Perfectly Pink

There’s a pile of bins in Yaakov’s room and I know it’s hiding there inside one of them. So one day I search and sort and make piles of what we could still use, what to toss, what’s cute but the wrong season.

And there it is — the kiddush outfit. It’s neatly folded, all the matching parts there, ready to be put on display. But the thing is, they don’t really match. The hat and the booties and the pants are all cotton-candy light pink, but the sweater….

A few days after the kiddush I’d put in a load, and being a new mom I didn’t know about things like whites, blacks, lights, and mixed. So I just threw it in the machine, along with everything else. I think I put in some baby detergent, too, because people said that makes the laundry soft. And when the sweater came out, still wet, I couldn’t tell that anything had changed. But the next Shabbos it became painfully clear; this dainty piece had turned gray… ish. It had lost its pristine glow, the newborn feel of something not yet tainted by a world of mistakes. I looked at it — my mistake.

I thought maybe it would help if I washed it a few more times, but to no avail. What was done was done. It was pink, but not the same pink as the pants or the hat or booties. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it, though the sight of it made me cringe. Everyone else thought the sweater was cute; they had no idea that under her blanket the pants were a different color. Only I could tell the story of the mishap that had irrevocably changed its appearance.