Storage Unit
by Emily Grandy
It was a damp day in December and Roger’s mother had been dead six weeks when a call came in from an unfamiliar assortment of digits. He’d been turning into the empty parking lot of the shopping strip, thinking about buying salt for the walks, when his phone rang. Normally, he would reject any unknown number outright, but the 440-area code—one he knew well, that of his boyhood, and of his recently deceased mother—gave him pause. It was less curiosity than suspicion that prompted Roger to answer the unexpected summons.
As he leveled the old Bronco between the faded lines, he raised the phone and said, “Hello?”
The male voice on the other end sounded equally cautious. “Is this…” There was a pause, as if the man were reading off a sheet. “Roger Gehring?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Well, that’s a relief.” Then, “This is Dan, down at Mills Storage in North Ridgeville.”
Roger had the sense that Dan was expecting some acknowledgement of recognition, but all he said was, “Okay.”
“I gather Susan never mentioned the place, then.”
By this time, so late into the grieving process, having his mother’s name set foot into any dialogue should hardly have shaken him. Yet Roger felt a compulsion to correct the man; he did not know Dan and felt certain his mother hadn’t either. Roger had spent several weeks sorting things out after her death, signing papers, filling out tedious forms, laboring through it all with willful endurance, as he knew he must. Surely, there was no more to be said.
As he sat in the Bronco, facing the row of mostly vacant storefronts, Roger considered ending the call. Then he could simply begin his day as usual, open up the office, and start the coffee brewing. His first client, a forties-something construction worker with chronic low back pain, would be here in thirty minutes.
Instead, with a determined patience, he said, “No, she didn’t.”
“Well, she listed you as her emergency contact,” Dan said. “We have a process we go through when the rent isn’t paid on the unit.”
“What unit?”
“Her storage unit.”
“My mother never used a storage unit.”
“Susan Gehring’s your mother then.”
Roger checked the clock on the dash, barely registering the numbers. “Look, I’m not sure what you want me to do. I just spent weeks going through all her things and there was nothing about a storage unit,” he said, neglecting to mention that his mother, in her later years, was not the most fastidious of record keepers. “She died six weeks ago.”
“Ah, sorry to hear that.” A brief pause. “See, the thing is, we have a process we go through,” he repeated, “notifying the owner prior to auction, if the rent’s not paid up. The customer’s got thirty-one days to retrieve the remaining items before we dispose of them. We call every number we have on file. Certified letters are sent, emails, et cetera, et cetera.”
Roger wondered how he could have conceivably overlooked certified letters in either his or his mother’s postbox but decided against placing blame. These days, even divesting himself of culpability was effortful. He said only, “My mother didn’t have an email address,” then felt obligated to add, “but I appreciate the due diligence.”
“So, do you want to come take a look, or should we go ahead and auction off the contents?”
What jetsam could his mother possibly have stowed, unmentioned for years uncounted? More to the point, why should he bother reconciling any of it now? He’d already spent a season’s worth of weekends sifting through a lifetime of debris. Surely, whatever it was, he could let it go, sight unseen. He thought of his partner, Keelin, her self-assured insistence that penitence now could reverse the sins of earlier neglect. He could argue in counterpoint that taking additional time away from his clients would jeopardize the fledgling business, but a lingering sense of wrongdoing, his inattention in his mother’s final years, pinged at his conscience.
In the end, it was the same guilty job of responsibility, that of an only child, that compelled him to commit. He promised Dan he’d drive up that weekend.
Roger’s morning clients—the construction worker, a student athlete who’d lost his surgeon due to an insurance issue and now had to rely on PT, another recovering from an ACL tear, an older woman with a herniated disc, and a fall-risk patient—came and went. At quarter to twelve, he had a brief meeting with a potential client, a man with TMJ so aggravated it tugged half his face into a distorted smirk. When asked, Roger always said his biggest contribution to patient care was through soft tissue massage, to mobilize a joint to restore normal movement mechanics, and teaching movement control, posture, and coordination. Most things are done by the patient. Roger was just the coach.
Afterwards, spurning his coat, Roger stepped out in his shirtsleeves into the cold damp and made the short walk to the only other occupied storefront on the strip. He’d come to rely on the Chinese takeout joint whenever he hadn’t had the presence of mind to plan ahead. He entered self-consciously and sure enough the guy working the counter greeted him by name. Though there was no one else to bear witness to his petty shame, Roger placed his order for mei fun noodles and paid to have them delivered.
