April 3, 2018 – The keys on the red plaid ribbon.

One Friday afternoon in October of 2017, after ten days of cleaning out Mom and Dad’s house, my brother, Ken, and I walked through the empty house.  Our footsteps echoed as we meandered through the back bedrooms, and opened each closet door in turn and peered in to confirm we’d gotten everything out and they were clean.  The house was now empty and I left peppermint oil on cotton balls in every cabinet and closet and even tucked behind the curtains on the windowsills in every room to give the house a fresh smell.

Dad had built this house with the help of my two brothers when they were 4 and 8 years of age the year before I was born and I never knew any other house from the day I came home from the hospital until the day I went off to my first apartment. The diamond dust plaster walls were unblemished and the unmarked red oak hardwood floors actually reflected back a shine as I’d lovingly hand washed them on my hands and knees along with the baseboards.

We were selling it “as is” and had signed the MLS listing that morning.  The late afternoon sun was streaming into the kitchen through the sixteen-pane storm door and my brother gave me a one armed hug.  We were both exhausted. It had been much more work than we had anticipated and an emotional roller coaster of a journey to this point.

“I guess this is it,” my brother, Ken said.

“I suppose I should leave the keys for the realtor,” I said as I pulled them out of my pocket.  The red plaid taffeta ribbon was limp and matted from being shoved in my work pants pocket for the last few days.  I was about to hand them to him when my lower lip started to quiver and I hesitated as memories flooded over me.

“You don’t know the history behind these keys, do you?” I asked and tears started to well up.

Ken shrugged his shoulders, not sure.

“Mom and Dad gave me this key on my 16^th birthday, indicating I could start dating,” I said, now crying, “No, I really don’t want to give them up, I’d like to keep them.”

I think he knew what I meant.  There are just the two of us kids left. This had been our childhood home with more memories than we could think of at that moment.

“We’ve got other keys, I’ll give them Mom’s keys, she won’t need them,” he said.

We walked out to his truck and embraced. He left not able to say much.  I could feel what was probably in his heart.  My car was packed ready for my thousand mile drive home, but I lingered a while.  I leisurely strolled Daddy’s gardens, and admired the ancient stonewall that framed the yard from the road.

At last, I walked through the empty house once more and took in each feature of every room, including the rodeo embellished light fixture in the bedroom I had as a kid.  That had been the boys’ room until I arrived, and was never switched over to a girl’s motif. I glanced out the two bedroom windows at the same scenery as when I was a child to fix it forever in my mind. I opened and closed all the perfectly hung doors one more time. Dad would have loved it that they were still perfectly balanced in the house he had built for us. 

At the kitchen door, I swung around and took one last sweeping look of the bay window in the living room and the butcher block in the kitchen.  I pulled the door shut, keyed the dead bolt, and checked the doorknob to verify it was locked, and forever locked in my heart.