We had to go.

I loaded the girls into our old Buick.

The muffler was rattling, but it still ran.

Layla sat next to me at the laundromat.

She was wearing her favorite pink fleece jacket, the one with the dirty cuffs.

I put the clothes in the washing machines and watched the soapy water spin.

I was hoping, genuinely hoping, that maybe I would find some quarters in the change slots.

I checked every single machine.

Nothing.

Just dry lint and sticky soda residue.

When the wash cycle finished, I hauled the heavy, soaking wet clothes into our cracked blue basket.

I wheeled the basket over to a row of yellow dryers.

And then, I just sat down.

My hands were shaking inside my jacket pockets.

I had three dimes and one nickel left.

Layla looked up at me with her big, dark eyes.

“Daddy, why are we waiting?” she asked.

Her voice was so small.

It was loud enough for the people around us to hear.

I swallowed the hard lump in my throat.

“The clothes need to rest for a little bit, sweetie,” I said.

I tried to smile.

“They got very dizzy in the washing machine.”

She believed me.

She nodded and started swinging her legs against the plastic bench.

I stared at the black and white floor tiles.

I felt so small.

I was a thirty-four-year-old man, and I couldn’t even dry my daughters’ clothes.

Across the room, an older woman was folding white towels.

She had silver hair pulled back in a neat clip.

She had been watching us.

I saw her walk over to the change machine.

She inserted a twenty-dollar bill and gathered the quarters in her palm.

Then, she walked straight toward our dryer.

She didn’t ask me if I needed help.

She knew.

She started loading our wet clothes into dryer number 14.

She put the quarters in, one by one, until the screen showed sixty minutes.

She pressed the start button, and the warm air began to hum.

My face burned with hot embarrassment.

“Ma’am, you don’t have to do that,” I stammered.

She sat down on the bench next to Layla.