The Sock

Rain on the window, machines going, and a plastic chair with a crack in it that pinches if you sit wrong.

The woman two machines down folds sheets like she was taught. Corner to corner, shake, corner to corner. She can do a fitted sheet, which almost nobody can, and she doesn't look at her hands while she does it.

My load has been done a while. I'm not moving.

She holds up a sock — grey, ribbed, not hers — and raises her eyebrows at me.

It isn't mine either. I shake my head.

She looks at it. Then she puts it in the lint trap of the machine between us. Standing up, where you'd see it.

I don't know what that is. It isn't nothing.

She's gone by the time my dryer stops. I take my things out and fold them badly, the way I do, and on the way past I take the sock.

It's in my drawer. It's been there two years. It doesn't match anything.