The 7 Keys to my Life

LOVE

Jenna wakes up, dirty as the attic floor. Brushing herself off she glares at the clock in her bedroom. "2:00 a.m!?" She says with a startled look. "It's 2:00 in the morning!" She repeats. She must have slept when she came back from the attic yesterday until now. She decided that she wanted to look for another key. The box that her parents had meant to give to her had all the books that needed to be read. All she needed to do was find the keys that opened the lock in each one of the books. Each book was a lesson that "had to be taught from parent to child" as her father describes it. She already had the FAMILY one. She decided to look for the next one....... LOVE. She decides to think about it later in the evening, but was way too curious to wait. She looks around the house, around her room, in her closet, in the garden, outside, in the kitchen.....Jenna had looked everywhere. She decided to think of a smart but easy strategy. She wrote down ideas until a good one came. She was going to wait and let the keys come to her. She is going to relax and do what she needs to, and the keys might show up. She waits and waits all day. Until she is given a chore to do by Ms.Sarah. She is sent directly to the garden. She must once again, for the 2nd time this week, water the flowers and roses. Jenna doesn't mind so she gallops gracefully to the fenced garden. Opening the door she has a sudden flashback of the man she had killed. She stutters backwards only to be caught by the fence door. She blinks away a few tears and carries on. Jenna waters each of the 237 flowers and roses in the garden. There is a delicate white bench that is in the center of the garden, so she decides to rest on it for a while since she is done her work. She closes her eyes only to be awakened by the whistling sound of a wind chime. She looks around and it is no where to be seen. She sits up straight and her right leg touches a cold metal, not just one, but 4. She looks underneath the bench to find a wind chime with a key attached to it with string. And not to her surprise, the letters L-O-V-E are carved in the rusty old key. She examines it carefully and logically. Her brain, flushed like an ocean with thoughts. Some thoughts sink to the bottom, others float. Her father must have put these keys here when he was close to his death. Jenna can feel the sorrow fill her heart and crush it into pieces. Her eyes were now full of tears, ones she would only shed for her father and mother. She was fighting the tears from falling down her rosy peach checks and onto her delicate plump red lips. Jenna always remembered the one thing her father had said "Don't cry because a person is gone, some people are a blessing while others are a lesson" she knew that she had to be a strong person, just like her father. Now, on the other hand, her mother.... Nothing much of her mother. Jenna had not seen her mother very often on a regular day to day basis. Only after school, when she came to pick Jenna up. Only then, could she finally embrace her mother, see her caring and beautiful mother.