The Key Collector


Without the key, there was no other way to get there. Only she couldn’t remember where she had put it. Ruth
stood hunched over the sales counter, rummaging through a cardboard box of keys when the door jingled.

“May I help you?” she asked without looking.

Her polite smile wrinkled to a stern frown when she discovered that her only customer for the day couldn’t have
been older than twelve. The girl looked behind her as if Ruth might have been addressing someone else. She didn’t
answer. Ruth squinted at the clock.

“Three minutes to closing time,” she stated loudly.

Ruth shuffled to the door and flipped over the sign. Three teenage girls peered through her grimy windows,
scrutinizing her uneven rows of clutter.

“We’re closed,” she squawked through the door.

They gave her a finger.

“We’re not interested in your junk anyway, old lady,” they shouted.

One of them kicked the door so that the glass rattled. They walked away, shaking their asses in their skinny pants.

“Little whores,” Ruth muttered as she turned the lock with a key that hung from her wrist.

That girl was still skulking around inside somewhere.

“I know you’re still in here. I’ll call the police,” she threatened. But her raised voice cracked in spots.

She shuffled a little more quickly back to the sales counter which was actually an old bar. Dusty, half-consumed
bottles of wine and liquor were displayed behind it and wobbly bar stools stood mournfully in front. The Monarch
Club had lost its liquor license more than a decade ago and gone into foreclosure. Now Ruth rented the store and
the small apartment above for a reasonable price.

Quietly, she opened one of the bar cabinets and pulled out a small hand gun.

“I’ve got a gun!”

She cocked it.

“Don’t shoot,” the girl pleaded from one of the crowded aisles. “I promise to buy something.”

“So you and your friends can laugh at my junk?”

“They’re not my friends.”

“Why did you come in here? See what you could steal from the old lady? A dare?”

It wouldn’t be the first time that the school kids had invaded her store to see what they could sneak past the old
lady. It was hard to tell what they had taken, but she knew they had taken something — laughing hysterically
outside her shop afterwards. Her inventory wasn’t as up to date as it should have been.

“I was hiding.” The girl’s voice had moved down the aisle closer to the door.

“Stand up so I can see you.”

“You’ll shoot me.”        

“Only if you’re stealing.”

“I swear... I’m not.”

Slowly the girl stood with her hands close enough to the door that she could touch the knob.

“Come closer.”

The girl’s hand rested on the knob. Ruth could tell even from a distance that she didn’t belong with the little whores.
She was heavy-set and awkward.

“I put the gun away,” Ruth announced. She lit a cigar and gave it a few good puffs.

“I should go,” the girl said.

“I could make us a drink.”

“You just tried to shoot me.”

“I threatened to shoot you. There’s a difference. What’s your name?”

“Sophie,” the girl said, tugging and turning the squeaky knob.

“That won’t open unless you have a key.”

“I need to get home.”

“I thought you were hiding.”

“I was.”

“You’ve only been here about ten minutes. They’ll be waiting for you around the corner.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. How about that drink?”

Ruth selected a decanter of amber liquid from one of the display cases, and two squat glasses from under the
counter. She poured the liquid, splashing some onto the counter and then held out the glass for the girl to take.
Sophie scuffed her way to the bar. Ruth adjusted her thick glasses, trying to get Sophie’s face in focus as she sat
carefully on a bar stool. Sophie sniffed at the glass.

“This is alcohol,” Sophie said.

“Of course it is.”

“I’m twelve.”

“Well, it’s not poison.” As if to prove it, Ruth slammed her portion and smacked her lips. “It’ll put hair on your balls.”
Sophie took a big gulp. She coughed and sputtered.

“That’s good stuff,” Ruth smiled. “But you should probably sip it.”

Sophie coughed again and nodded.

“I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Ruth.” She held out her hand, realizing how wrinkled and knobby it was when it
touched Sophie’s shy smooth one.

“I like your store,” Sophie said.

Ruth had a fuzzy view of the store’s contents. A faded red velvet fainting couch sat on end in the far corner. Large
wooden bureaus and wardrobes rested behind old tapestries. Dainty tea cups and mate-less dishes cluttered the
shelves. All of it was in need of dusting.

“It’s a terrible store,” Ruth confessed, pouring a larger portion of brandy. The four keys that dangled around her
wrist clinked on the glass.         

“I’m going under, I’m afraid. The landlord is kicking me out. I can’t afford to pay the rent. No one’s buying antiques
anymore. Not mine anyway.”

She felt ashamed, confiding in this girl who was probably being polite or scared. But she so seldom had visitors.
Who was left? All her sisters had died except for Luvena who was in an Alzheimer’s unit a couple towns away. The
DMV had taken away Ruth’s license a few years ago when she couldn’t pass the eye test. Her friends and even
acquaintances were dwindling. Millie had been forced into assisted living. Olivia moved to Florida for the warmer
climate. Agnes, the youngest of her friends, was probably doing the best. She bragged about being internet savvy
and wanted to know why Ruth didn’t at least have dial-up for an e-mail account. She’d told her she was losing the
business because she wasn’t keeping up with times.

