oLd set of keys

oLd set of keys Sydney Mantay

Istill have the key to the house I grew up in. It hangs with my yellow keychain and clanks around as I drive—hours and miles to so many homes, but not mine. I use it to slice through packages and scratch-off tickets when I’m feeling lucky and between middle and pointer fingers in parking lots when I’m alone. Before the house sold, before strangers slept in my old room that overlooked the wisteria vines, I never thought about my key. I lost it and forgot where I put it. The key was a tool and nothing more. But now, it has become a token of a place that was once my refuge. It became the reminder of what I had and now what I don’t. Like a recovering addict and his coins hanging around his neck or sitting in a dish, they speak, “Things were one way and now they are another. It happens day by day.”

Sometimes on long drives, straight up 95 to see my parents, I whisper, “Maybe they never changed the lock. If I drive by and don’t see cars…I could just slip my key in and see if it turns…I could sit in my old room for a minute or two…peek through my window and see the wisteria in all its glory…” I tried it one time; I took a sharp turn and held my breath as I drove by. There were some yellow patches in my dad’s grass, an ugly orange hatchback in the driveway, eggplant curtains instead of my mother’s silky champagne drapes. I sat, foot on the brake, trying to make the decision to move on. I lifted my foot so only my toe was resting on the brake, letting the weight of the car and the goodbye pull me away.

But I still have the key. Flash Fiction

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