He cried when they took the old couch away. It sat on the front lawn unceremoniously as they carried in the new one: grey heathered tweed, low back, firm cushions, stylish, contemporary.

The old couch looked bulky, awkward in comparison. Beige and bought on a whim over a decade before, soon after we were married. We needed a new couch and had money to spare. Two professionals, no children. We stopped at a furniture store on the way to my brother’s house one day and chose it quickly, unresearched. Unusual for a measured, calculated shopper like me. I was anxious to make our new house a home; real furniture seemed imperative and urgent at the time.

But it served us well through two homes, three children. Substantial back cushions held their form all those years. Good building blocks for fashioning forts. The length just right to stretch out for naps, our toes barely brushing the armrest. We’d pull a hand woven blanket over us, cocooning for a winter hibernation or a spring siesta in the waning afternoon sunlight.

I brought my babies home to that couch, Boppy pillow on my lap, tiny infant swaddled in my arms. The cushions held me through the uncertainty, the exhaustion, the stinging pain of an aching postpartum body nursing all hours of the night and day.

We let the kids jump on it; by the time they came around it was already worn, no need to keep up appearances or needlessly coddle the not fragile.

We’d greet friends, old and new. Birthday gatherings, movie nights, holidays with family, interviews with potential nannies. All of them sat, back upright, feet sturdy on the floor or reclined, elbow cocked back, plate full of potluck fare tidbits in hand.

He cried when they took the old couch away. I felt it too, the tug, the wrenching. So much contained in that substance of wood and fabric.