Ruth rubbed one of the twelve keys around her neck, the smoothest, the most worn — the key to her first house,
Gene and hers. It had been a simple, square two bedroom home built right after the war. They had just enough
grass to plant a few petunias and construct a swing set for their only child.

“You can take whatever you want,” she conceded, “I’m going to lose it all anyway.”

She walked over to the bar and opened the cabinet, the same one with the gun. Sophie tensed. Ruth slid a key
across the counter.

“It’s yours.”

A silver house key. Nothing special. It wasn’t particularly old or particularly new. Sophie smiled politely.

“It’s a key to the store. You can hide in here after school.”

“But — "

“I know things. That’s all you need to know.”

Ruth checked her watch.

“You better be going. Valerie will be checking in on me soon. My daughter. She thinks I’m senile. Wants to put me in
a home.”

Sophie slid off the stool.

“Hold on, dear.” Ruth shoved a plate of cookies toward her hand. “Eat some of those. Soaks up the alcohol.”

Ruth watched Sophie bite into one of the cookies as she made her way to the door.

“Be sure to lock the door on your way out. And don’t come in before two if you can help it.”

Ruth followed her and handed over some peppermints.

“And for God sakes don’t tell anyone I let you drink alcohol. Imagine. Me in jail.”

~

Ruth snored softly on the brown plaid couch in the living room. Her dentures had unstuck themselves from the roof
of her mouth, hanging off to the side. Valerie arrived with two paper bags full of groceries.

“Mother. Mother!” Valerie shook her until her eyes fluttered.

“Is it that time already?”

“Did you drink all that brandy?”

“I might have.”

“You know that’s not good for you.”

“I’m eighty-three years old. What more could possibly happen?”

“Oh Mother.”

“What?”

“Any customers today?”

“No.” She would keep the girl to herself.

“Did you pay your rent?”

“Of course,” she lied.

Valerie stocked the fridge with vegetables, fruit and yogurt. She never brought candy or baked goods — the only
things that ever tasted good. And she most certainly wouldn’t bring alcohol. Ruth had to call down to the liquor
store for that. They delivered for an extra fee. Well worth it. Their delivery boy was quite handsome. Ruth would
often pay him extra to fix things around the house, the loose door knob, the leaky sink, just so she could enjoy his
company. He was really a lousy mechanic.

“The milk is bad,” Valerie announced, pouring the chunks down the garbage disposal.

“Don’t you ever clean out the fridge?”

For the last fifty years, Ruth laughed to herself.

Valerie poked her head out of the kitchen into the living room, quickly assessing her mother.

“If you don’t start taking better care of yourself —”

“You’ll put me in a home.” Ruth finished for her. “Just because I let the milk go bad. Maybe I was making cottage
cheese.”

“You’re going to make yourself sick. And when’s the last time you showered?”

All the nagging. She really couldn’t remember the last time she showered. She scrubbed the important parts every
day. What was the use of wasting all that water and getting completely wet. She hadn’t bothered getting up from
the couch. She folded her arms tightly across sagging breasts in protest.

“This morning.”

Valerie raised her eyebrows in disbelief.

“I’m sending in a cleaning service tomorrow. Help you get organized. Get rid of some of this junk. I mean seriously,
why do you need all this stuff?”

She held up a giant ring of keys. Ruth sat straight up.

Consolidation. Downsizing. Valerie was trying to downsize her own mother. She should have had a few more
children or one that was a least a little bit more sympathetic.

“Don’t you touch those keys.”

“They don’t go to anything. You don’t need them.”

“How do you know what I need?”

“I’m going to see if I can get a home health aide to visit you a couple times a week. Help you with your bath.”

Just what she needed — someone looking at her wrinkled ass.

“I don’t need a nurse.”

“It’s not a nurse. Just a helper.”

They probably wouldn’t let her drink or smoke. Make her take her blood pressure pills every day. All those pills made
her feel tired.

“Don’t send anyone over tomorrow. I’m busy. I’m going out for coffee with an old friend.”

“Well, that’s good. Anyone I know?”

“No.” She paused. “Then I should re-inventory the store. That could take all month. I won’t have time for a nurse or
a helper. And I thought about hiring someone — under the table.”

She thought about Sophie, an awkward pathetic little creature. She would make sure she had hot chocolate available
the next time.

                                                                     ~

Sophie scrambled down the speckled linoleum hallway to the orchestra room. The 2:30 bell had sounded, and there
was a rush for the buses lined outside the building. But Sophie had to pick up her viola first. She had a playing test
tomorrow, a selection from Suzuki. This slight detour would inevitably cost her a seat on the bus.

Tuesdays were better. Not enjoyable in terms of the allergy appointment, but the added benefits —  McDonald’s or
Subway for supper and no fight over a horrid green bus seat. Sometimes she was able to weasel an extra pick-up
day from her mother. After all, her viola could become damaged on the bus ride, and she had to take it home in
order to practice. She couldn’t leave her instrument at school all weekend, so Fridays turned out the best. But today
wasn’t Tuesday or Friday. It was a Thursday.

