His shirt kept spinning after I stopped the machine

Dear Delyara, My husband died four months ago, and today I finally washed the shirt he wore during his last week at home. It had been hanging behind the bathroom door, untouched, still carrying the faint smell of his skin beneath the hospital soap. I knew the smell was fading anyway. I knew fabric cannot preserve a person. Still, placing it in the washing machine felt like choosing to remove him. I used the shortest cycle. When the machine finished, I opened the lid, but the drum kept turning slowly from momentum. His blue shirt moved around the bottom alone, sleeve following sleeve, as though his arm might still be inside it. I reached in before it stopped and pressed the wet fabric to my face. It smelled only of detergent. That absence was so clean it felt violent. At the laundromat, other people folded towels, argued with children, and checked their phones while I stood holding a wet shirt against my chest. I brought it home and hung it behind the same door. It is clean now. I keep walking past it and resenting myself for making grief smell like lavender.