In the palm of my hand, I hold the key. It’s a key that I’ve never used. I found it in a drawer when I was packing to move last, and remembered that I’d had the key for years. It was given to me by an old friend. Before we lost touch, she told me quite earnestly that I’d be using the key at some point in my life. It was like a promise.

She gave me the key with a cactus plant that died years ago. She’d put the key in the dirt, with a note attached to it. She explained that I needed the key, and that I’d use the key someday. But she never told me why, and I still don’t know what the key is really for. I thought it was metaphorical – you know, the key to her heart or something, that would be like her. But in the way she talked about it, it seemed perhaps to be more than that.

Before she got married, I would go to her house often. I remember the blue door to her house – it was a strange blue, kind of muddy, a bit almost toward brown. She was so proud of the color, though, she told me it had taken her days and days to blend the right colors, blended in a wave of pigment, and she got splotches all over her dainty dress. Yes. She wore a dress while painting. I remember one day many years later, while riding the train, looking past the conductor to see a woman who was wearing that same dress. I almost thought it was her, but no, it was someone else.

I looked down at the key again, wondering what it could possibly be for.

We were the kind of friends that tell each other secrets. The kind of friends that can complete each other’s sentences. The kind of friend … well, there was a time when we had been much more than friends. It was a strange thing, losing touch with her – I assumed we’d be friends forever.

I worried about her on occasion. She’d gotten married one of those controlling types, who never lets their wives see anyone else. The last time we’d talked, she’d mentioned how suspicious her husband was, and how he wasn’t allowing her to see me anymore. I got angry. I asked why. She suspected it was because he was jealous.

“Jealous, huh? Did you tell him?” If so, I thought that had been foolish on her part.

“No, I never told him, I just think he’s the jealous type.”

I sighed, pretty loudly. She apologized, and said one last enigmatic thing, which I was now remembering.

“Sometime, we’ll be together at my parent’s house, I promise you.”

I never followed up that statement with any questions – it was said in a tone that suggested she’d not answer them even if I asked. I looked back at the key - the key was to her parent’s house? That didn’t make any sense – her parents were both dead, I’d been to both funerals. Their house was long sold – I’d driven by it a few years ago – it had been demolished, and replaced with an apartment complex.

I went to my closet, and got down one of my dusty photograph albums, the one from the ‘80s, the one with her in it. I hadn’t looked at it in years. I kept promising myself I’d scan in the photos, but hadn’t gotten to it yet.

I opened up the photos, looking for … I wasn’t sure. As I flipped the pages, with pictures of her and me on various adventures, outings with her varied boyfriends … it was always her various boyfriends, I came across a set of pictures of the two of us playing near a pond, and then the lightbulb went off.

The camp! The camp in Maine! The key was to the camp in Maine!

Why would she give me this key so mysteriously? And she must use the camp with what’s his face… but maybe she didn’t – maybe it was still a secret from him.

And how on earth was I going to remember how to get up there? I took out my laptop, opened it up, and brought up Google maps. I zoomed in on Maine, a state I’d only visited with her, but we’d spent so much time there, it seemed familiar. I recalled that the camp was about 3 hours north of Portland, in the deep, deep woods.

A few weeks later, I stood before the door, painted that same almost muddy blue, remembering all that it had taken to get me to this point, the searches on Google, looking over Google maps and satellite pictures, the flight back to the East Coast, and poring over old documents in the Somerset county courthouse. I surprised myself with my desire to find the answer to this mystery. Maybe it felt like I was solving the mystery of her … of her role in my life.

I’d flown to Portland, rented a car, and driven the hour and a half to the Somerset County seat, Skowhegan. I’d rented a room at a tiny motel. It was not quite like one of those towns where if you blink, you’ll miss it, but it was pretty small, a smaller town than I’d been to in a while. I’d arrived on a Sunday, so I had some time to kill before Monday morning, when I could get into the county courthouse to look over deeds. I spent the late afternoon and evening wandering the streets of Skowhegan, turning a few heads, since they’d not likely seen someone like me in a while. I had a simple, nondescript meal at a local family restaurant, where the salad was iceberg lettuce only, and the dressing choices were ranch, blue cheese, and Russian, probably right out of the bottles.

The next day, after going through deeds, I finally found the deed to the camp. The most surprising thing was that the camp had been transferred into my friend’s name (her maiden name, not her married name) and my name, as joint tenants. She’d done that five years earlier, about the same time as we’d lost touch, and well after she was married. I couldn’t imagine how she’d managed to do that without me knowing about it. It was strange. Stranger still was the idea that I owned ½ of the camp in Maine. I didn’t quite know what to do with that information.

