On her last night, Ammalie placed her packed bags in a tidy bundle at the door. Everything was in perfect order. So many nights she had done this, ready to flee. So many nights, she had stood above them, considering various escape scenarios. But tonight there was nothing sneaky about her routine.
Mari and Powell were staying a little longer, charmed by both New Zealand and the possibility of missing some Chicago winter. Ammalie was flying back to New York with Apricot for a new round of doctor appointments and treatments. Then, whenever it made sense, she’d go back to Chicago, then to Cave Valley. What happened next would be convoluted and complicated and heartbreaking and glorious, to be sure—that’s how life was.
Right before heading to bed, she stood in front of the mirror and brushed her hair with the brush she’d stolen from the Colorado cabin. She thought of Fluffiest Red and Dude-the-Stove and the Holy Trinity first aid kits. She thought of the fork in her hair in Nebraska. She thought of all the pears she had eaten on the road, and how her life had gone pear-shaped in the most wonderful ways.
What, she wondered, would be the fourth key? And the fifth and sixth? Who knew? But she could easily imagine herself holding a jumble of different keys in her palm, considering their potential.
EPILOGUE
She sat at Cave Valley Cabins in the warm sun watching an absurdly tiny house wren belting out a melody which seemed aggressively directed at a blue jay, as if the wren were defending her home via song. Though so little, wrens were fierce—almost too fierce, on the crazy side of the bell curve of crazy bird behavior—which is why she loved them the most.
Because Levi was still sleeping, Ammalie had time to let her mind wander to their first kiss. He’d met her at O’Hare after she’d flown in from New York, and as she walked out of the airport, he’d walked quickly up to her, eyes fixed on hers, and flashed a gorgeous smile when he saw her smile, which he took as an invitation to pick her up and swing her around, plonk her back down, and kiss her on the lips. They somehow walked themselves backward so as to find privacy against a wall and communicated solely by kissing, without speaking. They did not need to; so much of communication between humans did not depend upon words. She smiled into her coffee, remembering all the kisses since, and Kit’s and Dan’s and Richard’s and Aroha’s kisses before, how different they all were, and how each had felt right.
A person should listen to her daydreams, she reminded herself. Hers had occupied her night after night for a reason. She had wanted to connect—and he had wanted to connect with her. As simple and as glorious as that.
Levi had retired from work early—ready anyway, he’d said—and moved without hesitation to join her in Arizona. He would help when asked, but would otherwise stay out of her affairs, knowing this adventure was hers. They would find a way to be in partnership—companionship was one of the great joys of life—but he was aware of her insistence on autonomy in her life.
Powell had already come for a long visit which was, hands down, the best month of parenting in her life, mainly because it involved less parenting and more friendship. He then flew back to New Zealand to spend a year working, and, she presumed, kissing Apolena. And Apricot, pending her doctor’s okay, was going to come in November, her least favorite month to be in New York, and perhaps, she admitted bravely, her final November. Aroha and Nan were coming in December, a one-year anniversary of their meeting Ammalie. Lady was happily living with Rex in Mexico, and both were doing well, and Rita was off exploring Alaska. Mari and Maximo had come for two weeks as part of their redo-honeymoon, from which they relaunched their marriage, with more honesty and oomph. The Grey Goose had been recovered and donated to NPR, and Ammalie couldn’t find any stories about anyone arrested for obstructing the oil and gas development near Chalk Canyon or anywhere else. She’d received a postcard from Wisconsin with an All well, work continues, the Grey Goose flew me home, love to you, lady, and Dan had written a long letter detailing Lulu’s adventures, the family reunited now, and ending with Sending you a hug and a wink, you badass adventuring woman. Even Richard had been in touch, sending a short but friendly-enough email, telling her that Nan had put all her land into a permanent conservation trust, thereby ending all developers’ plans and pink ribbons.
And Levi. He was stirring now, and soon he’d come out and sit on the bench next to her and they’d lean into each other in the sunlight. They’d have coffee and watch the coatimundis eat the birdseed. The Sea Creature swam happily around her chest, the sun warmed her face, and the house wren sat on a branch belting out a song in the direction of his home, which was a birdhouse built to look like a travel trailer. She’d painted it to look like Dart, and from its small hole, three fledgling wrens were about to launch. The parent wren seemed to be encouraging them to leave by offering an exuberant melody of joy, which sounded to Ammalie like a chant: Adventure forth and onward, friends! We got this. Let’s do it together.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Karye Cattrell, Laura Resau, Todd Mitchell, Claire Boyles, Alyson Hagy, and Beth McMurray for being fabulous readers. Thank you to Michael Heiner, Mary Lea Dodd, Aaron Abeyta, Nancy King, Claire Inwood, Linda Pretty, Jim Davidson, and Marina Richie for offering advice on birds, storms, locations, stars, and life. Thanks to Alex Hunt for making me a beautiful lap desk of maple, cherry, and walnut, so I could write this book from the comfort of my couch.
