Alice tried to remember who had given her the key . . .

Alice tried to remember who had given her the key. She had had it for so long, she could not even remember what it was for. Being recently retired, Alice decided that today would be the day she would try to figure it out and remember.

She sighed as she stared at the key. It had hung on her wall for as long as she could remember. Alice pondered when the key had first been hung on the wall. It must have been when she and her late husband had first moved into this house. They were married in 1967, when Alice was 22 and Steve, her husband, was 27. They lived in a small apartment until their first child was born. That was when they bought this house, a house they could raise a family in.

Alice thought about when they first moved in. Finally, she got to the right memory and smiled. The key was the first thing they hung on their house’s new wall. Steve hammered the nail into the wall as Alice tied the red string through the key’s hole. They put the key on the nail together.

“So we’ll always remember,” Steve told her then kissed her forehead.

What was it that that key was supposed to remind her of? She felt frustration. If Steve were still alive, he would have remembered. He had always had the better memory. It was his heart that was weak and ultimately failed him. If only my love were here, Alice thought.

She stared hard at the key. Remember. Remember. The key must have signified something special to the two of them. But it wasn’t the key to their first apartment together. No, she remembered giving that key back to the landlord though they had wanted to keep it. Why would they want to keep that key?

Then Alice remembered, this was the key to the hotel they had stayed at for their wedding night. Keeping the key meant that they were charged extra for the room, but she had forgotten that it was in her purse. Steve told her that it was better that they kept it and paid the fee than returned it.

“This way, we’ll always have the memory. It’s the key to both our hearts,” He had said. Steve had always been romantic and kind in that way.

Alice walked over to where the key hung on the wall. “Oh, Steve, how I miss you,” she said as she touched the key. The wind blew through the open window. Alice closed her eyes. She thought she heard “I love you” in the wind.