surrender.
The basket sits on the couch, overflowing, one sock hanging off the edge like something trying to escape. She dumps it out warm. That is the part I would give anything to have again: the heat still trapped in a towel fresh from the dryer, the way you could press your whole face into it and breathe.
She does not press her face into it. She pulls a shirt out, snaps it flat with two hands, that crisp sound, and folds it in thirds without looking, talking to someone on the phone about nothing, about a dentist appointment, about whether they need milk.
She hates this. I remember hating this. The endless returning of clean cloth to drawers, the pile that refilled itself the instant you emptied it, proof that the days kept coming and coming. What I wouldn't give for a chore that never ends. That is what a chore that never ends actually means.
She matches the socks by feel. Balls them together, tosses them in a little heap. Her hands know the shapes without her attention, which is its own kind of miracle, a body so practiced at living it can do this half asleep.
The basket is empty now. She carries it against her hip, that automatic tilt, and does not notice how good it is to have a hip, to have a basket to carry, to have a warm and waiting drawer.
Fold slowly, love. Breathe the towel in.
Let the milk wait.