Two’s a couple. Three means I need four.
Whose keys are these anyway? Are they yours? Were you a Latchkey Kid? Did you hang them around your neck on a shoelace? Key to Success? Key to the City? Key to Your Heart? Etc., etc…
Family lore has it that my first full sentence was Where are the goddamn keys? Well, they’re in my desk drawer, now. I’m guessing one of them might open the padlock on the door to a windowless, nine square-foot space at Your Personal Vault, a place my mom and I liked to call The Family Estate.
If I found the right key, I might discover things that have been broken and then glued back together, things too ugly for anyone to want but which cannot be thrown away because of their official status as Family Heirloom. I might also find a black portfolio filled with drawings of fruit and baskets, rendered painstakingly in colored pencil on Bristol board. Or the electric pencil sharpener that was so essential to this neurotic activity. The Family Estate might offer up some very overdue books from the Detroit Public Library, Main Branch. Also, some clothes that no one wants to wear anymore.
