What Fits in A Suitcase

By midnight, the laundromat smelled of hot cotton, artificial lavender and the lemon floor cleaner somebody had used without much conviction.

Jasmijn had chosen a machine near the back, where the fluorescent tube above her flickered every few minutes and Washer 9 made a small knocking sound during the spin cycle. There were fourteen machines in total. She knew because she had counted them twice.

There was nothing else to do.

Her suitcase stood upright beside the plastic chair, one wheel missing. The wheel had come off in the station car park three years ago, on the way to Prague, and Diego had said they should buy a new suitcase. They never had. If you pulled it at a slight angle, it still worked.

Most things did.

Her phone lit up on the chair beside her.

Diego.

She watched his name disappear.

Nine missed calls now.

The washing machine turned her clothes slowly behind the round glass: jeans, underwear, two blouses, the yellow cardigan she had packed because she always became cold when she was nervous.

And, inexplicably, Diego's navy sweater.

She hadn't noticed it until she'd emptied the suitcase onto the folding table. His sweater must have been on the chair in the bedroom beneath her cardigan when she packed.

She had picked it up, held it for a moment, then put it in with everything else.

There had seemed something unnecessarily theatrical about leaving it behind.

At twelve twenty, a man came in carrying a pink plastic laundry basket. On top lay a fitted sheet covered in yellow giraffes.

He stopped at Washer 6.

"Is this one broken?"

"I don't know."

"You've been here longer than me."

"That doesn't mean they've appointed me."

He smiled and began loading the giraffes.

Her phone lit again.

This is ridiculous. Come home and we'll talk.

She turned it face down.

The man poured detergent into the wrong compartment.

"The middle one," Jasmijn said.

"What?"

"That's fabric softener."

He examined the bottle. "I thought the flower meant fresh."

"It's soft."

"That's very little information for a flower to carry."

Jasmijn smiled.

A few minutes later he called somebody.

"She's fine. Mum says she's asleep." A pause. "Yes, I put everything in." Another pause. "Because I know how to do laundry, Leila."

He glanced at Jasmijn.

"I absolutely knew about the flower."

She laughed.

There was affection in his irritation.

When his washing was done, he picked up the basket.

At the door he looked once at her suitcase.

"You staying?"

"For a bit."

"Okay."

He left without asking why.

At three seventeen, her washing was clean.

This presented a problem.

The room she had rented wouldn't be available until seven-thirty. The landlady had apologised three times over the phone. Her sister's birthday. She wouldn't be back until morning.

Jasmijn had said that was absolutely fine.

At the time she'd been standing outside her own front door with a suitcase and twenty-nine years of marriage on the other side of it.

Almost everything had seemed absolutely fine by comparison.

She put the clean clothes back in and washed them again.

It cost six euros.

There were more dignified ways to purchase two hours, but not many that came with fabric softener.

At four, she bought coffee from the machine.

It tasted faintly of soup.

She drank it anyway.

Diego called again.

This time she listened to the voicemail.

"Jasmijn. Enough now."

His voice was calm. Diego was almost always calm. It had once been one of the things she loved about him.

"You've made your point. Just come home. We can talk about this tomorrow when we've both slept."

A pause.

"And if you're at a hotel, at least tell me which one so I know you're safe."

Another pause.

"Please."

That last word was quieter.

Jasmijn replayed the message.

Then she deleted it.

At four forty-five, a taxi stopped outside.

She knew it was Diego before the door opened.

He came in carrying her toothbrush, her phone charger and a pair of reading glasses.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

He was still wearing the grey shirt he'd worn at dinner. It was creased now, one side untucked. His hair stood up at the back.

"You forgot these."

He put the things on the folding table.

Jasmijn looked at them.

"Thank you."

"You need the glasses."

"I know."

"And your phone was at twelve percent when you left."

"I know that too."

He looked towards the machines.

"Are you doing laundry?"

"It would appear so."

"At five in the morning."

"That's one of the advantages of twenty-four-hour opening."

He pulled out the plastic chair opposite her and sat.

They had owned almost identical kitchen chairs during their first year together, cheap white ones that bent slightly under anybody heavier than a Labrador. Diego had once fallen through one during Christmas dinner.

She wondered where those chairs had gone.

"Ellie called me," he said.

Jasmijn looked up.

"Why?"

"Because you sent her a message at eleven saying you loved her."

"Oh."

"She found that alarming."

"I tell her I love her."

"Not usually at eleven o'clock on a Thursday with no punctuation."

Jasmijn picked at the cardboard rim of her coffee cup.

"Did you tell her?"

