She kneaded through the lycra, cotton, and spandex in her sock drawer absentmindedly. She wasn’t the type to match her socks. A few unmatched pieces sat in her lap. She was looking for the first to match any of those.

A routine rake uncovered the delicate contraband. It lay light and flat on a bed of chaperones, not folded or wrinkled or disturbed in any way. It was brighter than the other socks. Her fingers reached for it immediately, touching it, lifting it from its snuggled spot in the jumbled fabric.
 
Socks of that size are unusually thick. Tiny feet haven’t the power to batter fabric like grown feet.
 
She closed her hand around the sock affectionately, an expulsion of pressure effused from her chest through her nostrils. She held it snuggly in her palm, and fitted her other hand over the top, protectively.
 
They left the photographs and the baby book. But they took his smell, his imprint. His clothes were removed first. They took care to collect all of the small hangers. The toys and children’s books were next. His bedsheets, blankets, pillows—removed.
 
While she was sedated through hysteria, they scrubbed the forbidden inkwork from the baseboards.
 
The wooden step stool from his bathroom. The marine-life shower curtain. The bright washcloths, towels. The sparkly toothpaste and Spiderman tumbler.
 
Sippy cups, small dishes from the kitchen. The refrigerator magnets he played with.
 
They knew her so well. They knew she would wrap herself in his covers. Hole up in his room. Blanket herself in his clothes. Smell his watermelon shampoo. She was known for obsessing. She was known for enrapture. They felt there was no hope for her without erasure.
 
She sensed it immediately upon coming to. She hadn’t yet the presence of mind to be angry about it. To feel robbed. She simply panned her head in observance, acknowledging their work.
 
She maintained her body mechanically for a time. She opened her eyes in the morning, acknowledged the sunlight, and took a shower. Sometimes, she washed (mostly, the soap was too heavy). She would get dressed, go into the kitchen and make coffee that she could neither smell nor taste. She would eat a piece of plain bread that wouldn’t disturb her shrinking stomach.
 
She unloaded the dishwasher. Straightened pillows. Walked to the spare bedroom and stood in the doorway, looking from the walls to the ceiling to the carpet, the new furniture and arrangement an adequate sheath for the child’s room beneath.
 
She folded laundry. She brushed the dogs. Laid on the floor and let them collapse on her chest and neck until she felt she would suffocate. Rolled from beneath them and pushed herself up from the floor, leaving them to stare at her, confused.
 
The first bootleg remembrance came while folding laundry. A set of her cotton pajama pants she had let him step into. She had him put his arms inside the waistband and pulled it up around his shoulders. He waddled to the kitchen to show his dad—a giggling, armless monster.
 
Another came while vacuuming. The kaleidoscoping attachment pieces were still missing from his last sword fight.
 
While scooping dog poo from the back yard, a dry mud cast footprint.
 
A chocolate milk stain on his seat belt in the car. The worn spot on the back of the passenger seat where he kicked. Finger smudges on the window.
 
The sock had made it past them. Taken refuge in the soft asylum of her sock drawer. It was the first piece of evidence from his world returned to her. She breathed it in blissfully, tears of relief forming in her eyes but not heavy enough to dribble down. She stowed it in her purse, grateful to finally have a piece of him she could carry with her.
 
She tried not to wonder what they had done with his things, reminding herself that it wouldn’t help now. When they moved them, his essence was lost from them forever. She tried to imagine how it would have been different if they hadn’t changed anything. If she had woken up and his bed was still there, disheveled, his smell fresh on the pillow.
 
His shoes, socks, toys strewn across the floor.
 
Would she have lain in his bed and withered into a heartsick death? With so much of him still left, not gone, not yet stale—would she have lain with it, staled with it… died with the settling of the dust over his things? Exiting as much with him as she could…
 
Yes. She would have done that. She would have chosen to die with his essence. But they swatted her apathetic hand from death. They would retain her empty essence while denying her his. 
 
As time lurched her onward, each artifact of him uncovered, breathed a pea of life into her. So was her slow resurrection. Secretly dosing herself with the essence of him.