Back in the office, he called Keelin. She preferred not to be interrupted during her planning period, but she had the practiced patience of a good educator, and he detected no forewarning of reprimand when she answered.
“Roger, hi.”
He said, “I got a funny call earlier.”
“How funny?”
He explained about Dan, the storage unit, the pending auction.
“Huh,” she said, as if unsurprised. Then, “You said you’d go through it, right?”
“It means I’d miss another weekend at your place.”
“I’ve always got papers to grade. I swear, the quality dips further every year.”
“Craft or cursive?”
“Both. They’re talking about abandoning the cursive curriculum altogether.”
He’d always thought Keelin’s careful penmanship was one of her more subtly admirable qualities. Like thoughtful table manners, you noticed it by its absence. Her handwriting reminded him of his mother’s; she, too, had taught grade school English.
“So, you don’t mind?” he asked, just as the delivery guy appeared and rapped on the front door.
“No. Go.”
So, he went.
The day he’d chosen was blue, and the roads were clear when he pointed the old Bronco north on I-71. Lacking the concentration for podcasts or talk radio, and sensing music with any emotional depth might capsize his precarious calm, Roger drove in silence. He stopped once for coffee and gas somewhere around Lodi before switching over to route 83, an unwavering line that cut past brown cornfields, plowed under for the season. He was making decent time until he got stuck behind an Amish buggy with an orange triangle hung on the rear, urging caution. Less tolerant motorists cut across the midline in their frenzied rush to pass, but the solitary horse and driver remained stolidly unaffected.
North Ridgeville, where Mills Storage was, sat one suburb to the west of his mother’s old place. Roger’s high school and theirs had been rivals back in the day. He recalled their soccer team being halfway decent. Back then, Roger had harbored hopes of playing at the college level, up until he blew out his knee senior year. At the time, he’d pined over the unawarded sports scholarships. In retrospect, he’d never come close. Besides, if not for the injury, he wouldn’t have ended up where he did, in his field, in love with Keelin, so that was something.
The house hadn’t sold yet, it wasn’t the season for it, so he’d planned to spend one overnight there. He dropped off his bag, suspecting he might need the Bronco’s full volume to haul whatever leftovers his mother had stowed away, then headed over to the storage facility.
He found Dan working the little office out front. A clock running ten minutes slow and a bird calendar two years out of date were the only decorations. The utilitarian space appeared no tidier for its spare furnishings. Coffee rings, an overflowing wastepaper basket, a frayed chair cushion, these details would not have escaped his mother’s keen eye, not when she still had the wherewithal to arrange for things like renting a storage unit. Presumably, then, she had chosen this place for its economy pricing.
“You Roger Ghering? You got your mom’s—” he stood, traced a circle around his face with one finger. Dan’s own reminded Roger of a young Bernie Kosar, the Browns years.
“That’s me,” Roger said, extending a hand.
“Like Ava Gardner, that’s how I always pictured her,” said Dan. “I think it was the hair.” Roger accepted the obscure reference without comment. “Sorry for your loss.”
“Yeah. Well.”
Dan nodded, his lips pressed into a straight, severe line. “I’ll get you the key then.” He fished it out of a cubby and passed it to Roger. “Hers is around that way.” He indicated through the window. “Take a left at the end. They’re all numbered. You can’t miss it.”
Roger thanked him and headed back to the Bronco, unable to ignore the press of the key into his palm, what it portended. Folding himself in behind the wheel, Roger wondered how often his mother must have come here for a man like Dan not only to remember her but summon up details of her appearance. And what on earth had she come for? Places like this, their primary function was to enable people overburdened by material goods to cling to those they could no longer make space for but couldn’t force themselves to part with. The absurd byproduct of such affluence was this: a purgatory for possessions. Here they remained, often beyond memory or recall, until some reluctant relative stumbled into the unwelcome custodial role in which Roger now found himself. It wasn’t the sort of place people went for a casual visit.
He drove around back, scanning the numbers above the units until he found the one that matched the key. He parked, got out, and with gloved fingers slid the key home. It turned easily, and with a tug he raised the lowered blind. The effect was like airing a stuffy room. Letting the light in, his first sense was of a mild relief. The square room was not, in fact, packed floor-to-ceiling with boxes mildewed beyond recognition, as he’d anticipated. The boxes it did contain were of the plastic Tupperware variety, neatly stacked two or three high, though unlabeled. Behind these, a few pieces of disassembled furniture leaned against the wall.
