Towels and friendships

"This towel belongs to a well-known artist from Northern Europe: Let's call her B. Several years ago, B came to New York with her boyfriend, and they stayed with my wife and me for a week. B is one of only two people that my wife and I knew independently before meeting. She'd always had a special place in our hearts.
The four of us had a great time that week, or so I thought. After B and her boyfriend left for the airport, I saw that she had left her towel hanging on the hook of the guest room. I decided to put it away so that I could give it to her the next time she stayed with us. About a year later, though, I ran into a friend who also knew B. My friend asked whether we had seen B and told me she's just spent a month in New York. I didn't know that she's been here, I said. She'd never called us.
Like everyone else, I've lost friends over the years, but almost all of the other break-ups were explicable, even justified: people grow apart, like trees. But B stands for those friends whose friendship I've lost without knowing why, and this towel stands for B."

Sina Najafi, in Glenn, Joshua & Hayes, Carol (2007) (eds), Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with unexpected significance, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, p.126