The Glass Eye

You stood there unsteadily at my bedroom door, holding your glass eye in your palsied hand and asked me if I’d ever seen one before. Can’t say that I have, Aunt Mary. You held it like an offering, moonlit and lidless, as if it might see me better than you could that night— or remember what time had stolen. They said you once owned a bordello in Chicago, and had connections with the mob, but I didn’t know if that was true. I did know you roamed the country with strange, obsequious men who trailed behind like footnotes to your stories. And yet you were the one who gave me the best gifts— a microscope, an erector set, science kits with powders and wires— things no one else thought to give, as if you knew I needed wonder more than sugar. You nodded once, slipped it into your pocket as if nothing strange had happened, and vanished down the stairwell— leaving only the faint scent of camphor and questions, and a silence I still haven’t found the bottom of.