[10. Something borrowed and never returned]

Jessie fondled the key around her neck. She almost felt bad, now, knowing that its twin was Aunt Helen's. She couldn't let it go, yet, though. She felt like it meant something about every mystery, and she wasn't ready to give that up yet, either.

When she gave it back, she'd decided that she'd leave it on the table by the front door, the home for everything borrowed and never returned. A book loaned by a friend, now who its original owner was lost in the depths of time, a pair of sunglasses found on the front porch after a party and never claimed, a jar of sugar now taking on a symbolic role of something borrowed, not expecing to be returned, sitting there waiting now. It's as if everyone in the house had decided that that table was as far as one had to go to return something, and the rest is just details, and so there the unclaimed objects sit.