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With a frustrated huff, Viv put her cup on the counter and glared at the both of us before storming out of the kitchen.

“I…” I started, glancing at Fiona with wide eyes. “I have no idea what just happened. What did I say?”

EIGHTEEN

“Whatcha doin’?” Merry asked, startling me.

In the weeks since Art and the kids had moved in, I had barely had a moment to myself. I’d been almost relieved for the excuse to escape into the little laundry room, even if it meant dealing with a mountain of things to be folded.

“Hey, buddy, what are you doing down here? Did I leave the door open?” I replied, making a mental note to fix the latch on the funny little door dwarfed by the fridge. It opened onto the treacherously worn narrow stairs to the poky laundry room/root cellar that made the outside staircase to the apartment seem palatial in comparison. I had visions, hopefully not prophetic ones, of one of us missing a step at the top or slipping and careening to our deaths.

“Uh-huh. What is this room?” the little boy asked, his eyes wide with unabashed curiosity as he looked around.

“Well…” I gestured at the ancient washer and dryer in the corner of the cave-like room. To the best of my ability, I’d tried to figure out where this room was in relation to the rest of the building and had concluded that we were under the snug. “This is a laundry room that doubles as a winter pantry.”

“What’s a winter pantry?”

“It’s an old-timey thing people used before they had refrigerators. It’s always cool down here so it’s a good place to store food,” I explained, getting back to my laundry sorting.

“Why didn’t they have a refrigerator? Were they waiting for it to be delivered?” Merry frowned.

“No.” I laughed. “I know it’s hard to imagine, but there was a time before refrigerators existed.” I gasped and put my hands on my cheeks in mock horror and dropped my voice for maximum effect. “There was even a time before electricity.”

“That’s silly,” Merry said, giggling like I’d told him the best joke he’d ever heard.

“Want to help me?” I asked, gesturing at what I was doing.

“I don’t know.” He looked warily at the pile of laundry in front of me. “What are you doing?”

I looked up to see if he was kidding, but he looked dead serious. “Folding laundry.”

He scrunched up his nose like he still didn’t understand. “My mom doesn’t do that.”

“Doesn’t do what?”

“Fold laundry,” he said, plopping himself into a cross-legged sitting position next to me.

“She doesn’t? How does your laundry get clean?”

Merry shrugged. “Dunno.”

Of course he didn’t. He was five. In his world, clothes magically appeared, clean and folded in his dresser.

“Well, I’m not sure how your mom takes care of the laundry, but here, we wash the clothes in that machine.” I gestured to the tiny-by-American-standards front-loading machine that I suspected had been in this room since I’d been five myself. “And we dry them in that one,” I said, pointing to the equally tiny and old dryer next to the washer. “After the clothes are clean, we fold them and take them upstairs to put them away.”

“How does the machine work?” Merry asked, looking genuinely curious.

I frowned. “I’m not entirely sure about the engineering behind it, but hot water fills the machine, and the drum tumbles the clothes in the water with soap. Then the dirty water gets replaced with clean water to rinse them.”

Merry looked like he didn’t know whether to believe me or not. He shot me a skeptical look and darted across the room to the washer and yanked open the door. I watched, slightly concerned, as he shoved half his little body into the machine, barely keeping the tips of his chunky blue sneakers touching the ground.

“There’s no drum in here!” he cried, his voice echoing metallically inside the machine.

I laughed as he popped back out and kneeled in front of the machine, a look of profound disappointment twisting up his face. “Sorry, I should have been more clear. That whole metal thing in there is called a drum. But it’s not the same kind of drum as a musical instrument.”

The little boy’s frown deepened. “Then why is it called a drum?”

Shrugging, I glanced at the machine. “I’m not sure. Maybe because it’s a little bit shaped like one?”