The iron hisses a blast of steam, and my husband's cotton shirts lay tangled in a basket at my feet. Navy blue, olive green, and black, all 100 percent cotton, maybe stripes but no plaid—he hates plaid. I pull out his favorite khaki shirt, snap the fabric loose, fold the collar down, and press the material against the padded ironing board. A cloud of vapor melts the stiff wrinkles into smooth fibers. I pull the corners down and work around the little button. Four pressed shirts hang off the back of a dinning room chair.
"Do you still love me? You never iron my shirts any more," my husband said yesterday, implying that this act of smoothing creases indicates our passion is still alive, is a meter of our marriage's success.
Most mornings, he stands in his boxers and irons a shirt.
"Other husbands don't have to iron their shirts," he teased me knowing full well that many women don't iron their husband's shirts any more. I know he'd like for me to help him like I once did, but since I started working full-time outside of our home, I'm too busy to iron.
I didn't do much ironing growing up—just the Irish linen table cloth for holidays or clothes for a wedding or the prom. They were the polyester years and most of our clothes were wrinkle-free straight from the dryer. Even if my clothes did need ironing, I rarely felt the need. I was a wear-it-wrinkled kind of girl.
My husband likes cotton shirts, and he is not a wear-it-wrinkled kind of guy.
Early in our marriage, I was impressed with his habit of pleating two folds in his shirt at the hips just before tucking it into his trousers, uniform style. He learned how to iron in the military. "Put the shoulders over the square corner," he once said to me soon after we married. Then he placed the shirt snugly over the opposite end of the board. "It fits here."
Why hadn't I thought of that?
When my children were young I used to love to stand at the ironing board. I found the heat of the warm material soothing, the rhythm of the ironing meditative. During that never ending cycle of feedings, laundry, naps, and story time, those well-ironed rows of shirts represented order, calm, and security. And since we did not yet know each other well, those shirts also represented love and devotion.
As the kids grew older, I worked as a freelance journalist. With my schedule and work hours mainly at night writing by the light of the computer monitor, I could still keep up the ritual of ironing my husband's shirts.
We knew it would be an adjustment when I began working full-time. Combined with the kids' schedules, house and yard projects, and what little writing time I could find, I accomplished domestic tasks mostly on the fly. And where were my husband's shirts? Tangled and forgotten in the laundry basket.
I understand how he could feel left out in the order of my day. It's not the ironed shirts he misses most, but my full attention. Those pressed, wrinkle-free shirts said, "I thought of you today." It's the same way I feel after he fixes a hook in the closet or builds shelves in the bathroom. These are gifts we give each other, not because we have to but because we want to.
This morning, after clearing my schedule and arranging rides for the kids, I carted the ironing board up to the living room where the light is good. I stilled my racing mind, my overactive life, and focused only on the tan fabric spread smooth and warm in my hands.
"Do I still love him?" After fifteen years he still looks handsome dressed for work. Tomorrow morning, if I'm not dashing out the door at the last minute, I'll run my hand across his chest, button the little buttons, and feel that smooth cotton on my cheek.
BIO: CAROLINE WOLFE has a bachelor's degree in English and a master's in Writing and Literature. During her years of raising babies, she worked as a small town journalist writing hundreds of local features and news stories. Currently, she is a college academic advisor. She writes personal narrative essays to make sense of her life. She also is writing a novel of interlocking short stories that take place at a country inn in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. Contact Caroline at: carolinewolfe@yahoo.com
