It was 11 o’clock when my mom finally came home from the hospital. Not that it really mattered to me, I could take care of myself, except she had promised to be home hours before. I’d gotten ready for bed, but kept my bedroom lights on and had occupied myself with a drawing a semi-realistic looking cat on a new art app that I had downloaded on my phone. I didn’t even hear her come home until she knocked on my bedroom door.

“What is it?” I called out from my bed, annoyed that she’d stayed so late without sending me a message. She opened the door and sat down on my bed, her eyes teary.

“We lost your aunt tonight,” she choked the words out as she began to cry again. I immediately sat up and threw my arms around her. My mom’s younger sister had been in the hospital for about a month now after an unexpected cancer was found in her heart. They had taken her in to emergency surgery a day or so later, and while there were some initial complications, the whole family had had faith that she would pull through stronger than before.

“What happened?”

“We don’t know, your uncle and I were just sitting with her and she just. . .” she trailed off and put her head into my shoulder to hide her tears.

I sat there in silence. I didn’t feel like I could really grasp this concept right away. While I knew it as fact, somehow it didn’t feel any different to me. As if the next time I went to my aunt’s house she would still be there with her cheery smile, eager to show me new treasures that she had picked up from the local art fair or poems that had been published in her online writing group. We were never very close, but she was the bubbly type of person who was always trying to support everyone’s interests, so when kindergarten me came home from her first ever art class with dreams of becoming a painter, she immediately picked up hobbies to help relate to me. I was trying to get ahold of the concept that she would never truly be in my life again when my mom interrupted my thoughts.

“She wanted you to have this,” she said looking up from my shoulder, opening her hand to reveal a keychain. On it was a ribbon, a “Storage Boys’” tag, a tag with numbers scrawled into it, and a key. I picked the keychain up and ran my finger over the tags. The tags were slightly worn and the chain felt limp in my hands.

“What is it for?” I asked as I passed the keychain between my hands.

“I don’t know, I’d never seen it before. She just gave it to me before the surgery with the promise that if anything were to happen to her than I would give it to you.”

We sat in silence for a little bit before my mom said that she was going to bed. I wished her goodnight, turned the lights off, and then tucked myself in to bed. I held the keys in my hands for awhile after, before placing them on my nightstand and going to sleep.

It has now been four months since my aunt died and I had yet to find time to drive to Storage Boys’ Storage Unit Facility to see if the key my aunt had given me worked. While I blamed the fact that I was busy with friends, art or writing club, and softball, I think that the real reason I avoided it was because I didn’t want to see any memory of her. The realization that she was truly gone had only hit at the funeral a week after her passing, and I’d avoided any mention of the topic. Today I ran out of excuses, as I had no clubs or activities to attend to and all of my friends were busy, so I decided to check it out. I pulled into the storage unit facility and punched in the longer of the two numbers on the second tag. It worked. This was a good sign. I drove through the now opened gate and into the rows of storage units. The facility was made up of rows of buildings featuring hundreds of small garages where people stored junk or furniture or whatever else needed storing. I was only familiar with the facility since my father had gotten a unit temporarily when we moved houses. Driving slow through the rows of units brought back memories of hauling boxes to and from the unit to the new house, or racing my brother down the isles to take breaks. Based off of the tag on the keychain, I was looking for unit 215. I inched down the isles reading the numbers above the steel doors. It only took me minutes to find the door with a faded 215 on the panel above it.

I parked my car and got out. I put my car keys in my pocket and firmly held the storage unit key in my hand. I gazed at the storage unit like a small child looks at something they have never seen before. The wind seemed to get a little bit colder and the sounds of the cars passing on the street beside me seemed to dissolve. I stood there staring at it for what seemed like longer than the minute it was.

“Here goes nothing,” I murmured to myself as I singled out the key. I walked close to the door, found the lock, and thrust the key through the keyhole. It went in easily and I turned it with a slight jolt. The lock popped open and I removed it with no struggle. I placed the now open lock in my other pocket and heaved the storage unit door open. I gasped as I took in the contents of the storage unit.

“Woah, art,” I whispered in awe. The walls of the unit were lined with paintings. Not just the walls either, the floor was littered with them in piles or propped up or just laying around. There were paintings of nature, of her house, my house, me, my brother, my mom, and anything that a person could imagine. There were sculptures, poems, and sketches scattered around the room, along with an art easel, armchair, table, lamp, and a boombox radio. I stepped in to the art room and picked one of the paintings off of the wall. It was me as a small child wearing my favorite pink lace dress. My aunt’s signature lay in the corner.

“Her art,” I breathed in admiration. My fingers grasped the edges of the painting tightly as I stared in wonder at the colors she had used. I hung it back onto the wall and moved on to the next painting. I had held and marveled at about three paintings when I saw the note on the table.

Dear Niece,

Yesterday the doctor told me that the reason that I have been feeling so faint lately is because there is serious cancer in my heart. I’m pretty scared for my life right now so I am writing this note to introduce you to a part of my life that I still hope I can show you myself. This is my art room. I initially thought I’d pretend to like painting for you, but instead I fell in love with it. I come here to paint and to relax and I always told myself I’d show you all of my paintings but I never got around to it. I’m hoping the surgery tomorrow goes well and I’ll show you all of this when I’m better, but if not I wanted you to see it without me. You’re such a brilliant artist and I hope you never give up on your dreams!

Love, Auntie J

The letter began to tremble. Actually it was me who was trembling, and while reading I had not even noticed that I had begun to cry. A tear hit the paper and I gasped as if it were acid burning through the paper. I set down the now sacred piece of paper and looked around the room with a new light. The colors were so vibrant and the paintings were created so well. There were sketches taped next to some of the paintings where the detail that was put into the painting could be seen in its raw initial form. I was starting to feel dizzy so I sat down in the armchair. The tears in my eyes blurred my vision and the colors in the paintings began to swirl around me and dance before my eyes. The painted people seemed to be waving at me from inside their canvases and the acrylic trees seemed to be swaying in with the wind.

I wiped my sweatshirt sleeve across my face to clear the tears from my eyes and the paintings stopped moving. They stood still in their glory, as proud as ever, not realizing that the mastermind behind their creation was gone and would never paint another picture. Their fate was in my hands now and it was up to me on which ones would hang strong and which would be thrown away or boxed up for eternity. I got and left the storage unit, leaving the paintings in their glory. It was not till months later that I made up my mind on what to do with the paintings.

“Mommy look at the pretty dress!” the little girl pointed to a painting of another little girl wearing a pink lace dress. The nurse who was pushing the girl’s wheelchair smiled as she saw where the girl was pointing.

“Ah that one is one of my favorites too,” the nurse commented cheerfully.

“The artist’s style is so unique, I recognized one of her paintings in the hallway where we got her CT scan,” the girl’s mother added as she brushed her fingers along her daughter’s cheek.

“There are several of this particular artist’s throughout the hospital,” the nurse affirmed, “it is so wonderful that we get such nice painting donations, it really does make this place a lot more comforting to patients and nurses alike.”

“I want to be an artist when I grow up, do you think they would hang my pictures in the hospital too?” the little girl piped up, beaming at the thought

“I think that it would make everyone’s day a little bit brighter, just like these ones do,” the nurse smiled, taking another quick look at the painting before the trio continued down the hall, their moment brightened by the vibrant colors and careful design of the former patient’s painting.