Roger’s father had divorced, remarried, divorced again, distancing himself ever further from his former family right up until the day he died. A lifetime ago. Surely nothing this unit contained belonged to him. Still, it was the thought of that man, or rather his absence, that pitted out Roger’s stomach as he set his hand atop the nearest box. He debated whether to look through everything here or take it all back to his mother’s where he could sort through it at his own pace.
The lid lifted with a snap.
Inside, he found fabrics vacuum sealed in tight plastic. Clothes, most likely. Hers, he suspected, given the prevalence of rose-pinks, creamy whites, and other pale hues reminiscent of springtime. Jostling aside a few layers, he gathered it was all more of the same. He marveled that she’d really rented out this unit to store nothing more precious than spare clothes. He shut the lid and hefted the box to the Bronco. Then, without looking at the rest, he fitted the remaining plastic boxes in the back cab, leaving no room for the furniture that remained. This would be a two-load job. He shut the garage-style door, locked it, and drove the first haul back to his mother’s place.
After unloading the boxes in the living room, he went back for the rest: a bedframe, a bookshelf, and what looked like the sides of a baby crib. Empty, the square concrete floor of the storage unit looked smaller, more condensed, like a used toothpaste tube, taking up less space than when it was full. This time, on his way out, he stopped at the office to drop off the key.
Dan said, “That was quick. Must not’ve been much.”
“Mm.”
“Find anything?”
“Not much,” Roger agreed.
By the time he’d stacked the furniture in the garage his blood sugar had dropped enough to make his muscles quiver, but there was nothing to eat in the house, which contained only what little was needed to stage the viewings. He’d forgotten, hadn’t planned, though Keelin would have. That was another thing he liked about her, her respect for ordinary things often overlooked, including life’s natural biological processes. It was a lesson she proselytized every year, to each new class of students. She urged the kids to eat well, rest well, get outside, and use the restroom when nature called. She kept granola bars in a drawer for those who missed breakfast, and never admonished naps during silent reading period. This, she swore, cut the usual behavior problems most teachers dealt with in half.
Keelin would have packed sandwiches. A thermos of coffee.
As Roger backed out of the drive again, he wondered if the deli over on Center Ridge was still open. Like his own business, the deli occupied a spot in a short strip of mostly vacant storefronts. Nobody shopped at these places anymore; they weren’t as convenient as a main street in a denser neighborhood, and they weren’t somewhere you could walk to. No sidewalks paralleled this busy road, and there was nowhere to go even if there were. His business survived where it did because people had a singular reason to be there. They came to him for their rehab, and that was all.
The deli was open. He ordered the gyro wrap with extra tzatziki from a woman who called him “agori mou” and ate it at the counter while checking his messages. Relieved to find nothing urgent, he returned once more to his mother’s house to sift through all he’d collected. Roger had already decided to donate the furniture, for he had no need of it and no one to gift it to—his friends preferred new Ikea to used hardwood. Though tempted to do the same with the Tupperware boxes, his sense of duty, and the thought of Keelin’s remonstrances—her disappointment should he fail in this final task—prevailed. Besides, why make the effort to empty the darn unit if only to surrender now?
This time, he removed the lids of all the boxes at once and set them aside. Expecting more clothes, Roger felt a twinge of disbelief. They contained an assortment of colorful books, toys, and tiny, palm-sized shoes. He puzzled over this, then reached for the nearest vacuum-sealed bag and tore it open. Dresses and sweaters too large for a doll fell to the carpet. A smear of confusion stretched across Roger’s face; tension crowded his brows, making his head ache. Had he excavated the wrong unit? In fairness, he’d seen no sign that linked these items to his mother. He’d just assumed. Surely, Dan was at fault, had made the careless error of giving Roger the wrong key. Roger was about to phone the facility, alert Dan to his grievous mistake, when one of the books caught his attention.
Roger set down his phone and reached for the volume. Its periwinkle cover was dappled in pink blossoms surrounding the image of a baby girl and, below that, a label with the child’s name and date of birth. His mother’s looping handwriting was unmistakable, as familiar to him as the patterned wallpaper that had adorned his childhood bedroom. It had appeared on every shopping list, every birthday card, notes pinned to the fridge, and the inside covers of books. Here, on the front, his mother had written “Elizabeth Susan Gehring,” followed by a date that preceded his own birth by four years.
With a sickening sense of foreboding, Roger opened the cover of the little book and scanned the pages inside. It was not a diary, as he had feared, but a series of prompts: baby’s first word, first bath, favorite plush toy. Each response had been carefully inscribed in his mother’s hand. Then, about halfway through, the responses stopped. No more was written. Roger remained cross-legged on the carpet, heart racing, a train clunking along old tracks. Clothes only a tiny girl would wear. Toys he himself had never played with. He reached for the box of books, removing them one by one until he found what he was looking for.
