Let's say I had written a story with the recurring symbol or plot line involving keys and locks. A story where the heroine keeps locking herself out of her house, or forgetting her keys. It’s obvious the character's repressed, you'd say, or she needs to find the key to her own happiness, or to unlock some key event in her past that subconsciously has been blocking her from getting on with her life.
Okay, that's fiction, a manipulated world that the writer creates to advance her own purposes, the story she wants to tell. But what about real life?
Three hours into our summer holiday road trip a small worm of a thought burrowed into my mind - does Sam have a key to the house?
“Of course Sam has a key," I told myself.
Sam had said she'd drop by to refill the cat bowls with food and water when we were gone. How could she do that if she didn't have a key? Surely she has a key. She’s our daughter. Why wouldn’t she have a key to our house?
I was obsessing. I knew it.
My father was obsessive-compulsive. He'd recheck the stove to make sure it was turned off, recheck the doorknob to make sure the door was locked, make sure we had rechecked whatever it was we were supposed to recheck.
Bob and I had taken the route less travelled, avoiding the 401 road rage, driving through the rocks and lakes of back country, geography that makes my chest swell with that lovely sense of belonging, this is where I belong. The back seat was littered with knapsacks stuffed with clean underwear and clothes, our laptops and techie gadgets. The kayaks were snugly attached to the roof racks, the trunk was jam-packed with kayak things - lifejackets and paddles and sprayskirts and bungee cords, not for jumping off cliffs and bouncing back up, but tying down the boats. I love the physical act of tying down the boats, choosing the ropes, looping them around the kayaks, winding them around the trailer hitch at the bottom of the car, knotting them, hooking the bungee cords, giving the kayaks a little push to make sure they are tight, a bit of give, but not too much give. It gives me a sense of satisfaction, self-sufficiency, especially when the boats stay where they're supposed to stay, don't fly off the top of the car, bounce down along the road, disappear from sight in the rear-view mirror.
My father wouldn’t have let me tie down the boats, if we had had boats, when I was growing up. And come to think of it, I don’t think I was ever given a key to the house. There was a communal house key, a silver key, long in the body and large. He hid it under the mat for us to find if we needed to get into the house and it was locked.
When we arrive at the hotel in Deep River, the lady at the desk hands me a key. My fingers close around it. The key feels substantial in my hand. They still have keys here, not those swipe cards.
"So this is the same room we had last year?" That room was perfect, ground floor, parking spot right outside door, full kitchen, living room, bedroom, walking distance to the two-street downtown where we could pick up a few groceries, and then the gorgeous Ottawa River - the boat ramp only blocks away.
"Well, no," the lady says. "We've put you at the back this time. The room you requested is being used by an extended stay resident. We couldn't very well ask him to move."
"No?" I think.
I could ask him to move.
"We want a room facing the parking lot so we keep an eye on our boats overnight."
"This is a small quiet town. The boats should be safe..." the lady says.
Within a few hours Bob and I are on the Ottawa River. The water is smooth, and the sky large. The surface reflects the expanse, the deep white clouds, the trees, the rounded lines of the Laurentian mountains. I feel calm. Water does that to me.
The cell phone rings. It's Sam.
"I’m locked out. Your house key is not on my key chain. I gave it to Dad that time you misplaced your key and couldn’t get in - I thought I got it back from him, but I guess I didn't. What now?"
What now? What now? We can't leave the cats unfed in the house for ten days. It’s an eight hour drive to get back to open the door. Maybe Sam could break into the house?
The house is impenetrable. In an obsessive-compulsive daughter-like-father frenzy, I had rechecked the safety bar on the back porch, the latches, the locks, shut the ground floor windows, double-locked the garage doors.
"The cats can drink out of the toilets if their water runs out," Bob says, trying to be positive.
"No they can't," I confess. "I shut the lids - just in case they might fall in, and drown."
There’s a Canada Post in town. I courier the key to Sam and wait. Canada Post promises me it’ll be delivered within two business days, maybe one. I think of all those cats that get caught in moving vans and end up clear across the country, or get stuck in a wall, or find themselves in other precarious situations. They survive days on end without food and water. Our cats can last a few days locked in the house, and they have food and water.
Now the boats. I’m being paranoid, I know, as well as obsessive compulsive. How to lock them up for the night? I retrieve a combination bicycle lock from the car. Fiddle with it, twirling to the correct numbers, finally clicking it open, winding the chain through the car rack and the kayaks, snapping the lock shut. And go to bed.
The next morning I wake early to unlock the boats. A morning paddle would be nice before the sun is too hot. I twirl the lock two turns to the right, once to the left, then to the right. Tug. The lock won’t open. I stand on a little step ladder I carry in the car for loading the boats. I try, and try again, blisters rising against my finger. The lock is stiff, won’t turn.
Bob can’t open the lock either. What to do? What to do? “Maybe 10W40 will loosen the lock,” he says, and we head up to Canadian Tire on the highway. The sun is rising. I’m getting hotter.
We locate the aisle with the 10W40, pay for a can. Bob takes out the little ladder, climbs up on it right there in the parking lot, squirts the lock. People are looking at him. The oil doesn’t work, the lock still refuses to turn.
“I’ll go to the Canadian Tire garage, and ask if they’ll cut off the lock. “ I say. “We’ve wasted enough time already... “
The river is waiting. The sun is climbing.
“What way did you say I should turn the lock?” Bob asks.
“Think high school, opening your locker, two revolutions clockwise, one revolution counterclockwise, then clockwise straight to the last number.”
“You sure?” he says.
He proceeds to do the opposite of what I said - an action that has served him well in the past. The lock moves smoothly, clicks, drops open with ease. He slides the chain off the boats.
Sam phones. “The key’s here. I’m in the house - the cats are fine. Hungry. They’re eating now.”
“That’s it?” I say to Bob. “I was turning the lock the wrong way?”
The cats are fed and freshly watered. The boats are unlocked. And I’m on vacation. I do what I’d do if I were a character in a story I was writing, and this was my story. And what is life anyway, other than that?
I tell Sam I love her. And then Bob and I go kayaking.
But first, I check to make sure I have my keys.