It was time. The bottle of orange hand soap, yet half-full, landed in the trash with a satisfying thud. Or, was the bottle half-empty? 

Patrick would have said as much. 

Louise could just imagine his responsive holler from the living room. “Was that the Dial Gold? It’s only half-empty! Set it back so we use it all up.”

For a bit over fifty years, she put up with this orange hand soap. It was there in each bathroom. Another bottle always sat by the dish rag in the kitchen. Maddening as it was, Pat stuck firm on the idea this was the only kind of soap worth the money. Of course, it became a recurrent argument they’d circle back to time and time again. Most often, it was Louise who brought it up. Why shouldn’t she? 

Across the years of sampling beautifully scented hand soaps at friends’ homes, her words on the matter only increased in vehemence. Who was he to have the final say on something as silly as hand soap? Louise ought to be allowed to buy whatever kind she liked. After all, wasn’t this just as much her home as Patrick’s? Hadn’t she spent all these years sweeping and scrubbing the kitchen linoleum, or wiping windows until the sun’s rays blazed through? 

Oh, yes, they had their come-to moment, more than once. Louise thought the worst of them was the year when their little Charlie turned ten years old. Of course, nothing came from any of the arguments. Pat stood firm, always asserting the orange hand soap would do them all just fine. 

What matters most is not that she had cried, or that he had most certainly chuckled at her sobs about Emily’s rose soap and Lynn’s lemon-lavender blend. What matters most is Pat wasn’t sitting in the living room with his size eleven stocking feet propped on the recliner. He wasn’t there to listen as Louise hummed while cleaning the bathroom. Most of all, he couldn’t take offense at the satisfying sound the still half-full bottle of orange hand soap had made when it hit the bottom of the wastepaper basket. 

Louise sighed. She placed a fresh bottle of hand wash to the right of the water faucet. The bottle was filled with a light, sunny yellow liquid. Shea butter was even listed on the ingredients, so Louise knew it was worth every extra dollar. 

As she turned to flick the light switch, her eyes fell on the discarded half-full bottle. Louise bent to lift the bottle from the trash. She managed a small smile before setting it back on the vanity, to the left of the water faucet. Louise caught her reflection in the mirror. 

“Well, I suppose it’s still half-full.”

What mattered most is what Pat would have wanted. What matters most is how she loved him.

Amy Madson is a writer and teacher from Minnesota. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Concordia University, St. Paul. Her poems and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Sagebrush Review, Lunae Literature & Review, B O D Y, The Nelligan Review and Pink Panther Magazine.