Let it rise.
Because that was the other thing about Granny Steam: she didn’t just clean clothes. She read them. A stained apron told her whose husband had been drinking again. A child’s grass-stained knee socks told her who was loved and who was merely watched. A man’s white dress shirt, faintly scented with a perfume not his wife’s, would make her click her tongue and heat the water an extra ten degrees. “Some stains,” she said, “need more than soap. They need shame.” granny steam
“This one’s not dirty,” she said quietly. “This one’s just tired.” Let it rise