The plain folder contained a few photographs alongside a slim stack of official-looking documents. Among these, paperclipped to the certificate of birth that had welcomed Elizabeth Susan Gehring into this bright, blighted world, Roger found its mate, the end parentheses around two dates less than a year apart.
If he hadn’t already been sitting, he would’ve dropped to his knees. He felt like a boxer losing the fight, dizzy from the blows. The grief that had only recently settled into dormancy returned like a bitterly cold draft through open windows. Only now, he had two lives to mourn, that of his mother and the sister he’d never known he had. He sat, uncrying, for a what felt like a long time.
When his mother learned she was dying, Roger had spent time at her bedside. She’d shown him pictures of her in white, in her first Communion dress, in her wedding to his father. She’d told him stories of how it was when they first started out, of buying their first house in a respectable suburb, and of his father’s failed business attempts that prompted her to go back to teaching. She told Roger how he used to come home every night looking dejected. She never mentioned the baby they’d lost, or how they endured it. His mother died right as he was starting to get to know her, as she was becoming a real person to him. The doctors called it mercifully quick, but Roger saw nothing merciful about it. His mother left him the house he’d grown up in, but no money. The small Ohio town held no attraction for him, so he’d put it up for sale along with everything in it.
That night, he welcomed Keelin’s call like a benediction. He told her what he’d found, his mother’s greatest secret, and supreme sadness. Keelin’s small comforts gradually relieved the aggravated symptoms of his acute dis-ease. He told her he didn’t think he could stay in this house now, couldn’t bear the weight of its history. She advised a hot shower. Under the stream of water, he finally let the tears fall, not for the departed, but for how much his mother must’ve hurt, bearing it all silently and alone.
* * *
There was a pleasant moment upon awakening at dawn, before consciousness returned and the heartache began. That’s how it felt: he was a man with a crumpled heart. When Roger was younger, when he’d been happy, he’d been afraid of unhappiness. So much busy effort wasted on avoiding the one thing that had found him anyhow. He thought about going in search of his sister’s grave, then wondered what he was doing here, when he had a good woman at home. He wondered why he hadn’t married her yet. He’d asked her advice the night before, what he should do with his sister’s things. It felt like a betrayal to give it away knowing how precious these items had been to his mother. Keelin’s advice had been sympathetic but unemotional: choose two or three items as keepsakes and let the rest go. Even between their two places, they didn’t have space to store it all. In the end, after sleeping on it, he chose only a single photograph that he slipped into his wallet, that of a happy young mother holding her baby girl, the two of them together on the back patio of the house that only Roger grew up in.
Outside, rain fell from a sky utterly lacking in imagination. Rain seeped into his pant legs and weighed down his winter coat as he loaded the Bronco with donations. While he made the two trips to the Salvation Army, Roger thought he should have been sad about how little he was tied up in these objects, and this place. Instead, it felt like freedom being rid of it all.
The sun was down when he finally got to Keelin’s. He laid his coat on the table and when she put her arms around his neck, he swore things would start changing.
The next day his client with the low back pain said he’d felt good enough to do things around the house, things he hadn’t been able to do weeks earlier. When a guy who’d struggled to walk to his mailbox, and just wanted to feel useful, came in saying, “I felt good enough to trim back the dead stuff in the garden!” Roger congratulated him on his progress, praised his optimism, and felt almost as empowered as the patient did.
Later, sitting in his office during his lunch break with the ham sandwich he’d taken the time to assemble, Roger thought about the past and successions of events. If not for a freak knee injury in high school, he wouldn’t be aiding men who hurt themselves on job sites. If not for the death of a daughter, his mother might not have had a son. He didn’t know whether she’d wanted another child or simply needed to soothe the raw yearning that keen absence provoked. As he pinned the photo of the two of them, his mother and sister, up on the pegboard, he wondered whether his mother ever told anyone about Elizabeth. He would have liked to know what her hopes had been for that little girl, what she’d imagined her becoming. Now there was no one left to ask.
Emily Grandy is an award-winning novelist, biomedical editor, and environmentalist writing at the intersection of science and storytelling. Her debut novel, Michikusa House, was awarded the Landmark Prize, the Silver Nautilus Book Award, and was longlisted for the Edna Ferber Book Award. Her second novel, Cupido Cupido, won the Sowell Emerging Writer’s Prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize. She lives in Milwaukee, WI.