As an afterthought, Jordan decided to wash the jacket she was wearing as well, since there was extra room in the washing machine. She checked the pockets and found the coin she had picked up in the parking garage that morning, along with three old receipts and a half a roll of mints. She chucked the receipts and the mints in the garbage can, started the washer, and took a closer look at the coin. Not a real coin after all, it looked more like an amusement park token. It was definitely old, and she couldn't read the words in the dim light of the laundry room.
Holding the token in her hand, she hopped up on the dryer, pulled her knees to her chest, and rested her chin on them. As strange as it sounded, this was where she felt closest to her mother, sitting on the dryer in the laundry room of her childhood home. She was only ten when her mother was killed, and she didn't have all that many memories of her, but she clearly remembered laundry days. Emily would lift Jordan up to sit on the dryer, and they would chat as they folded clothes together. Jordan closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of the laundry soap; the light scent made her memories seem even stronger. She didn't even notice that she had started rubbing the coin in her hand like a worry stone.
Since the wash cycle on the old machine was a mere eighteen minutes, Jordan figured she might as well wait and throw the load into the dryer before joining Garret at the bar. She sighed and let herself drift with her thoughts.
She found herself wondering what it would be like to have a "laundry chat" with her mother now that she was a grown-up herself. What advice might Emily have imparted to her in the intimate comfort of that setting? Jordan, at thirty five years old, still had strong yearnings for her mother's affection. Actually, she reasoned, it was too bad that things couldn't be like the in the movies; her mother could send her some kind of sign that she was being watched over, loved, cared for, even when she felt so alone sometimes.
Half laughing, Jordan shook herself out of her reverie as the buzzer signaled the end of the wash cycle. Such nonsense running through her head! She was a woman who dealt, day in and day out, in cold hard facts; flights of fancy were really not her thing. She flipped the wet laundry out of the washer and into the dryer, started it, and headed up the stairs. She didn't want to keep Garret waiting too long, and she suddenly wasn't in the mood to be alone any longer.