She washed and dried her mother’s stored clothes on this autumn day until they gave off a “Spring Fresh” scent.
She folded with precision—navy approved— by her Chief Petty Officer father and Nurse Corps mother. He was buried at Arlington fifteen years ago, she beside him—ten years later.
First: the old pink mothballed tanks. Second: T-shirts. Third: shorts. And last—the one feminine article she allowed herself to keep after CPO Ron’s passing: the yellow sleeveless, knee-length dress she wore on their first date, before enlistment, before folding, washing, refolding her mother’s clothes became a yearly ritual.
Then and only then she would do her laundry— the 4-F child living silently, obediently, alone in the family quarters.
She buttoned every other button of the 3X cover-up she wore over her navy bathing suit. Then she went back and fastened the remaining buttons until the row was straight and even. She placed it face down on the ironing board, making sure there were no loose ends. She moved the iron along with flat, heavy palms on the grip, watching the wrinkles disappear.
She admired how the shirt fit the mold in a way it never properly hugged her body.
She continued, folding the shirt lengthwise— in proper flag fold fashion— then from right shoulder to hip.
Along the last fold— the one that exposed the breast pocket’s outline— she began to cry.
Under the T-shirt she was wearing, she touched the neat parallel rows of stitches where her breasts had been before the operation.
She finished the final fold, the one that cuts across the width. She placed the shirt face up, with the rest of the others in the footlocker chest.
In six months she will be buried without proper military honors in a cemetery that is not Arlington.
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