So it was, there in the antique window, one sculpted monkey, silver with black streaks of varnish, shining dully alone amongst ruinous garbage: desk lamps, perverse carvings of Indian relics, footstools, and a model airplane from the turn of the century. But for some reason, none of these other items mattered. It was the monkey that held my interest.

I purchased the bust, and was impressed by the heft of the sluggish material, as if it might have gold or lead fillings. At home, I held the piece to a lamp and examined scratch marks in he base. With a penknife someone had carved a date, and a message, “Happy Birthday, Sue.”

I placed the monkey on the desk in front of me, and slumped backward in the chair. The monkeys grin spread freakishly uneven, and a blackness filled each creak and crevasse. I imagined the monkey in the library of a scholar, holding up books on ancient philosophy, and theories of light and sound. Instead, it was a birthday present, probably jammed in a closet and forgotten until the owner moved away somewhere.

I pictured a beautiful woman, blond hair curled out to her shoulders, with a white button down and khaki’s, like Joan. How she held this image in her hands and remembered the man who gave her the gift. How she had produced a placating thank you and quickly placed the carving back into its box, as Joan had done, too many times to remember.