Chapter 2 - Unit 118
Halvorsen Self-Storage sat on the south edge of town, a long row of matching metal doors in a gravel lot that didn't look like it had changed since the Carter administration. I walked the row until I found 118, fit the key into the padlock, and hauled the door up on its track.
The smell reached me before anything else — old paper and cedar, the thick, still air of a space that hadn't been opened in years.
In the center of the concrete floor stood a wooden crate taller than I was, furred with dust and cobwebs that said it had been waiting a long, long time.
I wiped the front panel with the handkerchief from my pocket, found the latch, and lifted the lid.
Inside: children's drawings bound with ribbon gone soft and colorless. Birthday cards addressed to "Dear Walter." School certificates. Letters — dozens of them, flattened and ordered like something holy.
Every last one was signed with the same name.
Diana.
I lowered myself down onto the cold floor and pressed both hands over my mouth.
Near the bottom of the crate lay a worn folder. I opened it slowly.
The papers went back sixty-five years. They showed that Walter had quietly taken on a young woman and her baby daughter after the child's father walked out. He'd covered their rent. Paid for school, later on. Sent a small amount every month for years and years. Every letter that woman ever wrote him, he had kept like it mattered more than anything he owned.
One thought filled the whole garage.
Walter had another family. A life he had hidden from me for sixty years.
"Oh, God," I whispered. "Walter. What did you do?"
Gravel crunched outside.
A bike skidded to a stop in the open doorway. When I turned, the girl from the funeral was standing there, breathing hard, her cheeks red from pedaling.
"I figured you'd come here," she said.
"You followed me?"
She nodded, not the least bit ashamed. "I rode behind your cab. I could feel the key through the envelope this whole time. I couldn't stop wondering what it opened." She looked past me at the crate. "When Walter gave me that envelope, he said handing it to you would be the most important thing I ever did. And that I had to wait for the exact day."
"Who are you?" I said. "How did you know my husband? What's your mother's name?"
The girl stepped closer and studied the crate the way kids study anything that fascinates them. "My mom's name is Diana. I'm Addie."
"Did your mother ever tell you who Walter was to her?"
Addie's face went gentle. "She calls him the man who made sure we were okay. She said he was real close to my grandma." A pause. "But she never called him her dad."
If Walter wasn't Diana's father, then why had he carried her whole life on his back for decades? The question sat down in the middle of my chest and wouldn't move.
"Addie," I said, "can you take me to your mom?"
The girl looked down at her sneakers. "My dad left when I was little. My mom's in the hospital right now. I stay with our neighbor most days. That's how I found out about Walter — she showed me the notice in the paper and told me when the service was."
"What's wrong with your mother?"
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"She needs heart surgery," Addie said, with no self-pity at all. "It costs too much."
"I want to see her."