Her viola case had cracks at the neck, the fiberglass structure exposed where it had been beaten down over
hundreds of bus rides. She straightened her spine and looked straight ahead, willing herself to be taller and thinner
as she hustled toward Bus 81.

Yesterday after school she had been chased by Trina Potts and her friends. That’s how she’d ended up in that
antique shop. We just want to talk, they had said. When Sophie had picked up her pace, they asked why she was
so afraid. When she didn’t answer, they acted offended and lengthened their stride. Sophie wasn’t afraid. She only
remembered when Trina had spit gum into her hair. It was always some form of humiliation. And every Monday Trina
feigned friendship and civility during announcements while she copied Sophie’s entire vocabulary assignment. Sophie
hoped that Trina would remember this on the bus ride home or once they got off the bus. But she never did.

The first half of the bus was already filled. That meant that there was already one body for each green seat. As she
made her way down the aisle, they would move their bodies to the outside of their seats or push their backpacks to
the very edge. She knew every one of them by name. Hannah Gilman sat behind her in English. Jordan Brown lived
two houses down from her. And Jennifer Cooper used to be her best friend, but that was a long time ago in the
third grade. They were saving their seats for someone more desirable — popular, skinny and better dressed. The
very back seats were also taken by eighth grade boys. Sophie could feel a panic start to rise in her throat.

In her periphery, she saw a seat and quickened her step. She didn’t want to look desperate, because that would
draw attention. But she wanted to get there before someone else moved in and kicked out their legs, claiming that
they didn’t have room or that they were saving it for someone else. It was the last one. Sophie made an awkward
dive into the seat, cramming her viola case and backpack in with her. She averted her gaze through the smudged
bus window, purposefully ignoring the seats filling up around her.

“Hey, Fat Girl!” Logan yelled from two seats behind her.

Something stung the back of her head. A rubber band smacked the seat in front of her. She slouched down in her
seat and continued to look through window.

She could hear them laughing. “Maybe she only answers to Morbidly Obese Girl,” one of them said to the other.

“I saved that seat just for you!” he called out. “They told me you needed one all to yourself, because you’re so fat.”
That’s when she could feel the wetness of her jeans soaking through to her underwear and the strong smell of urine
wafted upward. She hadn’t had time to inspect the seat for wads of gum or other booby traps. Those boys had
pissed in her seat. Sophie swallowed the lump in her throat and clutched at her case. The worst thing she could do
would be to cry. Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth? Ooh heaven is a place on earth played through the
speakers at the front of the bus. But Sophie knew that heaven only existed on earth for girls like Trina Potts.

The bus driver liked to listen to the 80’s radio station. He was an oblivious older man who wore a perpetual smile.
His biggest worry seemed to be when he could get his next cup of coffee and a cigarette. He never noticed that
many days Sophie stood in the bus aisle long after the bus had left the school parking lot. He was nice enough, but
he did not exert any authority. Finally, the bus brakes squeaked and the door flipped open at Ventura Avenue.
Sophie had tied her hoodie around her waste to hide her wet jeans. She struggled with the weight of her backpack,
pointing her viola down the aisle, maneuvering around any stray legs that were meant to trip her.

Her own house was two city blocks away — an ordinary, older, two story house with a miniscule city lawn. A little
further down and around the corner the houses grew into three and four stories with personal libraries, tennis
courts and three stall garages. Boats, skidoos and trampolines. That was where Trina Potts lived.

The antique shop was only a couple hundred feet, the last business on the street before it turned completely
residential. A narrow building on the corner with large glass windows and a wooden door on first level. The sign that
stuck out above the door still said Monarch's Club in fading letters. A home-made sign, Ruth’s Antiques, hung in
the window. Black paint had been chipping off the building for years. There were two stories above the antique shop
with arched windows and flower boxes without flowers. Paint peeled off the window frames. It was one of those
older buildings with the architectural flourishes and curlicues in the brick, evidence that perhaps something important
or even romantic had happened here once.

Sophie checked her pocket for the key as she had several times during the day. The CLOSED sign hung in the door.
She glanced to her left. Trina Potts was busy smoking with the other skinny girls — the skinny girls with make-up
and the $100 jeans. The key slipped in and turned easily.

An old square laminate table with chrome legs had been dusted off and pulled to the front with two matching aqua
vinyl chairs sitting opposite each other. The table was set with two mismatched dessert plates and tea cups, along
with a plate of cookies and carafe of milk.

“Ruth?” Sophie called out quietly.

She didn’t see Ruth lurking around the store. “Ruth?” Sophie walked further into the store and toward a rack of
clothes that she had hidden behind the day before. Sophie didn’t want to touch her wet jeans, let alone continue to
wear them. In the far corner, she flipped through the hangers of forgotten fashion. An old wedding dress, yellowing
white lace. Size 6. Shirt-waisted dresses with plaid, polka-dots, and floral patterns High-waisted pants. It all seemed
more old lady than antique. But sometimes old things were cool. There was a second rack with butterfly collars and
polyester. She held up a pair of khaki Levi corduroys with a flared leg. Size 36.

