I live in a ring of suburbs around a city that used to be something. Most people my age left. I stayed.
I've been paying for a storage unit for twelve years. Never once opened the door.
The money comes out of my checking account like clockwork. I don't think about what's in there anymore.
I still have a landline. It rings once a year, always in November, from Mrs. Kowalski, my childhood best friend's mother.
She asks if I'm eating enough. Then she always says, 'Your mother would want you to open that unit someday.'
This year she added, 'It's been long enough. He's not coming back for his things.'
So I drove across town. The lock was rusted. The key still turned.
Inside were our old welding helmets, his father's tools, and a letter I wrote to myself at twenty-three, saying I was leaving town with him the next day.
I never left. I stayed and became a welder on my own. The unit wasn't a reminder of him. It was a reminder of the choice I actually made.