I found the key on a Tuesday. It was just sitting there in the junk drawer between a dead flashlight and some rubber bands, which is where things go in our house when nobody wants to deal with them.
I almost put it in the little ceramic bowl by the door where we keep our own keys. Then I looked at the logo. Honda. A Honda logo on a key fob. We have never owned a Honda. We drive Fords. Gary and I have driven Fords our whole married life because his dad sold them and it was just one of those family habits that stuck. So I stood there in the kitchen holding this key and I thought, okay, this is probably nothing. A friend left it. A neighbor. Someone’s spare that ended up here at a cookout or something.
Except I couldn’t think of a single person who’d left it.
I set it on the counter and went about my day. I made dinner. I watched TV with Gary that night and I didn’t say anything because I genuinely thought I was going to feel stupid for even asking. He was relaxed, normal, scrolling through his phone with his feet up, the same man I’d been married to for sixteen years. The same man who still called me “babe” and remembered to pick up the specific brand of coffee creamer I like. I told myself it was nothing and I almost believed it.
But I didn’t throw the key away. I think that’s the thing. I set it on the windowsill above the kitchen sink and every time I washed dishes I looked at it.
By Friday I’d talked myself into testing it. I don’t know what I expected.
I pressed the panic button standing in our own driveway and nothing happened. No horn, no lights, nothing. So I figured that was that. Except I didn’t go back inside. I got in my car and I drove around the block pressing it, which I know sounds unhinged, but once the idea was in my head I couldn’t leave it alone. Nothing on our street. Nothing on the main road. I turned into the Birchwood Apartments complex about a mile and a half away mostly because there were a lot of cars parked close together and I figured if something was going to beep I’d hear it. I drove down the first row slowly with my window down. I pressed the button. And a silver Honda Civic in the third row beeped twice and its lights flashed.
I sat there for probably a full minute just looking at it.
Then I wrote down the plate number on the back of a receipt from my purse and I drove home and I didn’t say anything to Gary that night either.