“Thirty-eight dollars for an old pair of corduroys?” She only had a few dollars left over from lunch.

Suddenly Ruth was behind her, breathing heavily. “The cookies are for you,” Ruth stated loudly.

Sophie dropped the pants.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I lost track of time.”

“Could I borrow these?” Sophie asked, picking up the corduroys.

“Levi’s, those are collectors now. Especially the one’s before 1971 when they used a capital E.”

Ruth turned the pants over to look at the tag. “Lower case e,” she said. “Just an old pair of pants. What do you
want with those?”

“I sat in something on the bus,” she said.

“Bathroom’s that way,” she pointed.

Sophie tossed her own soaked jeans into the garbage can. She came out of the bathroom, walking on the hem of
her bellbottomed pants and returned to the table of milk and cookies. Ruth shuffled out of another room, lugging
something heavy. With some effort, she heaved an old paint pail onto the table. DUTCH BOY LEAD PAINT. It was
overflowing with rusted skeleton keys, some broken, some copper that had turn green. She eased her joints into
one of the chairs. Sophie counted more than twelve keys hanging from Ruth’s neck. And they jangled around her
wrists like charm bracelets.

“You didn’t have any more problems with those girls again did you?” Ruth asked.

Sophie blushed. She always had trouble with those girls.

“No,” she said.

“Good, good.” Ruth smiled.

Sophie took a cookie and crunched into it. They were hard and tasted of stale flour. The cookies were awful, but she
thought she better say something complimentary.

“Thanks for letting me come here.”

Ruth patted her hand. “I’m using you for your company you know.”

Sophie didn’t know how to respond. Being used implied something bad, but this was a sanctuary.

“And you remind me of myself. At your age, of course,” she added.

Ruth bit down on one of her cookies and immediately spit the hard pieces into her hand, tossing them onto the
plate.

“I must have forgotten something.” With that she rose up and threw the entire platter into the garbage, changing
the subject. “What is something that everyone carries all the time?” Ruth asked. “You wouldn’t dare leave home
without it.”

“Underwear?”

“No. No. You wear underwear. Something that you have to carry.”

Sophie sat in contemplation. The stale crumbs sat in her mouth. She carried a handkerchief with her for her
allergies. But that was something she kept on the down low. Regular people used Kleenex. People like Trina Potts
never required Kleenex. In the other pocket, she carried an inhaler.

“Cell phone?”

Ruth frowned. “People and their damn cell phones. It’s too much trouble to carry a couple of quarters. No, keys. If
you leave the house, you have to have a key.”

Ruth scooped a handful of rusted, broken keys out of the bucket and heaped them on the table.

“Think about where your parents keep their keys. How many sets of keys are on the key hook at your house?”

“I don’t —"

“They probably have a dozen keys, but don’t use most of them. Keys to old cabinets, junked out cars, former
residences. Keys that have lost their master lock.”

Sophie stared at the bucket. “So you have a bunch of old keys that don’t go to anything.”

“Oh, but they do go to something.” She smiled, excited by what she was about to reveal. Ruth held up part of a
rusted skeleton key. It had a loopy handle, but the tooth at the end had rusted off.

“But it’s broken,” Sophie said.

“This key doesn’t go to anything in the present, but it used to. It’s like a ghost key now. Its purpose has died. ”
Sophie nodded, but didn’t understand where she was going with this.

Ruth started to talk in a whisper. “The thing is, these keys still work. If you insert the key and turn it, you’re there.”
“Where?” Sophie asked in a whisper.

“To where or whatever the key went to,” Ruth answered.

“But where do you put the key?”

“It doesn’t matter. The air.”

“But won’t you end up in the landfill or something?” Sophie’s voice had returned to its normal volume.

“Shhhhh. We don’t want everyone to know this.”

Sophie didn’t know anything. She didn’t even believe it.

Ruth handed Sophie the broken key. “I think you’ll enjoy this one.”

Sophie looked at the key skeptically and thought that she should feel more grateful for this gift. But what was she
going to do with a broken key? Maybe if she hid it under her pillow, she would fall into a magical sleep and not wake
up until after she had graduated from high school. Or if she buried it in the backyard, an invisible library would grow
in its place — full of books that only she could see and read. But fairytales were a lot like heaven. They only worked
for certain people.

                                                                     ~

Ruth followed Sophie as she walked out of the antique shop in her new old Levi’s. She turned the lock and placed
the chain across the door for extra security. Then shuffled over to each large window and let the dusty blinds down.
Thank god Valerie wouldn’t be coming over tonight.

At her bar she filled half a glass of top shelf whiskey and drained it without ever tasting it. What the hell, she
thought and poured herself another. Ruth had a date tonight.

She lifted one of the keys from her neck, one that she had marked with red fingernail polish to distinguish its
importance. She slipped the key into an invisible lock on an invisible door and walked into a murmuring crowded bar.
The Juke Box played “Save the Last Dance” by the Drifters. Henry had paid to play the song four times. He always
did.