Taking the detailed information about the location of the camp with me, so I could find it, I took my bags out of the motel, checked out, and drove the 2 hours up to the camp. Driving up the rutted, rough driveway, which was really more like a dirt road, it was about 3 miles long, everything was so familiar, and the big pond, really a lake, looked just like it had 25 years ago when I was here last. It was almost as if I’d traveled back in time.

It looked like the camp had been tended – the grass was tall, but not overgrown, the weeds mostly in control, the furniture outside in good shape. But there didn’t look like there was anyone home. No cars around, no sounds of people.

I stood before the door, a little while, hesitating. I finally put the key in the lock, and turned, and pushed the door open. Inside the cabin was very different than I’d remembered – there was furniture that looked to be from Ikea, all sharp angles and crisp lines, metal, plastic and blond wood.  This was far different than the legacy furniture I remembered – the tattered plaid easy chair, the formica kitchen table, the old darkly-stained pine bookshelves with curly-cue edges.

There was an envelope, sitting right in the middle of the dining room table, a blond wood affair, with a large, thin plank of veneer jutting out over a smaller set of four legs underneath. I missed the old big dining room table with pedestal legs. I walked over to the table, and picked up the envelope, not at all surprised, after my adventure, that it was addressed to me. I looked back to the table, and noticed the square of dust-free space where the envelope had been – clearly it had been sitting there a while. I examined it a bit. It was square, clearly a card, enveloped yellowed some with age. My friend’s careful script, the letter ‘G’ standing off in capital, the rest flowing together smoothly, like chocolate, with a neat curled line underneath my name.

I turned it over, broke the seal on the envelope, and pulled out the card. It was one of the cards I’d given her many years before. She’d had a bit of an obsession with unicorns in college, and I’d sent her a box of cards with different kinds of unicorns on them. I was pretty amazed she’d still had any of these – it was almost like she’d saved the last one just for this occasion. My heard skipped a beat. I opened it, and I could see inside just four words: “Promise kept. Call me.”

I looked around, and found the closest chair, and sat down, card in my left hand, envelope tucked behind it. I was battling a number of emotions: sadness that had followed me over the years since I’d lost her, first as a lover, then as a friend, anger again at her husband denying us time together – and anger at her for letting him. And, ultimately deep confusion. She’d given me that key over 10 years ago. She was engaged to Harold at the time, they were still in that period of being deeply in love, but also not knowing a lot about each other. I was sure she had no idea he’d turn out to be so controlling.

I’d just moved to a new apartment, closer to the center of the city than I’d ever lived. She was coming over to visit, to help me unpack, and the cactus had been a housewarming present. The cactus and … the key.  Ten years. That’s a long time – how would she know that I wouldn’t throw the key away? How would she know I’d know how to figure out what it was for? How long had that letter sat there. I was mystified, entranced, confused … I had to know.

I remembered there was a phone in the kitchen – I looked over toward the kitchen, which was basically just one wall of the one large front room of the cabin, that held kitchen, dining room and living room. I could see a phone on the counter. I picked it up, and wondered which number to call. As I looked at the phone, I saw a small sticker toward the top that said “Speed Dial 4.” That was all it said. I figured I’d take the hint, and pressed the 4 key, and heard the series of beeps on the other end. The phone rang, and rang, and then I heard one of those canned messages, “the party you have called is not available. Please leave a message.”

“Uh, hi, it’s me. I’m here. You told me to call, I’m calling.” I was at a loss for words. Somehow, for some strange reason, I expected her to pick up, but she didn’t.

I put the phone down, and heard my stomach grumble, and realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was close to 3pm. I’d brought a few snacks with me, but I decided to look around in the kitchen and see if there was anything interesting to eat.

Sadly, the cupboards were bare, and the refrigerator wasn’t even running. It was one of those propane refrigerators. I hoped that it worked better than the one that used to be here – that one froze all of the food, no matter what. I knew the cabin had no electricity, so I realized I’d have to work to find all of the candles and other assorted light sources before it got dark.

It was then I wondered, well, how long should I stay? She lives in Arizona. Even if she left this instant, it would take her a day to get up here from there. And … would she come? Why? What was I thinking? It was in this moment that I realized how hairbrained my idea of coming up here had been … even though it had turned out that everything had been laid out for me.

I figured my snacks would get me through the night, so I thought I’d stay, then decide what I wanted to do in the morning – go shopping so I could stay here for a while, or just go home. I certainly didn’t know at this moment.

I walked around the cabin, munching on the gourmet salt and vinegar potato chips that I’d gotten at the Portland Food Co-op, and walked into one of the three bedrooms. This one was the one with the queen bed – the one her parents stayed in when we visited up here. The bed was new, as was all of the furniture. I sat experimentally on the bed, bouncing up and down a few times. Yes, it was comfortable. I looked in the closet and found some linens. That was a relief. The empty cupboards in the kitchen had shaken my faith, but the linens in the closet brought it back. I got up from the bed, and walked into the bathroom, which had towels, plenty of toilet paper, and all of the necessary accessories of life.

