Sophia Miller

Picasso's Owl

We arrived at Main Street Storage Complex on the first Saturday of June, ready to pick up the pieces of my father’s life. My mother walked confidently into the front office, my sister Lara and I trailing behind. Though an electronic doorbell cut through the quiet morning to signal our entry, the hulking man behind the desk did not look up from his computer screen. He feigned concentration in his work, but the reflection in his glasses betrayed him: I could see as we approached that he was playing solitaire. Long term storage was the perfect industry for a man who prefers to be left alone, I thought.