“I thought you stood me up,” Henry said, standing up from his corner table.

She’d forgotten how handsome he was with his silver hair neatly combed back and his manicured beard. Sixty was
so young.

“I had to close up the store,” Ruth said. “Business, you know.”

Henry reached for her hand and held it — her hand minus twenty years of wrinkles and age spots.

“When are you going to let me take you home?”

The waitress interrupted. “The usual Ma’am?”

“Yes, please,” Ruth said.

“Well?” Henry persisted.

“Let’s not talk about that. Can’t we just have a good time?”

The waitress brought Ruth her White Russian with a double shot of vodka. Henry drank whatever beer they had on
tap and smoked his cigars. They drank until they were laughing and slurring. They danced, wobbling between the
other tables to somebody else’s song on the juke box.

“Last call!” the bartender shouted.

His hot breath near her ear and his hand on her ass, Henry whispered, “You’re such a tease.”

Ruth had drunk enough that she would have agreed to almost anything. They stumbled out of the Monarch Club.
Her inebriated foot caught the last step and she woke up on the floor of her antique shop. Three bar stools had
tipped over and sticky glass shards littered the wood floor.

“Oh Henry,” she cried.

Ruth lay on the floor, worried that she might not be able to get up, but too frightened to try. She rubbed her sore
left hip and then lifted each varicose-veined leg one at a time, making sure nothing was broken. Only bruised, she
concluded. She managed to crawl over to a tattered recliner and push herself into a semi-standing position before
easing herself sideways into it.

The oldies station played from the little radio at the bar. She couldn’t remember turning it on last night. She drifted
off with the music, remembering her short time with Henry. Ruth had met him at the Monarch Club. It was a classy
bar that served strong drinks. She had gone for the strong drinks not with the intention of meeting anyone, let
alone a boyfriend. They were both widowed, but somehow it still felt like cheating to Ruth. So she would never let
him take her home. Their relationship consisted of stolen kisses at the bar and ridiculous drunk dancing to music
that wasn’t meant for dancing. The last night they were together they had engaged in serious adolescent groping in
his new Cadillac. They had both been too old for that nonsense. But really it was the last time she felt young —
younger anyway. Ruth feared that Henry would ask her to marry. That scared her. Without explanation, she
stopped meeting him and refused to return his phone calls. She had been such an old fool. Ten years later she read
his obituary in the paper, as if she were a stranger who hadn’t been in love with him.

                                                                     ~

At one o’clock the nice young man finished replacing the spark plug of the old riding mower. He had even attached
the small trailer to the back per Ruth’s request. She stood by in her dress slacks and a button down shirt. She had
even taken a bath today.

Ruth handed over the rest of the crumpled bills from her bulky purse. It didn’t seem quite adequate.

“Thank you,” Ruth said, trying to remember the delivery boy’s name.

“It’s no problem,” he said, straightening out the bills. “A fifth tomorrow? Of the usual?” he asked.

She must have given him too much. “The usual,” she agreed.

She waited for him to leave before she took a seat and started the little motor. It clanked and sputtered, but didn’t
stall or smoke. At fifteen miles an hour, she figured she could make it to the school in time.

                                                                     ~

The bell was ringing just as Ruth pulled into the circle drive. Students poured out of all possible doors. She pulled
forward, hoping that Sophie would see her. Today was Monday. Not a Tuesday or Friday, she remembered.

She could make out a tug of war. A skinny girl was trying to rip away a chunky girl's back pack in front of bus 81.
Ruth started her engine and headed in that direction.

“Hey!” Ruth yelled, driving over the curb and onto the sidewalk.

“What the hell are you doing, old lady?” Trina yelled.

“I’ll run you over if you don’t get out of the way.”

“Ruth?” Sophie asked.

“Get in, Sophie.”

The skinny girl let go of the backpack and started laughing. “Nice ride you have there, Fat Girl! Couldn’t fit into the
bus seats anymore?”

She laughed, her mouth a skinny scar. Everyone on bus 81 was laughing and pointing. Sophie looked from the girl
to the bus to Ruth.

“Hey look! Pee Pants gets a special ride!” One of the boys called from the back of the bus.

“You,” Ruth said and pointed at the asshole girl. “Shut up. I know where you live. Used to baby sit your father.”

“Oooooh.”

“You’re Leonard Potts’ girl,” Ruth said. “Katrina Potts, the one with the harelip.”

Sophie stood on the sidewalk, apparently examining the cement.

“I also know that your mother is a real fat ass. Failed gastric bypass surgery. How does it feel having to wipe your
own mother’s ass? Tie her shoes?”

Trina had stopped laughing. “You don’t know anything. Everyone knows you’re crazy. My dad says you have the
Alzheimer’s.”

Ruth laughed. “I guess that means I’ll forget when you come up missing.”

Trina didn’t have much to say after that.

                                                                     ~

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Ruth apologized as they made it slowly back home. The engine had grown louder,
starting to smoke.

