a household has two keys, sometimes three. the small brass one fits the back door and the side gate and, with a small persuasion, the cellar. the long one fits only the front. J. has taken the small one because she will come in by the side path, having no wish to be heard, and because the front door, after eleven, swells against its frame and announces a person.
the note is functional and also a contract: don't bolt the door is the part that matters. there is, in every household with shared keys, a politics of bolting — a debate between the early sleepers and the late returners. on this night the bolt was, true to the request, left undrawn. J. came home at midnight by way of the side path and slept until ten.