Julián paused. He recognized the woman in the red dress. It was his mother. He hadn't seen a picture of her in years; his father had claimed all photos were lost in a move. But here was the truth: his father had destroyed the evidence of her, yet he had written about it with a surgeon's precision. He hadn't been hoarding junk; he had been trying to master the pain of absence by dissecting it.

Julián walked to the door, turned off the light, and didn't look back. He was getting better at this.

His father hadn't been a hoarder. He had been a man terrified of attachment, practicing loss on small things so he could endure the loss of everything that mattered.