Which, honestly, only made me more curious.
Now, I glance toward the sound again. There’s a low buzzing sound coming from behind the door, followed by a mechanicalclick, and then silence. My hands still on a stack of postcards from 1942. There’s a name scrawled across one in faded ink.
Love always, Annie.
I wonder where it ended up. If it ever even arrived.
When the noise finally stops, and it’s silent again, I catch Dad at the register. He pauses, drawn into something on the counter.
It’s a book. A small one, with a tattered cover and strange, curling font along the spine. He flips through it slowly, eyes narrowed in concentration.
Curious, I abandon the postcards and drift closer. “What’s that?” I ask, peering at the cover.
The Art of Optical Illusions.
He glances up, startled for just a second before smiling and turning the book toward me.
“Something strange,” he says. “But interesting.” He taps the page. “Look.”
He turns the book, so it faces me, showing a page with four portraits of beautiful women drawn in charcoal with soft, symmetrical features.
“They’re pretty,” I say.
He nods. “Now watch this.”
He flips the book upside down.
And suddenly, they’re not pretty at all.
Their features, which seemed flawless a moment ago, now appear distorted. Too wide. Too long. Eyes set too far apart. They just look… wrong.
I blink at them, disoriented. “That’s so weird.”
Mason returns just then, wiping his hands on a cloth. Dad calls him over and turns the book toward him. “Tell me what you see.”
Mason raises an eyebrow, leaning in. “Women.”
“Look again,” Dad says, and flips it upside down.
Mason frowns. “That’s… creepy.”
Dad chuckles softly. “Yeah. But why do you think I’m showing you this?”
We both stare at him, waiting for the answer. When Mason says nothing, I sigh and say, “Because what we think we’re seeing isn’t always the truth?”
Dad nods slowly. “Exactly.”
He closes the book with a soft thud. “We think we’re so sure about what’s real. About what’s beautiful. About what’s true. But it only takes a shift in angle to realize how much we’ve gotten wrong.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t have to. The words do enough.
“Perception lies,” he continues, looking between the both of us. “And sometimes, what looks perfect at first glance… isn’t perfect at all.”
He meets my eyes then, and for a second, I feel like he sees me fully.
“Sometimes,” he says, “the truth is upside down.”
Addie