I kept walking around the cabin, picking up implements of light like the flashlight, the gas lantern, the candles and matches, and assembled them all in the big front room, ready for the dark to come. I locked the front door, just out of some strange sense of need for safety, but I knew I’d hear a car coming a long time before it arrived, and no one was going to be hiking out here.

It was getting a bit chilly – the heat of summer had left Maine, and the evening chill of the early September night was seeping into the cabin. I had noticed that the wood stove had wood stacked neatly next to it, with a pile of newspapers and kindling nearby. I decided it would be nice to start a fire.

I was laying on the couch, covered with a blanket, watching the crackling flames, eating the last of the macadamia nuts, when I was startled out of my reverie by the phone ringing. I got up and ran to the phone.

“Hello?”

“Who is this?” A deep voice spoke. I had my suspicions about who it might be.

“What do you mean? You called me. Who is this?”

“You called first. You called this number a few hours ago. Who are you?”

“Is this Harold?”

“How do you know my name?”

“Because you’re married to Madelyn. This is Genevieve.”

“Ah, that Genevieve – that friend of hers.”

“Yes. Can I speak with her please?”

“She’s not here, she’s … she’s not here.” I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Where is she?”

“She’s … well, you might as well know. She’s sick, real sick.”

I couldn’t quite believe my ears – couldn’t believe the news, and couldn’t believe how devastated Harold sounded. “Sick? How?”

“She got cancer.”

“When?”

“Last year.”

“So where is she?”

“Hospital. She had some sort of complication – I don’t understand what the doctors say.”

“What hospital?”

“St. Josephs.”

I hung up. I was angry. Angry that she’d been sick for a year and I hadn’t known. I called information, since I knew my cell phone didn’t work, and found the number for the airline. I booked the earliest plane to from Portland to Phoenix  I could get. I realized that in order to make it, I needed to leave at around 1:00 am, so I figured I’d just leave at that moment. I slowly poured water on the fire in the stove, trying not to damage the stove, and closed it up. I gathered my varied belongings, and walked out the door, using the key to lock it behind me. I carefully tucked the key in a special pocket in one of my bags, knowing I’d want it at some point.

The drive to the airport was a blur. I arrived at about 3:00am, 2 hours before the rental car place opened. I parked the car on the side of the road, and turned the radio on.

“That President, he’s a crook, just corrupt.” The breathless voice spoke over the radio, a caller into one of those talk radio shows.

“He should be impeached or something, giving all my tax money to those undeserving bastards.” I wasn’t sure which undeserving bastards the caller was referring to – I figured the next sentence would tell me.

“I mean, they don’t work for a living, they just live off the fat of all of us.” I was wrong, I still didn’t know which undeserving bastards the caller was referring to. My undeserving bastards being the rich people, somebody else’s undeserving bastards being poor people.

The show broke to a commercial for Snuggies. I still didn’t know which side the caller had been on. I switched the station – music was safer. Finally, 5:00am rolled around, and the lights in the rental car place lit up. I dropped off the car, went in a daze to the airport, and, uncharacteristically, slept through the entire flight to Phoenix.

This was getting repetitive, this renting of cars, and driving to places I hadn’t been to in a long time. Madelyn and I had lived together in Phoenix quite briefly, a few months. We’d moved out there because she’d gotten a plum academic position at Arizona State University. She thought she could do this – this lesbian thing, but it turned out that she couldn’t. The combination of family pressure, social pressure, and the fact that she did, in the end, really like men, made it a short-lived domestic partnership. She moved out of the apartment we had shared, to a small house. I stayed in that apartment for years, eventually moving out when I moved to the West Coast a few years ago, just after we lost touch.

I checked my phone for the location of the hospital, and navigated my way there. It was one of those brand new looking hospitals, all shiny and trying to look inviting – like you’d want to stay there. I could never figure that out – why not have hospitals look as inhospitable as they really are?

I parked in the visitor lot, and walked through the front door, to find a sweet looking older woman at the front desk, reading People magazine. She looked up at me, and frowned all of a sudden.

“How can I help you?” Her voice belied a barely held contempt, erasing any sweetness that had been there.

“I’m looking for Madelyn Jerrard.” I used her married name, the one I don’t even think I’d ever spoken.

“You’re not family.” I noticed it was a statement, not a question.

I said “I’m her oldest friend.” It probably wasn’t true. I hadn’t known her in 4th grade or anything, but my bet was that I was the oldest friend who’d be visiting.

“Just one moment, please.”

She looked down at her computer, and did some typing, then looked up. “She’s in room 565.  Visiting hours for non-family members are from 3 to 7 pm only.” She emphasized the “non-family” and the “only.” I looked down at my watch. 6:45. 

