After my mother-in-law passed away, I started helping my father-in-law with laundry and other chores. He asks me to add aspirin to the washing machine every time I do the laundry. When I asked him why, he said that's how his wife used to do it. Any idea what aspirin does?

 

first, I thought the strange laundry rule was only about grief.

Every time I walked past the kitchen carrying a basket of clothes, my father-in-law would look up and ask the same question in the same quiet, serious voice:

“Did you remember the aspirin?”

Not detergent.
Not fabric softener.
Aspirin.

At first, the question unsettled me. He was never angry, but he sounded as if that tiny white tablet mattered more than it should. After my mother-in-law passed away, he held tightly to certain routines. Towels had to be folded the way she folded them. Sheets had to be tucked just right. Her measuring spoons still sat beside the stove, untouched, as if moving them would disturb something sacred.

And then there was the aspirin in the laundry.