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After a few weeks, he began to miss more of the little things about the Abbie’s presence in their home. How she was so stubborn that she’d stand on the tips of her toes trying to reach something in a cabinet before asking for his help. How she would make that face when she said thank you as he handed her the out-of-reach item. How fast she’d remove her shoes when she got home from work. How she loved her bubble baths. How she’d always question why he was doing her laundry but never complain when it was all neatly folded and put away by the time she got home after a long day.
Crane had avoided looking in her laundry basket since she had… gone? In his considerable vocabulary there wasn’t a word for what happened to Abbie that he would accept as big enough to encompass what her loss meant to him. It was like trying to describe how a parent felt about their child. Love suddenly was no longer great enough of a word to show the proper depth of it.
Gone. Lost. Missing. None of those were sufficient. The word sacrifice was no longer big enough, either. She had done it too many times now for it to mean the same thing as it meant for ordinary people.
He stared at the dryer where their relationship changed directions oh so quickly not that long ago and realized that he had to face facts. He couldn’t leave her laundry piled up here forever. If they didn’t figure out how to find her, he would have to pack up all her possessions and find a new place to live and he knew it would be best to store freshly washed clothing.
Yet there was something sad about changing anything. Joe finally had to come over the previous weekend and clean out the refrigerator, run the dishwasher, and organize the giant collection of books Crane had amassed on the dining room table. He mentioned that he was pleased Crane had bothered to take out the trash but he had only done that because he knew Abbie loved her house smelling clean. He wasn’t sure he cared anymore whether the garbage piled up or not but if Abbie showed up tomorrow, he wanted her house to be somewhat tidy. Or at least smell somewhat like the cranberry-orange candle she had been burning at night before… it happened.
And she would need clean clothing. All her favorites were in that basket and he would have to deal with it. Just like she used to wash his one and only shirt over and over until it was too tattered to survive going through even the gentlest cycle one more time. He still had the scraps of old fabric tucked away somewhere because there really wasn’t much else to tie him to his past life. Now his present life was also in tatters.
He started the washing machine, filling it with cold water and pouring in her favorite detergent. She still liked the smell of Tide and it now made him think of her and the first time he found his way to her apartment. They hardly knew each other and were so uncertain of their mission then. He wasn’t unsure of how he felt about her – she was his Lieutenant and he knew that they were going to be tied together somehow for a very long time. Crane just didn’t imagine the day would come he’d be doing her laundry and she’d not be just a partner but sometimes his lover.
Crane watched the water get higher in the tub and watched bubbles form. The mundane, everyday things were going to be the end of him yet. He sorted through her clothes and put all the dark pieces in the machine and shut the lid, listening to it as it started the next cycle. It was then he spied the sheer camisole peeking out of her basket of hand washables.
This damn thing. He held it between his fingers, feeling the soft fabric. He brought it up to his nose and breathed in deep. It smelled like her. Like them. She had worn it a few times now, when they would spend the night together in her bed. Then she suddenly put a halt to that and suggested he go out on dates with other women and he knew she was trying to guard her heart from falling too far too fast. They hadn’t been intimate for a few weeks when she did what she did to save Jenny. Maybe she was trying to protect him, too, knowing one more loss would be the end of him. As if losing her at any point would have been acceptable.
Crane sat on the floor with his back to the dryer and continued to stare at her camisole, fighting hard to keep the tears from flowing. He had to find her. He had to get her back. That was the only thing that would be acceptable.
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