Before I left, I gave a spare key to my neighbor Rachel Holloway. Rachel was a thirty-six-year-old project manager at a tech startup and one of my closest friends since I moved to Aurora. She had my alarm codes, my emergency contacts, and instructions to water my one surviving houseplant if she remembered.
“Text me when you land,” she said when I dropped off the key. “And do not let those finance people push you around.”
“I won’t.”
What I did not mention was that my parents also had a spare key. I had given it to them in 2022 when they visited for the only time since I bought the house. My mother had asked for it “in case of emergencies.”
A burst pipe.
A power outage.
Something that needed immediate attention.
It seemed reasonable.
They were my parents.
At the airport, I texted my mother from the gate.