Sophie sat quietly in the trailer. How could she ever ride the bus again? Adult intervention always made things
worse. But she didn’t want to hurt Ruth’s feelings.

“Is Trina’s mother really fat?”

“I don’t know. She’s probably a size zero and drinks diet coke and does Pilates all day.”

“Oh.”

“Disappointed?”

“A little.”

“Don’t let those girls get to you. In a few years, it won’t even matter.”

But it did matter. It seemed like it would matter forever.

                                                                     ~

A notice was attached to the front door of Ruth’s Antiques with bright orange tape. Ruth Ann TenCate and Formal
Eviction notice were bolded in large font. Sophie ripped it from the door and let herself in. She had been coming
three days a week for a month. Ruth had told her the very first day they had met that she couldn’t afford the rent,
that she was going to lose the place. She expected Ruth to be there in the afternoons with her failed attempts at
brownies or cake. Sometimes hot cocoa. Other times tea.

The antique shop was dark. Ruth sat stooped over the bar with an unlit cigar in her mouth, an untouched glass in
front of her.

“Ruth?”

She turned slowly.

Sophie laid the notice on the bar.

“You just get so tired sometimes,” Ruth said, reaching for a book of matches.

She tried several times before she was able to ignite the match. She held the flame to the notice. The white paper
turned brown then black, flaking into the ash tray.

Sophie had wanted to tell Ruth the good news, but now didn’t seem the appropriate time. Where would Ruth live?
How long did she have? Why wasn’t she packing anything? There was no urgency in her. Only an apathetic sort of
surrender. Not only would Sophie lose a new friend, but also her sanctuary. She would just have to walk faster.
The librarian had offered Sophie a job, shelving books during lunch hour. Usually, Sophie would swallow her lunch in
ten minutes so she could get to the library. This often elicited snide comments from Trina who attributed Sophie’s
quick eating to her childhood obesity. If she could get there before they locked the doors, she could sit and read
during the entire lunch hour. No one ridiculed her there. If she didn’t make it in time, she was forced go outside with
everyone else. She would try to find a secluded bench to read. But even then, they would seek her out. One day a
girl she didn’t even know started to pinch her face and kick her in the side — just from the mere fact that she was
there. And the girl acted as if she were doing Sophie a favor.

This job was huge. Sophie would no longer have to race to the library. She could knock and they would let her in —
a prestigious club. A handful of other kids worked there too, checking out and shelving books. Inventory was
coming up. They would have a pizza party when it was over. The exclusion on the bus did not exist in the library.
Sophie thought that they should have been celebrating with a special cake, iced with congratulations and served with
strong adult coffee — diluted with milk of course. But Ruth hadn’t put out food or drinks. And Sophie didn’t want to
intrude her new found happiness on Ruth. Ruth who was eerily silent. A lump of human flesh at the bar.

“You should have been there —" Ruth started to say.

Sophie waited for the rest, but she had taken a long pause, staring off with glassy eyes.

“Ma and us girls. We made grape juice. Stemming and sieving — quite the chore. Takes forever to get it off your
hands. But the taste —"

Then she didn’t say anything. Several awkward minutes passed.

“So you used to make grape juice?”

Ruth didn’t respond.

“Did you need help packing? Ruth?”

“No. No. You go on home. I’ve got a lot to do.”

She left Ruth on the barstool to contemplate younger days. Sophie walked home, counting in Dewey Decimal (300
Social Science, 400 Language) and imagined running her fingers down a row of books like piano keys.

                                                                     ~

Ruth kneeled in the dirt with a box of petunias. Her knees were fifty years younger. None of the clicking and
grinding. She had one key in her pocket instead of several around her neck. It was sharp toothed and silver, the key
to her brand new home. She smiled as she patted her small bulging stomach in satisfaction. Soon she would have a
very large bulge. She would tell Gene tonight. He would be home from the factory soon. The meatloaf was baking in
the oven along with the scalloped potatoes.

“The meatloaf!”

She dropped her little shovel and ran indoors, throwing open the oven. The ketchup was scorched, the meat
blackened.

                                                                     ~

“Mother, what are you doing?”

All the burners on the stove were full blast blue flames with nothing on them. The oven had been cranked to broil.
Cans and boxes of food had been taken out of the cupboard. Some opened and spilled. Ruth was sobbing.

“I burnt the meatloaf!”

Valerie turned off all the burners.

“Well, it’s no wonder.”

She opened the oven. It was empty. Maybe Ruth had already fed it to the garbage disposal. Valerie looked more
closely at her mother. She looked more disheveled than usual. And what a strange coat.

“What are you wearing?”

“My new maternity dress. Gene bought it for me through the Sears & Roebuck catalogue.”

Valerie shivered. “You’re eighty-three years old. I’m your only child. Dad’s been dead for over twenty years.”

Ruth laughed at her. “I think I know how old I am.”

Upon closer inspection, Valerie could see that her mother was wearing a coat made from various keys strung
together like chain mail. Broken rusted keys. Skeleton keys. Ford Keys and GM keys to cars that she had never
driven, let alone owned. More expensive antique keys with stones. Brass and copper keys. Some of them were tied
together with fishing line or plain string. Others with colorful yarn. One sleeve was secured with duct tape and the
other with electrical tape which was starting to come undone.

