I still remember the day I left my village in Dhaka. The warm breeze was heavy with the scent of earth after the monsoon, and the sun hung low, casting long shadows across the fields. My wife, Mira, stood at the edge of the road, holding our youngest daughter in her arms. Our son clung to the hem of her sari, his wide eyes filled with questions he was too young to ask. My heart ached as I watched her wipe away a tear she tried to hide. I told her it was only for a while, that I’d return soon with enough money to build a better life for all of us. But I knew, deep down, that “soon” was a word soaked in uncertainty.

It has been five years now. Five long years of watching my children grow through photographs and hearing their voices crackle through the phone line. I send as much money as I can, but it’s never enough. No amount of money can replace the warmth of a father’s hand on his son’s shoulder or the comfort of a husband sitting down to dinner after a long day’s work. My absence lingers in the spaces where I should be, in the stories they tell without me.

Now, I stand here in this foreign land, in a laundromat that never seems to sleep. The hum of machines is my constant companion, and the sharp scent of detergent fills the air. I’ve grown used to the rhythm — wash, fold, repeat. The machines don’t care about my story. The people who come in barely notice me either. To them, I’m just another figure in the background, the man who hands them their clean clothes, neatly pressed, ready for their next day. They speak a language I barely understand, though I’ve picked up enough words to smile and nod when they speak to me. I’ve learned how to blend in, to become invisible.

At night, after the machines go quiet and the lights dim, it’s the silence that haunts me. It’s in that silence that I miss my family the most. The sound of Mira’s laughter as she cooked, the playful cries of my children as they ran chasing fireflies under the dusky sky. I long for the simple things — the feel of the soil between my toes as I walked the narrow paths between the rice fields, the sound of rain against our tin roof, the warmth of my wife’s hand in mine as we sat together, watching the sun set over the river. These memories, though distant, are like a thread of hope I hold onto when the loneliness becomes too heavy to bear.

Here, the sky is different. Sometimes, late at night, I stand by the small window in my room, looking out at the unfamiliar city lights. I wonder if my family back home is looking at the same moon, under a sky that feels so far from mine. I wonder if my children have grown taller, if they still remember the stories I used to tell them before bed, or if those memories have begun to fade like the ink on old letters.

I send money every month, but it never feels like enough. How can it replace the warmth of a father’s embrace? I tell myself I’m doing this for them, but every day it feels like I’m losing pieces of myself. I feel like a shadow of the man I once was, caught between two worlds — one that I can never fully belong to, and another that is slowly slipping away from me.

There are moments, rare and fleeting, when the scent of something reminds me of home. A whiff of spices from a nearby restaurant — for a brief moment, I am transported back. In those moments, the ache in my chest tightens, and I close my eyes, trying to hold onto the memory before it slips away. But the feeling never lasts long. The machines don’t stop. The clothes keep piling up, and so do the days. I fold them, one after another, like I fold my dreams, tucking them neatly into corners of my mind where I hope they won’t unravel.

One day, I’ll return home. I tell myself that over and over, like a prayer, though sometimes I wonder if I’m still the man who left. 

For now, all I can do is wait. Wait for the day I can feel the soil beneath my feet again, the day I can hear Mira’s laughter as we sit together and watch the sun set over the river. Until then, I fold the clothes, press the seams, and count the days, hoping that each one brings me a little closer to home.