Day 20

His aunt had an obsession with keeping things: nothing specific, as long as that thing could be enclosed in her childlike hand. Last summer, he visited her house in a province south of the city; when she showed him her “trophy room” he was so shaken by the plethora of little things that sat on the shelves lining the walls –keepsakes from weddings and christenings, key chains, empty perfume bottles – that he did not mention it during dinner. In the middle of the night he woke up and heard from the lit room, his aunt whispering, “I’ll keep you safe.”