She pointed. “Elevators are that way.”

“Thank you.”

I scurried to the elevator, and went up to the 5th floor, sharing it with a poor man in a wheelchair who looked like he’d been through a war. His face was full of small scars, his nose was bandaged, and he was in two casts, one on his leg, and one on one arm.  My mind went through several possible scenarios, and then latched on one – car accident. I felt for him.

The elevator stopped at the 5th floor, and I looked about for indications of room numbers, and finally realized that they were on the floor. I thought that was a pretty odd place to put them. I found 565, and walked in, seeing Harold standing by one of the beds.

I walked up to the bed, and looked at Madelyn. She looked like she’d lost most of her weight – she was thin – thinner than a rail – she was skeletal. She was clearly not conscious. I stood looking at her, taking all of it in, the fact that she was sick, that fact that I hadn’t know, the fact that she might be dying, all of it.

“Why did you come?”

I’d almost forgotten he was there. I’d looked up to see his haggard face. He’d aged way more than the 10 years it had been since I’d seen him last at their wedding. His voice was so sad.

“Harold, how could I not come? Why didn’t she contact me when she first got sick?”

“I didn’t let her.”

If the voice that had spoken those four words hadn’t sounded so sad, so defeated, so miserable, I would have strangled him. But I couldn’t even get up the will to be angry.

“She’s going to die. She probably won’t even regain consciousness. That’s what the doctor said.”

I almost let myself go into hyper problem solving mode. What were the causes, how could this be changed, how …

“The cancer went into her brain.”

Her brain. The brain I loved, the brain I admired. I stood closer to her bed, and leaned over to look in her face. At first glance, she seemed to look peaceful,  but the longer I looked at her face, the pain, the stress, all that she had been through became obvious. I took her hand. It was dry and light, so so light.

I saw a motion out of the corner of my eye, and I looked up to see Harold leaving the room. I looked back at Madelyn, and started to talk.

“I figured out the key. I flew all the way from LA to Portland, looked up the camp, and found it. I found that you’d put it in both of our names. What were you thinking?”

I knew then, I’d probably never know the answer.

“You know I’ve always loved you. Even when you left me, even when you married Harold, even when you let him stop you from contacting me. I always, always loved you. And always will.”

I sat in the chair for a while, looking at her, and looking at myself.

“Visitor hours for non-family are over.” I looked up to see a stocky nurse with a severe looking dark haircut, and holding a clipboard. I was kind of surprised to see the clipboard, I didn’t think they used those anymore.

“Did you hear me?” I hadn’t realized she wanted an answer.

“I’m family.”

She looked doubtfully.

“Her husband was here – who are you? You certainly aren’t a blood relative.”

Like she could be sure of that. I could lie, and say I was a cousin, or her step-sister, that’s it, her step-sister. But I couldn’t lie.

I got up. “OK, fine, I’ll come back tomorrow.” I got up, looked back at Madelyn, and walked out of the room, knowing, somehow, I would not be back. Madelyn was on her way out of this life, probably tonight.

“Do you take cream in your coffee?”

“Yes, thanks.” Harold and I were, sitting together at a dining room table that was strewn with casseroles and food of all types. He, like me, came from a family where the response to death was to give those grieving more food than they could possibly eat.

He had been gracious, more gracious than I would ever expect. As I was walking out of the hospital the night I saw Madelyn, the night she died, he’d run up behind me and offered to let me stay at their house, in the guest room, where I stayed for several days, through the funeral. We hadn’t had time to talk yet, there was so much to prepare. He seemed at a complete loss. I’d finally booked a flight back to LA – I wanted to get back to my life, I’d been away from it for what seemed like a long time. I was leaving for the airport in a few minutes.

“I have something for you.” He got up from the table, went somewhere in the house, and came back with a box.

“I found this five years ago. It’s why I stopped letting her see you. I figured you should have it.”

I took the box from his hands, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it. Instead, I opened the suitcase next to me, and put inside carefully, wrapping clothes around it.

“I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forgive you for what you did.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself.” And I heard in his voice a tone which suggested to me that he was telling the truth.

 

Two years had passed since that moment. It was Harold’s death that had prompted me to come back – to come back to the property I actually owned, now. I was standing again, in front of that muddy blue door, crickets singing in the crisp air of an August evening.  Whatever Madelyn had done to arrange the place to be kept up had faded. The weeds were overgrown, the place looked untended.

I had decided to take a leave of absence – a sabbatical of sorts, and the Maine camp seemed to be just the right place to do it. I figured the rest of August and September would give me a chance to get prepared for winter up here, and I’d hibernate in a sense – spend the cold months out of the stream of my life. I felt I needed that.

As I unpacked, I put the box that I’d gotten from Harold on the bedroom dresser. I still hadn’t opened it.