Chapter 23: The Keys

The buyers were a young couple with a golden retriever.

They stood in my empty living room, still looking around as if it might not be theirs.

It was the twenty-ninth of December.

The title company had finished at noon, and the realtor had handed me two keys on a paper tag.

"Is that the one that sticks?" the woman asked.

"The back door sticks," I said. "Lift the handle while you turn."

"You painted all of this yourself?"

"Every wall."

"It's lovely." She looked at her husband. "Why would anyone leave?"

I thought about the lamp Lydia had taken and the note in the recycling.

"It's a good house," I said. "It just wasn't mine anymore."

I set the two keys on the counter.

They looked small there.

The dog sniffed my boots and sat on my foot.

"He likes you," the husband said.

"Everyone's dog does."

I walked out through the front door and didn't look back at the hallway mirror.

The house I had bought in December was a narrow yellow place with a sagging porch.

It stood four blocks from the river and a mile from the shop.

It had a kitchen that needed new cabinets and a bedroom with a slanted ceiling.

The back room had north light, and I could finally set up a bench there.

I had walked through it three times before I signed, and the condo money would pay off most of it.

Teddy was waiting on the porch when I drove up, with a case of beer and his faded Blazers cap on backward.

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