How long had she worked on this?

“Please. Tell me you’re drunk.”

                                                                     ~

Valerie stood by a growing mound of dirt.

“Mother, we need to go,” she said impatiently.

Ruth could feel Valerie’s critical gaze as she shoveled furiously in the back yard, her entire body grinding and clicking
with each mound of dirt moved. At one point she abandoned the shovel and started digging with her hands,
ferociously, desperately. Dirt wedged its way beneath her nail beds and stained the dry cracked lines of her skin. The
dirt was dark and cool. Every so often she would come against a broken brick or a stubborn rock. A wheel barrow
and several buckets filled with keys sat next to the growing hole.

“You can’t make me go,” Ruth stated, not looking at Valerie.

“You don’t need to do this.”

“Ha,” she said, dumping hundreds of clanking keys from the wheelbarrow into the hole.

“I’ve got someone who will move your valuables. We’ll put them in storage until we — you can sort them out.”

Ruth started to fill the hole, covering all the metal.

Everything she collected would be lost. She had to save them from being given away or dumped like trash. Valerie
didn’t understand the significance. She was one of those neat freaks who threw away her children’s toys the
moment they were looking the other way. Who puts a cream carpet in a house with children? That was just asking
for trouble.

“Mom, you don’t even know what you’re doing anymore.”

“I know perfectly well what I’m doing. I’m in my own head. You’re not.”

“You can’t stay here anymore. You haven’t paid rent in months. You’re being evicted.”

“Bullshit. I paid my rent. He probably stole it.”

“He has a court order,” Valerie said

Not even Sophie really believed in the keys. The trips took so much out of Ruth that they were affecting her in ways
that she had not expected. She had been traveling with the expired keys, letting herself into houses and times that
no longer existed. In the evenings, she would visit Gene or Henry. In the early mornings, she would visit her parent’
s old farm and her sisters. When she was gone, she was younger, lighter. But when she returned, she would find
herself undressed or doing strange things. Weighed down by gravity. Valerie over-exaggerated. Really, it was only a
bad case of jetlag.

Ruth stomped down the earth.

“Come on, Mother.” Valerie pulled at arm.

Ruth pulled her arm back and scowled at her daughter. Reluctantly, she followed Valerie to her car.

Ruth sat stiffly buckled in the back seat while Valerie drove, examining her filthy hands.

“We found you a very nice place, Mother.”

“I bet.”

“They have gardens and walkways and twenty-four hour nursing care. You won’t have to worry about remembering
your medications.”

“I remember just fine.”

“I know you do, but there will be someone to help. And you won’t be so alone. There will be others.”

She wanted to choke Valerie’s placating tone right out of her throat. Talking to her like she was some child. Like she
didn’t know anything. Like she didn’t know where she was going. As if it was some type of vacation at a five-star
resort. Valerie often confused being old with being dead. Well, she wasn’t dead.

“Sounds nice dear.” She gave a false smile.

“It will be.”

Valerie seemed satisfied. But Ruth didn’t have to go there. She wouldn’t. They could have her body and lock it inside
a rotting home. She would let her body rot. They could clean her urine and shit-soaked diapers. Wash her pale,
rotting, stinking skin. She wasn’t going to help. They could feed her pureed meat and watch it fall out of her mouth.
They would be blind to her refusal. If she fought, they would be more forceful. But if she passively submitted and
drifted off elsewhere, they would let it go, write it off as a decline of health. This was her opportunity to travel
without the responsibility of running the store.

Ruth closed her eyes and drifted back into the antique store. She better let Sophie know what was going on. It was
time to start inventory.

                                                                     ~

Sophie lay in her own bed on top of the covers, her ear buds plugged in. Beside her the music stand held several
pieces of crinkled sheet music. And her viola rested in its case, dusty with rosin. She was taking a break, examining
the broken key that Ruth had given her with such eagerness — searching for the magic that Ruth had seen. Sophie
wore the key around her neck on a hemp necklace, but only when she was in the safety of her own home. If Trina
Potts found Sophia wearing a broken key, she’d probably take a picture with her iPhone and send it to all her friends
with some snide text message about how Sophie’s parents couldn’t afford jewelry, so she had to resort to broken
household items. And how next she would be wearing a splinter from a toilet plunger or food wrappers. Or
something ridiculous like that.

She held the key out purposefully and stabbed the air and gave it a twist. Nothing. Maybe if I stood, she thought.
Facing her dresser, the drawers all half opened with clothes falling out, she repeated the stabbing and turning
motion. And it was like she had gone blind and deaf. Silence. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. There were several
rows of seats and a light in the distance. A rustling of papers. A cough. An oboe sounded out in the darkness, a
concert A. She could now see a symphony orchestra dressed in formal black, tuning on-stage. And she stood in the
aisle.

A hand reached out from one the seats and tugged at Sophie’s arm. It was a girl about her age motioning her to sit
by her.

