I found them in the back of the junk drawer, under a takeout menu Marcy had annotated in the margins. "Extra napkins, no pickles."
Two keys on a cracked plastic ring. They used to open our first apartment, the one above the laundromat where the radiator hissed all winter.
I cut those keys myself, at the hardware store where I still work. It was our first place together. We were twenty-two and had a card table for a dining set.
Now I'm forty-three, and Marcy works the night shift at the hospital. We see each other at 5 AM, one of us jetlagged from the constant swap of schedules.
We moved out of that apartment years ago. The keys don't fit anything we own now. But they're still in the drawer, like a stone in my pocket.
Some doors you only get to unlock once. After that, the key is just a souvenir of a beginning you'll never live again.