When I’m finally able to force myself out of the car, the November temperatures have dropped enough that my teeth chatter. I turn on the lights inside the unit, which is not climate-controlled. In the center of the space, I sit on a chair. Shelving units stacked with boxes, bins, and bags surround me. My breath puffs out in a long plume of silver.

I sit.

I close my eyes and think about all the hours I spent sorting through other people’s castoffs, finding my own treasures. The thrill of finding a new piece to add to my collection was always its own kind of high. I told myself I’d flip this stuff, but once it was mine, I could not make myself get rid of it. I’m going to do it. That’s what I’d said to Lisa, but it was a lie to her, and worse, to myself. This stuff, my things. It was never about spending the money; it was about having the stuff.

At last, a sob works its way out of me. Then another. I don’t try to hold them back. I bend forward, my face in my hands, and permit myself to give in to the shame that floods me. I traded one addiction for another, but I got myself off the pills. Why can’t I get myself off this too?

My vision still blurs as I force myself to my feet. The closest shelf contains clear shoebox bins of costume jewelry. Flower brooches, long strands of beads, oversized cocktail rings. I’d been buying it all by the bag from estate sales, promising myself I would sort through it and resell the individual pieces, or no, make a craft from them, or no, no, actually wear them to create my own vintage style, except I never had any place to go all dressed up in the jewelry of dead women. I rifle through it now, sorting the pieces with my fingers. A pinback pricks my finger, drawing blood.

I suck on it, hating the coppery taste but forcing myself to do it anyway. I put the lid back on the bin and heft it. There’s got to be several pounds of assorted jewelry in this container alone. I count how many I have.

Five.

Five effing bins of costume jewelry I’ve never actually sorted through. I could have something worth real money in here, or it could all be worthless. I will never know unless I make myself find out. If I can’t afford to pay the monthly storage unit fees, I will lose all of this. If I keep the storage unit and all of the stuff inside it, I could lose my house.

I don’t care so much about the end of my marriage, but if I lose my house, I lose safety for me and my son. If I lose that, I lose my entire life.

Quickly, working fast so I can’t stop myself, I dump the bins onto the floor. I kneel on the hard concrete. I sort.