Huge gratitude for the Aldo and Estella Leopold Writing Residency in New Mexico, the Earthskin Trust Residency in New Zealand, the Ucross Residency in Wyoming, and Lara Richardson of Colorado for providing me with remote places to work and inspiration of places for Ammalie to break into. Luckily for me, I was invited.
Thank you to Susanna Porter for being an editor extraordinaire and to Peter Steinberg for being an agent extraordinaire. To have someone believe in your book—and provide a key and a home for it—is a true gift. Likewise, thank you to all former teachers—there are too many to name—who believed in my writing ever since I was a kid who went around insisting that I’d write books someday. Thanks to all readers and book lovers everywhere, of course, because without you, there are no book adventures to be had.
One of the great honors of my life has been the opportunity to develop and direct the MFA with a concentration in nature writing at Western Colorado University—one of the few graduate writing programs in the country dedicated to place-based writing. So I’d like to thank my students and colleagues for this particular vital door. Several of the characters are named after students in the first cohort in gratitude for helping me get it all going. Onward, Shackletons!
In Chapter 17, I quote Natural Rearing of Children by Juliette de Bairacli Levy, a wonderful book I came across while at my writing residency in New Zealand.
Thank you to Eliana and Jake and Michael for being my hooligan adventure partners—and for understanding the quiet time it takes to write a novel. You are my Three Keys.
THREE KEYS
LAURA PRITCHETT
A BOOK CLUB GUIDE
A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR
Dear Reader,
At a remote writing residency in New Mexico, I sipped coffee, considered the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and thought about the likelihood of being able to break into certain places without being noticed. This was all a hypothetical daydreamy delight, mind you—I had no plans to really break into homes. But by the end of the sunrise, my character Ammalie did!
Like me, she’s going through the transformation into middle age—and confronting the accompanying invisibility situation. Our culture does a fine job of erasing older women—an impulse that must be met with resistance, of course. How satisfying, then, to be playing around with the anonymity a person might want, and the kind she gets, whether she wants it or not.
Soon after the pandemic hit, I became increasingly interested in the ways we adapted to isolation, in our newfound awareness of the fragility of what we’d taken for granted, and how the outdoors served as a safe haven.
All these themes—remoteness, invisibility, middle age, self-sufficiency, adventuring, the glory of nature, and the responsibility of caretaking of our planet—came together in Three Keys. Ammalie takes “an Awfully Big Adventure,” as Peter Pan puts it, traveling across the United States and breaking into homes in Colorado, Arizona, and New Zealand. She discovers that by breaking into other people’s lives, she can find her own.
I hope you enjoy her trip—both literal and metaphorical—as much as I did writing it. And may we all find our own ways of adventuring forth with humor and mindfulness and grace.
For the wild,
Laura
THEMES AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
The Feminine Heroic Journey
Women have gotten short shrift in adventure tales. Cultural narratives celebrate the solo male adventurer, but we all know that women have also explored the farthest reaches of our planet and space—all while dealing with body stuff that would send many men to their knees!
What are some of the “hero’s journey” narratives that come to mind? These tales are often individualistic, external, and violent. (Think Odysseus and Luke Skywalker.)
More important, what feminine heroic journeys do you know of? These tales involve journeying inward—while often exploring community, outreach, the lifting of others. Are inward journeys less prevalent? Or just written and talked about less?
What barriers prevent women from taking solo adventures? How can that be changed for the better?
Living in Deeper Relationship with the Natural World
Ammalie is falling in love—with the planet, that is. And when we love something, we yearn to protect it.
In what ways do you presently engage with nature? What brings you delight? Birds? Clouds? Stars? The sea?
Has your relationship with nature changed over time? If so, what triggered that change?
How would you answer Richard’s guiding question: “What kind of ancestor do I want to be?”
Survival Course, Anyone?
Who doesn’t like a good survival story? Especially now! Enrollment in survival courses has increased dramatically since Covid—including urban survival, naturalist schools, and outdoor survival camps—and this novel attempts to capture the common human impulse to feel safe in a time of uncertainty.
Do you try to be prepared for the unexpected? Is this something that you think about regularly, or not at all?
Have you ever been caught in a storm that scared you? How did it affect you, at the time and afterward?
On Being Invisible
Let’s face it: TV, magazines, books, and society largely erase the middle-age woman—ugh!
If you have experienced this, how so?
Have your roles changed over time? If so, how did that feel?
