Fran sits and flips through an obsolete magazine, which somehow washed ashore in this Laundromat from several years in the past. There’s no one else in the place, of course, just her, as usual. Following the welcome interruption of the town meeting, she returned to finish the one task that seems to occupy her every waking hour: the never-ending cleansing of the clothes. Our Lady of Perpetual Laundry. She wonders if anyone else in the town has this many soiled socks and jeans to clean, but then, no one else in the town has a kid. Just her. The only parent. On top of everything else she’s dealing with, lonely doesn’t begin to describe how that feels. Isaac’s off playing right now, alone, in the sad little playground they installed for him not long after he was born, just a patch of dirt, some scrubby grass, a slide, and a swing set with just one lonely swing. Getting his clothes dirty. And so the cycle goes.
As she glances idly at the magazine’s glossy pages, she wonders if these hairstyles are still stylish. Are these fad diets still the fad? Are these time-saving recipes still saving time? There’s a breezy story about a celebrity marriage, a tell-all about a singer’s comeback from addiction, and a Q&A with a handsome tech guru sharing his lifestyle tips. Buddy, she thinks, you’re a billionaire, so finding time for calming daily meditation is probably not an issue for you. She tries to remember a time in her life, before Isaac, before this town, when she cared about hairstyles and fad diets. She can’t remember a goddamn thing. Just trying to remember gives her a headache. How old is this magazine, anyway? She checks the cover—eight years old, holy shit, it’s the same age as her son. That celebrity couple is definitely divorced by now. That singer is back in rehab. She tosses it aside and glances up, listening to the washers’ throaty grumble, watching her and her son’s clothes tumble, slosh, and paw at the glass, trying to escape their sudsy fate.
The TV hinged to the concrete wall above the long bank of washers is turned to the all-news channel, prattling disposable headlines piped in from the outside world: new arguments, new advances, new fronts in distant wars, new studies, new polls, new perils. She searches for the remote to mute it. No one here can contact anyone on the outside, but they sure as hell get all the endless news. She was surprised, when she first arrived, how quickly she stopped caring about the ceaseless chatter of current events. Now she actively avoids it, which is easy enough. There’s no Internet, just the TV in the Laundromat and the few stray newspapers that show up at the library. A couple of people keep radios, but she doesn’t bother. She’s come to value the silence. There is certainly plenty of that.
As she hunts for the remote, she catches what’s happening on-screen: Coma Tycoon Considers Senate Run reads the news crawl, as a handsome man in a well-tailored suit stands at a podium in front of some flags. “Some call it a miracle, some call it impossible, but I just want my old life for me and a better life for all Americans,” he says. Holy shit! She picks up the magazine to confirm: Yes, it’s that same stupid tech guru with the daily meditation tips. So he’s a politician now? He has time to make a fortune and meditate and run for the Senate, and she can’t even get to the bottom of the laundry hamper.
She watches him; he’s handsome, she’ll give him that. He thanks the crowd, cameras click in reply, his smile blossoms. Reporters shout questions. Her headache barks again. She finds the remote on top of a washer and changes the channel, flipping until she lands on that station where they show exhumed game shows from the seventies all day long. Now this is more like it: no hubbub of the daily news, just polyester lapels and canned laughter, lightning rounds and mystery prizes.
Why the Institute didn’t think to put washers and dryers in each bungalow when they built this place, she can’t imagine. She wished they’d told her that before she came here—it might have been a deal breaker. Someday maybe she’ll live in a place with a washer and dryer in the basement. A backyard, a real yard, for Isaac. And playmates. A school. That’s what Cooper’s always talking about, like it’s an actual possibility. Like what happened to poor Jean Mondale and little Jacob never happened. Jean, wild Jean, who got herself knocked up within a month of arriving here and then, a few years back, when Jacob was barely two, decided the Blinds was no place to raise a kid. She was right, of course, she was absolutely right, so they packed up and left, the two of them, and everyone here wished them well. They were dead, mother and son, within a week. The residents can’t contact the outside world, but they sure as hell get the endless news. Everyone gathered around the TV watching the news reports. Now there’s a new rule: If you get pregnant in the Blinds, you don’t have a choice but to end it. There won’t ever be another kid born here. There will never be another kid to swing on that lonely swing. Isaac was the first and, now, he’s the last, for as long as they choose to stay here. Sometimes Isaac still asks about Jacob, what happened to him, where he went. She never knows what to tell him.
The washers slosh to an end, stilling, the clothes slumping into a sodden heap. She pulls them out, tosses them into the dryer. Everything about this feels so familiar to her. Not just like she’s done it before, but like she’s never not doing it.
She hits Run on the dryer and turns her attention back to the game show. Someone’s winning something. Someone’s getting hugged. Someone’s jumping up and down with joy. She’s always thought it strange that there’s a whole channel dedicated to reruns of old game shows. Why does she care to see who among these contestants will triumph or stumble? Who will choose the cash in hand and who chooses what’s behind Door Number Three? These are all repeats anyway, so these people’s fates have already played out. Whether they won or lost was decided for them long ago.
7.
COOPER STANDS IN THE DOORWAY of Errol Colfax’s darkened bungalow.
There’s no light; it’s long past dark; the carpeted living room is striped by stray shards of errant outdoor glow. The town’s other residents have all retired to their homes, to their VCRs, their crossword puzzles, their bottles of various potencies, the few distractions kept on hand to tide them through the long silent hours of the night. There’s no tape over Colfax’s doorway anymore, no padlock on the door, it’s been left open for anyone to enter. But best as Cooper can tell, it looks exactly as it did the night Colfax died. No one’s been here in the two months since, save for a band of volunteers, including Greta Fillmore, Spiro Mitchum, and Buster Ford, all among the original eight, who offered to come with buckets and bleach and clean the place up as best they could, out of respect for Colfax. Cooper himself didn’t join them. This house was not a scene he cared to revisit.