Listen to a podcast of Jessica Vozel’s “Point of Detachment.”
At a Christmas tree farm, on a bed of pine needles, I find my father’s index finger. Though it’s been six years since he left us, I recognize the calloused pad, the popped out knuckle from his high school football injury. I remember how his fingertips felt when he tickled my ears, the hairy sound in my ear canal. Under the nail, I see the semicircle of red rawness where he’d chew while watching the Raiders.
My mom is working, so I came here alone. There was a sale on trees she didn’t want us to miss. “Get us a good one, Sarah,” she said, handing me a couple twenties and the keys to the pick-up. It was probably good she couldn’t come, because she would have lost it when she saw the handless finger, even though the gory part, the point of detachment, is clotted by pine needles and loose soil and doesn’t look so bad. Still, she’d never be able to look at it long enough to recognize it as Dad’s.
The finger seems freshly severed, only slightly blue. It’s fleshy and pliant, the fingernail a varnished plate with a hangnail dangling from it. It is fitting that I found his finger here, among the evergreens. I wrap it in a tissue and head through the maze of trees for the big red barn. Inside the barn, they sell non-tree things: blinking lights, ornaments, wreathes, bloated blow-up Santas, life-size nativity scenes. The checkout line winds long, to the back of the barn. I take my place at the end. I could probably skip to the front, waving the finger like a VIP pass, but I want to spend some time with it in case they need or want to take it from me.
I rub the twisted knuckle through the tissue. My father was not a bad father. My parents were my age when they had me, just teenagers. Both his livelihood and his hobbies came from trees. He worked at the paper mill and carved wood on weekends. Every Christmas he’d make me something—bookshelves, a music box, a case with a lock for my diary. Each gift was lathed and varnished smooth, and wrapped in newsprint under the tree. Then, when I was eleven, he left.
I unwrap the tissue a bit to take another peek. I guess an axe or a chain saw came down on it while he was chopping a tree. I wonder how bad it hurt, slicing a finger off like that. I picture my dad with a stoic but pained look on his face, holding the bloody stump in his fist. I wonder if he was chopping down a tree for his second family, to put in their living room in front of the picture window. I don’t know if my dad has a second family. All I know is that he told my mom he was leaving to look for work, better work, and never came back. Maybe he works at the Christmas tree farm, chopping down trees and strapping them to the roofs of cars, too ashamed to return home with a job that is even worse than the paper mill. Or maybe he was nearly back to us, a half-hour away at the tree farm picking out a tree that he’d bring like an apologetic bouquet, but lost his way when he lost the finger that pointed him home.
“Hi,” I say to the cashier when I reach him. He is an older man in a plaid shirt, a white beard. I lower my voice. “I was wondering if you could tell me where the man is who belongs to this finger?”
He looks at me. “What’s this now?”
I unwrap the finger and show it to him.
He blinks and steps back, licks his white moustache. Then a look of recognition, relief.
“Miss,” he says. “That’s a prop. From Halloween.
“Halloween.”
“Yes. The Clyde Family Christmas Tree Farm is also The Clyde Family Haunted Farm from September 25th through November 1st. We do haunted hayrides and haunted mazes through the trees, stuff like that. That’s just a prop, left behind.”
“It’s not, though. Look at it.” I thrust it closer to his face, point to the very realistic hangnail. He won’t look at it.
“I’m fairly certain this finger belongs to my father,” I say. “And I want to know where he is.”
“I’m sorry. But that finger does not belong to your father.”
“Does he work here?”
“Miss,” the man says, sighing. “You’re going to have to step out of line, now.”
“Please,” I say. “It’s Christmas. Can’t you help me out?”
He shakes his head. “It’s a Halloween prop, miss. Next in line, please.”
“Please.”
“Next.”
The woman behind me steps up and starts unloading her cart, ignoring me and my finger.
“Fine,” I say, rewrapping the finger and putting it in my pocket.
I drive to Wal-Mart and buy a plastic Christmas tree for $39.99. Back home, I put my Dad’s finger in the jewelry box he made for me the Christmas I was eight. Eventually I’ll show it to my mom, before it rots away to the bone and he is gone all over again.
About the author:
Jessica Vozel is an MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University, where she teaches writing and serves as an assistant editor at Mid-American Review. Her work as a syndicated opinion columnist has appeared in various newspapers and online, but this is her first fiction publication.
“Or maybe he was nearly back to us, a half-hour away at the tree farm picking out a tree that he’d bring like an apologetic bouquet, but lost his way when he lost the finger that pointed him home.”
Perfect.