Jace squinted her eyes and looked up at her new home as a bead of sweat trickled down her neck. A new record of 130 degrees fahrenheit melted San Jose, California. The metal fence surrounding the property had rusted, and the front door creaked an eerie welcome as Jace entered. Inside, spiders made homes in the corner of the windowsill, and a waft of moth balls made Jace gag. Her dad followed behind, dropping her two suitcases with a sigh. “Go on up, and find a room to settle in,” he gasped out of breath. Dad hadn’t been the same after Grandpa died. He thought moving back into his childhood house would encourage him, but Jace doubted it. How could anyone enjoy living in this rotting nest? 

Carefully creeping up the stairs, Jace spotted a bedroom she could see herself settling in. A wooden bed frame held up a mattress with unidentifiable yellow stains. Jace pulled the mattress out of its frame and pushed it out of the room, unable to look at it any longer. Panting, she entered again imagining where her full-body mirror and make-up desk would go. As sunlight washed in through the window, a piece of metal glimmered, reflecting the light. Peering inside the bed frame laid a key. Jace cautiously picked it up, questioning what it could possibly open. Not letting her eyes drift away from it, she raced down the stairs and out the door where her dad was still unloading their luggage. “Dad! Look what I found!” she exclaimed. Her dad’s frown and regretful face quickly changed into a smile.

“I thought that key was lost, where’d you find it?”

“Under the bed. Do you know where it goes?”

“Follow me.”

Jace followed her dad into the house and living room where an old wooden piano stood. On the side of the piano was a small hole, just the size and shape of the key. Jace inserted it, her curiosity killing her. Her dad beamed as he opened the piano lid displaying a flood of old photographs – Black and white photos of her father running around the house with his brother, the boys attempting to cook in the kitchen with smoke spewing out of the oven, and the brothers peering into a loosened floorboard where Pokémon cards and dog sitting money were stashed, and her grandpa sitting on the piano bench singing and laughing. Seeing all the memories, all the life that once lived in the house made Jace wonder if she could bring it back. Maybe this wasn’t a rotting nest after all but a home where memories were made and yet to come.