Closure

Sara Davis

What thoughts might have unspooled in his mind the last time he held the key to my front door, what orchestra might have swelled on his inner soundtrack for that moment, I cannot know but I think there ought to have been a highlight reel of our life flashing before his eyes, scene after scene of lock tumblers turning and doors opening into the amber glow of my kitchen, and onto the hushed landing of my old apartment, and into the cramped hallway of the place I lived when we met, and each time there is the crunch of the key in the lock, and his step on the tile and his voice lilting hey-ey like a doorbell, and no matter where I am—starting dinner, finishing work, lying inert with fatigue in a pile of unfolded laundry—I call out to greet him, and that little hello song sounds like completeness, sounds like home. I can picture my house key in his blunt fingers—which would drum when he had music on his mind, that would be warm on my wrist when he paused on his way in to drop a kiss on my shoulder or neck, but I cannot guess when he knew it would be the last time, or with what regret or relief he let go—after all love is a very heavy thing to carry, in so many years of letting him in it was like having a second self almost, what’s mine is yours I used to say—only how unknowable is another’s mind in the end? Because when he held my key for the last time, it was to drop it into a garbage bin, out of sight and into all the unspeakable junk of the city, and he did not say why or what he had done until I asked for it back and it was already gone.