Keychains ✔

XII

The days revealed themselves like cards shuffled from a deck, and a week passed by with everything done and nothing accomplished.

True to my word, at the MacIntyre house I packed everything of relevancy into a few neat boxes for Dad. My Unlocking told me of the few things Dad cherished. Or used to. He might be a different person now, but I matched the words, images or sentiments of the MacIntyre key—and my own—with easily found objects. An old Gameboy. A journal. All the family albums, for those seemed more tangible than my visions. It was like a puzzle game where you couldn't quite feel the shape of the puzzle. Dad never truly valued materialistic or sentimental objects. I couldn't tell the forest from the trees. The imperfect spark of humanity took on too many forms, most of which in the smile of Aunt Allison.

Climbing out of the void, I glared at the MacIntyre key.

Who had sent it? My mind itched to know the answer.

Hugo cleared his throat. "Got everything?"

The trunk of my car—which I barely used—had room for more than one stack of Allison's paintings. A poorly-thought well-wishes gift. They would most likely end up in my parents' basement; the grief they brought to Dad's voice just inquiring about them told me more than I needed to hear. I had arranged to drive to my parents' house to drop them off. That would be the last time I made contact with them.

"I'm all set," I said, lowering the trunk lid.

Hugo promised that with a quick renovation, it would be sold to a family in need. I shouldn't worry about the transfer date; a few weeks after October 19th wouldn't hurt, he said. What else would I do with it?

—

In between work, Meabh, and the MacIntyre house, I skewed the trajectory of my schedule in an attempt to fill the empty gaps. More hours at GreenGlass. More hours spoiling Meabh with cat treats and toys, giving her the attention she usually lacked, and ensuring she always had food in her bowl in case I returned late. More hours binge-watching Murdoch Mysteries, sometimes with Hannah, and more often not watching at all. They were convenient excuses for tentative questions about the future which always circled back to, "I'm not sure."

A typical reply. Somehow he managed to appear in my life in all ways except the one that mattered most. I started to understand why Allison passed the house to me. She needed someone to make the hard choices, even if it wasn't the right one. I wondered if visiting her gravestone without Dad would be impertinent.

Allison rarely surfaced to the forefront of my visions. Was it because of the paintings she had left behind? Did they serve as the "key" to who she was as a person? A few hung on the walls of my apartment, alongside my two untitled additions; the key painting from the Farmer's Market, and the mourning daisy from the library. They reflected me better than the ghost of my aunt.

Death was too vague of a concept for me to grasp. I only knew what it was like to be afraid to die. Every day. I hadn't recognized the crippling doubt that lurked in my mother's and Grandpa's keys. It was a trademark of medicinal illnesses. It dripped down family generations, synonymous with your blood, and thus impossible to control. Others saw a twenty-six year-old woman who had snagged a respective job position. But in a mirror in a doctor's office, or every morning when I took my Levoxyl pill, I was reminded that my hypothyroidism was there. Chipping my life away while I turned a blind eye. Ready to pull the ground from beneath my feet.

This was inaction. Maintaining a healthy diet, exercising, and remaining calm only gave the illusion of control. Some illnesses had no cure. Some addictions, like Oni's, took courageous tries at the rehabilitation center and that much more love from his husband and son. But the worst illnesses were the invisible cracks that were taken as a given of life. Packaged pain. So problems with no solutions were pointless to speak of.