#26 Sixteen Part 2 - Deag Cuid Deag

Although I protested, Lyle ignored me as she walked the buildings perimeter. Aside from the front door there was only one other entrance. A window about three feet long and two wide. It stood six feet above the ground at the top of the wall. Surprisingly, it was open.

I reasoned that even Barry – or Barpy – needed the fresh air every once in a while.

"Here." Lyle bent her knees and centered herself around her cupped hands.

I shot her a look of confusion.

"I'm giving you a boost."

"A what?"

She replied without missing a beat. "You're smaller than me. Just climb through the window and grab the key."

"You make it sound so easy." I rolled my eyes.

"Do you want to get into the unit or not?"

I chewed at my lip. We didn't have time to wait around and who knew when they opened on weekends. Besides, I wasn't really committing a crime. I was stealing from myself which when it boils down to it isn't really stealing is it? Or at least that's what I kept telling myself as Lyle pushed me through the window.

I used the roof to hold myself and go in feet first landing soundly on the desk. I looked around to make sure no one was there, but the room was completely empty. To my left were the key hooks and I picked off the one labeled #16. Glancing back at the window my face contorted. I had no idea how I was going to get back up there.

"Go around to the door." Lyle called from the other side.

Duh.

I jumped off the desk careful not to ruffle any papers as I made my way to the front door.

"Not too bad." Lyle greeted me.

"It's all those days of flipping pancakes that gave me strong wrists." I flexed my hands referring to how I held my self up on the roof.

She laughed and replied with a sarcastic. "Sure."

Lyle's long legs matched my stride as we made our way down the concrete slab toward the back of the lot. Despite the early morning hour the sun directly above us had become enveloped in clouds, leaving the sky with only a sliver of sunlight.

We arrived in silence and stood before the grey container with black painted numbers indicating it was mine. The neon graffiti that adorned the right side had been freshly painted over, maybe Barry did leave his dingy concrete cave once in a while.

I stayed a few feet back while Lyle eagerly stepped forward to unlock the rolling door. My right hand played with my locket as I watched her from my fixed position. Three months ago I came here to return the very painting that I was now retrieving. I struggled to place a time in between the last three months and the present when I'd visited Unit #16.

In fact after my eighteenth birthday I hardly came here at all, maybe even less than once a year.

Coming to Unit #16 bore a different feel than it did when I was younger. When I was little it was a special treat, once a year and it came with a surprise – what kid isn't drawn to a surprise?

Flash forward and it morphed into more of a duty. Not necessarily bad in all ways but it was a responsibility. One that no longer involved an air of excitement or surprise. I knew what was in Unit #16 and even more importantly, I knew what wasn't.

It became harder and harder to come back to the place where you know you are lost. I mean truly lost, not just confused at the road sign because it is raining cats and dogs. I mean when you're out in the middle of nowhere with no street signs or a map. That's the point when you have to admit it to yourself - which is much easier said than done and much more painfully felt.

As a result of this forced admission Unit #16 began to leave a bad taste in my mouth every time I left. A taste that returned time after time and became more acute as the years went on. It was like getting sick after eating a certain food and then even the smell of that meal – although it may have been your favorite at one time – makes you gag.

And maybe that's too harsh, I wasn't gagging now, but I was holding my breath, afraid that even the scent of stale cardboard and acrylic paints would flood my senses.

Lyle grunted as she bent to force the sliding door along the curve of the ceiling.

The contents of the Unit hadn't changed, they never had. Rows of neatly packed cardboard boxes lined the back wall leaving several feet of empty space which Lyle stepped into. Her face was partly concealed in the shadow of the unit as she turned to me and pointed at the ground in the middle of the wall of boxes where the fading sunshine shed a low glow.

The day I came to return Mo Soileireacht I was in too much of a hurry to return it to its proper box and instead left it propped against the wilting box wall. I nodded in response as I cautiously followed her into the Unit.

"This is really nice." Lyle squatted to the side of the framed work as she studied it.

My footsteps carried me forward until I knelt down beside her in front of the painting.

It was small no larger than a typical hardback novel. The frame was simple wood that held no embellishments of its own, allowing the painting to become the center of attention. In my mind any frame would have a difficult time taking away from the beauty and simplicity of Mo Soileireacht. It was brilliant, she was brilliant, her brushstrokes accentuating the movement of the wind that gently nuzzled waving blades of grass and ripples in the pond. The bench sat alone in the background as if watching the wind move its surroundings all while it stayed untouched.

In the bottom right corner black script outlined my mother's signature, Charlotte Ellis with curving letters. Only the C and E were legible and I wondered if Lyle noticed the signature at all. Would she ask me why I'd signed the painting with a different initial?

"Well now I won't have to wait in those long lines at the Louvre." Lyle joked shooting me a smile before returning to a standing position.

I returned her smile but only briefly as I was drawn back into Mo Soileireacht's gravitational force, unconsciously I reached out to take the painting and place it in my lap protectively. In a way it felt wrong to be portraying myself as the artist of such a work. Although I tried for countless hours I knew I would never reach her level of talent.

The noise of rustling from above caught my attention. I snapped my head up to see Lyle picking through an open box. A sleeve of one of my mother's jackets hung off the side of the box.

"What are you doing?" The accusation left my lips a little more harshly than I intended as I jumped to my feet.

"Just looking." Lyle replied evenly holding her hands up in surrender.

I scowled marching over to the box and hastily tucking its contents back inside. I didn't care if she was king Midas turning things to gold, I didn't want her going through my mother's things. "Well don't. Those aren't yours." I turned back to her and pointed to the asphalt ordering her out of the unit.

I couldn't risk Lyle rummaging through the contents of any of the boxes, and finding out that this was not your typical storage unit. But even more so, I felt a protective instinct that extended to every single item in Unit #16.

They were not museum pieces for passersby to walk past with their hands tucked neatly behind their back while mumbling buzzwords like 'interesting' or 'innovative'. Her things – even her jackets – were not on display for others to see. They were private pieces of my mother's life, albeit mostly microscopic puzzle pieces that hardly completed a corner, but still they were important.

Only once had I broken the veil of privacy that surrounded Unit #16. When I allowed Grace to hang Mo Soileireacht in the foyer of White Pine, and what an unprecedented chain reaction that set off.

"It's just clothes May."

"Yes but they are her's-" I couldn't stop myself fast enough as the words left my mouth completely unfiltered.

Lyle paused letting my outburst hang in the silence. I waited for her to ask, waited for her to question why I was so angry with her for going through an old box of clothes. On the train ride here I told her that the Unit belonged the White Pine B&B. It was a simple white lie but one that I needed to tell to keep the secret of my mother and the true origin of the painting a secret.

Now what would she think?

Lyle said nothing and we left without another exchange.

-

Since the last was so short here's a bonus chapter! Should May share her memory of Charlotte with Lyle?

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