Carried Away: Journey Through Grief

The laundromat sits on the edge of Route 9, its neon sign flickering like a heartbeat in the dusk. Inside, the air smells of detergent and damp cotton, a quiet alchemy of clean beginnings and forgotten endings. Machines hum, their cycles steady as tides, while the lost-and-found shelf cradles relics of strangers' lives: a child's sock, a silver hairpin, a note folded too many times. Roberta moves through this space like a ghost who knows every corner-folding, wiping counters, keeping the world's small losses in order.
She doesn't speak much. Doesn't need to. The laundromat speaks for her, its rhythms telling stories of grief and resilience, of things left behind and things reclaimed. Here, in the hum of spin cycles and the weight of damp cloth, Roberta learns what it means to hold space for the unspoken-hers and others'. This is not a place of answers, but of questions kept safe, like coins tucked in a pocket for a rainy day.