There’s a detached garage at Flo’s mother’s house in Queens -- the house that Flo grew up in, my father-in-law lived in until his death five years ago, and her mother still lives in. The garage is used for storage and in all of the years that I took things in and out of that garage, the garage door was never locked -- until two weeks ago when I went to check on the air conditioners that were soon to be installed in the house’s windows.

Locked! Probably for the first, and only time in more than thirty or forty years (way before my time in Flo’s family) since the door was installed.

A few days ago, we visited Flo’s mom and, as I drove into the driveway, the locked garage door confronted me again.

I wondered whether the key to the garage door lock had somehow miraculously survived. I imagined the cleaning purges of the drawers in the house. The drawers in the kitchen, her father’s desk, the night table -- all of the places where keys find their final rest.

So, with respectful reserve and skepticism, I searched and took a handful of keys from my father-in-law Jack’s desk drawer and marched to the foreboding and secure garage. Twenty or more keys but no “key”. However, I did get a sense of what the “key” and its grooves, would look like. I also considered the screwdriver and pliers that were “Plan B”.

Back to Jack’s desk where I returned the tested, but useless, keys to the side drawer from where they came. Then I opened the center drawer. The drawer had clearly been gone through many times since Jack’s death; it was virtually empty -- except for two keys. One shined. It was silver - not brass - just like the garage door lock. Seemed to have a “Do not touch” aura. I knew it was the “key”.

As I walked back down the driveway with the “key” in hand, I thought of Jack putting the key in that center drawer so many years ago and, perhaps, thinking that someday, someone who needed it would find it.