Keys are essential, because locks are essential. My mother lived in fear of many things, including losing her keys, and some of her fears were transmitted to me. There are keys here to I don’t know what. There are keys for cars she hasn’t owned in decades. My own keys are the ones attached to a little wooden figure, the origins of which I don’t remember. I held those keys in my purse at all times in the last five years, an anxiety in the back of my head that I’d need them in a moment’s notice, anywhere, if I needed to go straight to my mother’s house. Fear of her being locked in and me being locked out. Fear of her dying in her house, and me having to first drive to my house before I could drive to hers. So I just carried the keys with me. Our fears realized the time I took her to the doctor and she forgot her keys, and somehow I had forgotten mine. It happened, we worked it out, we got inside.

My fear, that she would die in her house and I wouldn’t know, or wouldn’t be able to get inside to save her from her death.

She didn’t die in her house, after all. She died elsewhere. My fear of her death, realized. It happened. I’ll work it out. I’m inside, outside. I’m going through it.

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