The Sunday before we close the shop, a flurry of loyals and locals runs in. They don’t come to us for life’s basics: They stock up on candles scented only by the honey of bees that make the wax, or they pick up letterpress greeting cards from Maine or an industrial stool I imagine they won’t know what to do with when they lug it home, or whatever else they don’t really need.

For 17 years, my husband and I have sold antiques, gifts and women’s clothing at our shop, GoodWood, on Washington’s U Street. Because of the coronavirus, we’ve had to shut our doors. This rush seems to be our customers’ way of saying they hope to see us on the other side.

Monday, I still go into work. I know UPS will be delivering spring merchandise: dresses for graduations, for churchgoing, for first dates, for opening nights. This particular box is coming from Spain. I wait for the clothes. I unbox them, hang them on the rolling rack and steam them with all the tenderness one would use to bathe an infant. Lightweight knits that recall 1920s Chanel, caftans (a personal staple in my own wardrobe), midi dresses in distinctive prints. It takes hours. I stand in the store as though it were open, lights on. I can’t contemplate a global pandemic. I am in the first throes of grief, alone in my shop with my body-less dresses and neck-less necklaces.

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These four walls have contained whole worlds for me and my husband. Our employees affectionately call him “Hurricane Dan.” He whirlwinds in piles of vintage and antique finds, and together they clean them up: a jewelry cabinet reminiscent of “The Garden of Earthly Delights” or a collection of copper pots suggestive of both Julia Child and some ancient medina. It’s unthinkable that we won’t get to share these treasures with other people — that they’ll be shut away for months, or longer.

Tuesday, I stay home and check the news. All news: Social media. Newspapers. The Slack channel gathering all the other distressed small business people from around D.C. Everyone agonizes about keeping their teams employed; everyone seems desperate to reimagine themselves from brick-and-mortar to online shops. My day-to-day life — hours spent caring for physical objects, or talking with strangers about someplace they once lived or the scent their grandmother wore — has transformed into one seized by faceless, anxious worry. I keep expecting someone to say we’ve flattened the curve and things will return to normal. I expect the authorities — the government, banks, corporations — to announce rent and mortgage holidays.

Wednesday, I put off calling the team to discuss what comes next.

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It’s only Thursday when I realize the news I expect is in direct contradiction to the actual news: entire countries on lockdown, our government unable to locate and disburse basic medical equipment. This is the time of the week when we usually empty the 14-foot box truck filled with goods from a week of auctions. We used to call them “Trauma Thursdays” for the physical stamina and ingenuity it took to make sense of the seemingly random objects that came in — like the 1930s side chair, or the giant taxidermied sailfish, its iridescence echoed in the seat’s cut velvet. Nothing is more satisfying than to see it all perfectly, strangely, put into place. Now I spend hours on the phone with my accountant, who tries to explain the unexplainable, or I call vendors to cancel orders coming in for the summer.

On Friday, we face reality: We have a conference call with the shop’s staff and determine the healthiest course of action is to terminate our working arrangements so they can qualify for maximum benefits. The full-timers consist of my childhood friend, known as “the Nose” — she’s the magician behind our perfume counter — and J, who came to us via Craigslist eight years ago and runs our bookkeeping so well that we can forget he’s doing it. He’s built a following of fans who come by the store just to talk to him. Our part-timers are exceptional, too: our efficient delivery team, our fix-it guy, our social media person. All are at home, trying to stay healthy, and to keep afloat.

Saturday feels like spring, the kind of weekend when I’d ordinarily feel a little sorry for myself being “stuck” in the shop while my friends (I imagined) sat outside on the patios of chic cafes, sipping frothy lattes. But now, I long for work, to while away the whole sunny day indoors.

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Sunday, I think about how some customers call the shop church: They visit weekly, less to buy anything than to wonder at once-castoff objects or to admire the careful stitching of new clothes. They leave with their senses refreshed, able to see their own belongings in their own homes with new eyes. Others stop by after work, a place to transition or to daydream. They lose track of time while sniffing Japanese incense. They tentatively curl up on a well-worn Chesterfield sofa and think, “This could be my life.”

I know there are greater tragedies, greater losses, that have come before I had to close up shop — and that more are still to come. No government official could reasonably consider us “essential” in a time when life is constricted to home and work and groceries, when we’re supposed to wear masks to filter our air and gloves to prevent our skin from picking up the virus. But the shuttering of physical shops like mine still marks a specific loss to everyday life: We offered people a chance to pause, to enjoy luxuries big and small, to appreciate human craft.

Monday, I will still be in denial, tenderly administering to my shop. I turn on the overhead lights and switch on each lamp as I pass through the store. I water the plants. I steam more clothes. I think about what’s missing from its four walls: The container for my little world is missing the people who populate it.

Hurricane Dan paints the shop as I type. We will see each other on the other side.

Read more:

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