“Me?” Sophia whispered.

“No, the invisible man behind you. Yes, you.”

The strange girl handed her a program. That’s when Sophia realized that she was no longer wearing her own
clothes. They had been replaced by a floral print dress that hung just past her knee; below the hem were two stiff
dress shoes. It reminded her of the old lady clothes in Ruth’s store. This was embarrassing.

There was a hush over the crowd. The conductor raised his baton and a trumpet punched out his solo in
syncopated rhythm followed by a crash of cymbals, and then the trumpet was joined by the rest of the booming
brass. Meanwhile the strings played pizzicato until overtaking the brass with their legato bow strokes
Sophia forgot her foreign clothing as she watched the music unfold. She admired how all the bows in each section
were going the same way, how everything was so precise and synchronized. She watched the first chair violist very
closely and tried to hear all their small but important parts.

The third movement ended with a flourish, and the audience applauded. When the lights brightened, Sophia realized
she was in the old theatre downtown. She had been in this theatre before, but it had never looked this good. And
everyone was dressed strangely. All the women in dresses and hats. All the men in suits.

Out in the lobby, everything looked shiny and new but antiquated. Sophia had only ever seen in parades the cars
parked outside the theatre.

“We should get out of here,” the girl said.

“But it’s only intermission.”

“Would you rather get kicked out?”

“Why would we get kicked out?”

“Do you have a ticket?”

“Well no,” Sophie confessed.

“I sneak in whenever I can,” the girl admitted. “But we wouldn’t want to spoil it.”

“How did you know that I didn’t have a ticket?”

“I watched you appear out of nowhere. That’s how. And for a minute you were wearing some peculiar clothes.

“Doesn’t that worry you?”

“It makes me wonder about your fashion sense.”

“Not the clothes. The appearing out of nowhere.”

“Not really.”

Sophie didn’t know what to say. She was almost disappointed. Then she noticed it. The girl wore a key around her
neck.

“You’re wearing a key,” Sophie said. She had meant it to come out as a question.

“So are you,” she said, unsurprised.

Their eyes met.

“So much for a secret,” the girl said. “Who told you?”

“An old woman,” Sophie said. She didn’t want to get Ruth in trouble.

“She smells like whiskey and smoke? Wears enough keys to cut off her circulation? That one?”

“Maybe.”

“That lady is nuts.”

Sophie was a little hurt. She loved Ruth.

They were about to walk through the double doors to the sidewalk outside.

“What’s your name anyway?” the girl asked.

“Sophie.”

“I’m Ruth,” the girl said. “In case we meet again.”

Sophie opened her mouth to say something more, but she found herself lying in her bed, on top of the covers with
a string of drool in corner of her mouth. Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 played through her iPod.

~

A nurse escorted Sophie through the dining room of the Royal Wood Assisted Living Center. Many grey heads sat in
wheel chairs circled around the tables — eyes closed, heads drooping, mouths drooling. Sophie scrunched her nose
as a hint of urine and fecal matter wafted through the air.

“Ruth, you have a visitor,” the nurse said.

Ruth was pale and keyless. Spots of lunch had dried onto her blouse. There was no recognition in her eyes.

“It’s Sophie,” she said, squeezing Ruth’s hand.

Ruth did not meet her eyes, but reached for the key around Sophie’s neck, holding it for a moment. It was the key
to the antique shop, but her key had expired. The locks had been changed, the sign for Ruth’s Antiques removed
and a For Rent sign had gone up.

“I buried them in the backyard,” Ruth stated flatly.

“The keys?” Sophie asked.

Ruth nodded. “But I don’t need them anymore,” Ruth whispered. “I can get around with out them.” Ruth tapped her
forehead, and nodded in agreement with herself.

“That’s good,” Sophie said. Was it really good? She didn’t know.

Several minutes passed. Ruth stared through the white block wall.

“Ruth, did we meet before? At a concert? Did you used to sneak into the symphony?”

There was no answer.

Sophie searched Ruth for the spirited old woman she had met only a few months ago. But she didn’t recognize this
person. She looked just like every other curly haired withered old lady in a wheel chair.

An aide wearing dingy scrubs two sizes too small placed a supper tray of pureed green slop in front of Ruth. “Would
you like to feed your grandmother today?” she asked. She offered Sophie the spoon and smiled hopefully.

“She’s not my grandmother,” Sophie said.

“Well, your friend then,” the aide insisted.

Sophie stood and pushed in her chair.

“I made a mistake. I thought she was someone else.”

Sophie left the dining room. It was a funeral parlor in there. She walked the carpeted hallway, humming softly to
herself the latest concert performance from the Park Theatre. It was a soft, slow movement at first, led by the
French horns and bassoons, bouncing along like Oompa Loompas accompanied by plucked strings. Then it picked up
speed poco a poco until at last fingers flew, bows raced, and the conductor’s baton moved wildly. Sophie busted
through the nursing home door — out of the putrid air of Royal Wood’s decomposing elderly and into the sunshine
— and started to run.

Julie Ann August