The handwritten tag said, “B12.”
That was the storage unit number.
I drove there at seven the next morning with my dog’s collar still in my coat pocket. The place was one of those fenced storage lots behind the highway with cameras everywhere and a woman at the desk eating yogurt while I practically shook asking questions.
Gary had rented the unit three months earlier.
Three months.
Inside were shelves, toolboxes, camping gear… and half my house.
My grandmother’s silver set. My father’s watch collection. Boxes of my old photo albums marked KEEP. Even the antique sewing machine my mother left me.
That’s what the men were hauling out of the camper. He’d been moving things slowly so I wouldn’t notice.
And sitting in the corner tied to a lawn chair was my beagle.
My poor old dog started howling the second he saw me. His water bowl was almost empty.
I dropped to the floor crying so hard I could barely get his leash unclipped. He smelled awful. Like he’d been trapped there overnight.
When I got home, Gary actually had the nerve to act angry. Said the dog was “senile” and ruining the carpets. Then he admitted he’d been planning to sell a bunch of the antiques because he’d secretly lost almost forty thousand dollars gambling online.
Forty thousand.
That storage unit wasn’t temporary. He was liquidating our life piece by piece.
I called my sister back in Ohio and asked if I could stay awhile.
Within two months I filed for separation.
The beagle came with me, obviously.
Every night now he sleeps curled against my stomach again like he’s checking to make sure I didn’t disappear too.