“Front and back,” he said.
I held them in my palm. Two brass keys, still warm from his pocket.
I went from my father’s house to the hired man’s house at nineteen years old. I have been somebody’s daughter under his roof, and somebody’s wife under her husband’s employer’s roof. And I was grateful for both. I truly was.
But I was sixty-seven years old before anybody ever handed me the keys to a place I had picked out by myself.
I’m not ashamed to say I had to look away at the elevator for a minute, so Mr. Brandt wouldn’t see my face.
Here’s the part I’m not proud of.
I didn’t tell Michelle.
Not that day. Not that week. She called on Monday to ask if I’d thought about it, and I said I was still thinking. Which was a lie of the kind that isn’t quite a lie. I was thinking. I was thinking about where to put the couch.
