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I dragged myself to the laundromat after a night shift, Willow, my seven-month-old daughter, asleep in my arms. Exhaustion hit me so hard that I fell asleep while the washer ran. When I woke up, my laundry was folded perfectly—but what I saw inside the washer made my hands shake.
I work at a pharmacy and often tell myself I’m on “day shift” just to get through the week. But the reality is harsher. When coworkers call in sick or the store is short-staffed, I take any shift I can get. The extra pay keeps baby formula, diapers, and necessities from turning into “maybe next week.
Willow is seven and a half months old, at that sweet age where she smells like warm milk and sunshine. Her tiny smile can erase the stress of mounting bills. Her dad left the moment I told him I was pregnant.
“I’m not ready for this,” he said, like fatherhood was a shirt he couldn’t wear. By my fifth month, I stopped checking my phone for him.
Now it’s just me, my mom, and Willow against the world. Mom helps while I work, and I tell myself the tight feeling in my chest is gratitude, not guilt. But she already raised kids once. She didn’t sign up for late-night bottles and diaper changes at 61, yet she does it without 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. Laundry piles up, and I haul it down the street to the laundromat with its blinking neon sign and sticky floors.
That morning, after a long night shift, I walked in exhausted. My eyes burned, my body ached, my brain felt foggy—and the laundry basket was overflowing. I let out a long sigh.
“Guess we’re going to the laundromat, baby,” I whispered to Willow, dozing in my arms.
Mom was still sleeping, recovering from staying up most of the night with Willow while I worked. I didn’t want to wake her. She needed rest as much as I did.
I bundled Willow in her jacket, stuffed the dirty clothes into a bag, and headed out.
The laundromat was quiet, filled with the hum of machines and the scent of soap. One woman, maybe in her 50s, was pulling clothes from a dryer. She looked up and smiled warmly.
“What a beautiful girl,” she said.
“Thanks,” I replied.
Once she left, it was just me and Willow. I loaded everything into one washer—her onesies, my work shirts, towels, even her favorite elephant blanket—fed in the quarters, hit start, and sank into a hard chair.
Willow fussed a little. I rocked her, swaying until she closed her eyes again. I had nothing clean to cover her, so I grabbed a thin blanket from the dirty pile and wrapped her up. Warm and soft, she rested against me. My head felt heavy.
I leaned back, telling myself I’d just close my eyes for a second… and then I fell asleep
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