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1-Page Summary of Lock And Key

Overall Summary

Lock and Key is a novel about seventeen-year-old Ruby Cooper, her mother who’s an alcoholic, and her sister Cora. Cora left for college early in Ruby’s life because she couldn’t deal with the emotional unavailability of their mother. The book tells how they cope with this difficulty.

Ruby is forced to live with her father’s girlfriend, Cora. She doesn’t like this arrangement and finds it difficult to trust anyone. Ruby wears a key around her neck that she had from when she lived in the foster home before. She tries to run away from school because she has to transfer, but Nate stops her and covers for her. As the story progresses, they start growing closer together as friends.

Ruby begins to accept and settle into her new life. She finds out that Cora wasn’t ignoring her over the years, as she had assumed. Cora had been attempting to save Ruby from the life she was living with their mother, but Cora’s efforts were always blocked. This realization is too much for Ruby to deal with. She skips school and turns to drugs and alcohol later in the day. Later, she finds herself in a car with Nate who has picked her up after he noticed that something was wrong when they were at school together earlier that day. Jamie is extremely angry at Ruby when she arrives home because of this behavior which he doesn’t think is appropriate for someone his age (16). He tells her that she’s being ungrateful to both him and Cora by acting like this since they have provided everything for her while growing up without having any support from anyone else other than themselves (her grandmother died several years ago). When Ruby thinks about this situation more carefully, however, there are similarities between what happened when she was younger (when it seemed like no one cared) and how it feels now: people care about you but there’s nothing you can do about it; either way you’re stuck where you are right now! So instead of focusing on negative things, why not try changing your behavior?

A client of Nate’s, Harriet, offers Ruby a job at her jewelry store. The necklace Ruby wears inspires another line of pendants in the shape of keys that become big sellers for both women. However, Harriet is unsure about entering into a relationship with Reggie because she wants to be independent and doesn’t want to rely on anyone else.

Ruby begins to suspect that Nate’s father is abusive toward him. She eventually learns that he is, and this leads her to create distance in their relationship.

After Ruby’s mother is found unconscious, Ruby finds out that her boyfriend has run away. She looks for him and finally locates him in an apartment he had shown her once before. He resolves to leave his father and go live with his mother. In a symbolic gesture, she takes the key from her old house off of its chain and puts it on the necklace she gives to Nate as they drive to the airport together.

As the school year comes to an end, Ruby presents a report in English class. In it, she shows pictures of two families. One is Jamie’s family; they are large and close-knit. The other picture is from Ruby’s eighteenth birthday party. Cora finds out that she’s pregnant with her second child and decides to have the baby adopted by another couple. Ruby learns that she has been accepted to the same college as Nate (her boyfriend). She also writes a letter to her mother but can’t figure out what to say so instead mails her mother a copy of her acceptance letter for college along with some money for expenses during freshman orientation week. The novel ends with Ruby standing outside while calling for Cora and Jamie who are ready to leave for graduation ceremonies at their high school nearby. As they call back, asking if she’ll join them, she drops the key into the koi pond behind their old house where it sinks beneath the water surface without making a sound or leaving ripples on its surface which reflects sunlight like tiny prisms reflecting rainbows across its smooth surface as though nothing had ever happened there before…