"Tell her what?"

"That I left."

Diego rubbed both hands over his face.

"I told her we'd had an argument."

"We didn't."

"No. Apparently not."

Washer 9 began its spin cycle again.

His sweater struck the glass every few seconds.

Diego heard it before he saw it.

"Is that my sweater?"

"Yes."

"I've been looking for that."

"I know."

"Why are you washing it?"

"It was in my suitcase."

He stared at her.

Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.

"You walked out on me and stole my sweater?"

"Accidentally."

"The good one."

"I know which one it is."

"Obviously. It's in your washing machine."

That made her laugh too.

For perhaps ten seconds they sat under the ugly fluorescent lights laughing about the sweater.

It was the most natural they had been with each other all week.

Possibly longer.

Then Diego stopped.

"Come home."

Jasmijn looked through the washer door.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

She could have answered in a hundred ways. She had answered in a hundred ways, over months, usually while Diego was opening the mail or loading the dishwasher or checking whether the back door was locked.

Instead she said, "Do you remember Tuesday?"

He frowned.

"I remember you asking me something."

"If you still wanted me here."

His face changed slightly.

"Jasmijn—"

"What did you say?"

"I don't remember exactly."

"You said, 'Where else would you go?'"

He looked down at his hands.

"I didn't mean it like that."

"I know."

"I was joking."

"I know."

"Then why are you making it sound—"

"I'm not making it sound like anything."

The machines filled the space he left.

Diego rubbed his thumb along a scratch in the plastic table.

"So that's it? Twenty-nine years because I made a stupid joke?"

"No."

"Then help me here."

She looked at him.

There was real fear in his face now, and that was almost worse. She had wanted, for months, for him to understand that something was ending. Now that he did, she discovered she had never wanted to see what understanding would cost him.

"I don't have one reason big enough for you," she said.

He was quiet.

"I kept thinking I'd find one."

"For leaving me?"

"For being allowed to."

Diego looked away.

"You're allowed," he said finally.

Jasmijn nodded.

"I know."

She did now.

Washer 9 slowed.

Diego stood when the door unlocked.

He reached inside automatically and pulled out her jeans, the yellow cardigan, her black blouse. Then his sweater.

"You'll ruin this in the dryer."

"I was going to use low heat."

"Low heat still shrinks the sleeves."

"You've never done your own washing in your life."

"I've absorbed information."

"By proximity?"

"Twenty-nine years of proximity."

He laid the sweater on the folding table and smoothed the shoulders.

Jasmijn took the other end.

Together they straightened it.

It was an old reflex, the sort of small cooperation marriage accumulated without either person noticing: fitted sheets, furniture through doorways, Christmas trees, suitcases that refused to close.

Diego folded one sleeve across the chest.

Jasmijn folded the other.

He finished it in half.

"There," he said.

"Take it."

His hands remained on the sweater.

"What else is mine?"

They opened the suitcase.

There were three pairs of his socks, one T-shirt, the sweater and the small black umbrella he had owned since before they met.

"You took my umbrella?"

"It was raining."

"That's not really how leaving works."

"I was in a hurry."

They sat on the floor and sorted the clothes between them.

Jasmijn's.

Diego's.

Jasmijn's.

Diego's.

A single gardening glove neither could explain.

At six ten, he zipped his things into a supermarket bag.

The sky beyond the laundromat windows had begun to turn from black to the dull blue-grey that came before colour.

Diego stood.

"Are you sure?"

"No."

He looked almost offended by the answer.

"No?"

"I've never done this before."

For the first time that night, he smiled without amusement.

"Neither have I."

"I thought I'd feel sure."

"That would be convenient."

"Yes."

He picked up his bag.

At the door he turned.

"Will you tell Ellie you're okay?"

"I will."

"And where you're staying?"

"Maybe."

"Jasmijn."

"I'll tell her."

He nodded.

Then he left.

She watched him cross the empty car park carrying the navy sweater in a supermarket bag.

At seven, Jasmijn put her clothes through the dryer.

Only once.

She folded each piece while it was still warm and packed it into the suitcase. Without Diego's clothes there was more room than she expected. She didn't have to press down on the lid or sit on it to make the zip meet.

Outside, buses had started running. A bakery somewhere nearby had opened its ovens, and each time the laundromat door moved, the smell of bread slipped briefly through the detergent and hot cotton.

Jasmijn put on her coat.

Her phone was fully charged.

Diego had left the charger on the folding table, coiled neatly beside her glasses and toothbrush.

She put it on top of the clean clothes and closed the suitcase.

For now, she left it coiled.

*