The finger

My brother Dave was tough. He could hold a lighted match under his hand until I smelled the burnt flesh. He caught bumblebees and let them sting him. He never winced, not once. I thought he was crazy. Mom said he was just like her brothers—accident prone.

Danger held a strange fascination for him. If he fell out of a tree, he climbed higher the next time. He played with knives and hatchets. He rode his bike over impossible hills.

We did everything together, he and I. He pranced over creeks on slippery, mossy logs; I crawled, protesting. He waited for me, across the creek, at the bottom of the hill, in the rafters of the old cannery. I followed everywhere he went, slowly, cautiously.

The summer I turned ten and Dave nine, we were in Toronto, staying with my “Nana”, Grandma Anderson. Mom and Dad were busy with grown-up stuff; I remember seeing our old Dodge from the window of the Yonge Street bus. License number U9O64; yes, that was ours. It was parked by the curb, a squarish black car among all the bright 50’s models. I didn’t see my parents.

Nana had a big, sunny back yard, surrounded by deep beds of flowers, daisies and hollyhocks and snapdragons. High fences, a tidy shed; not much trouble there to get into. We spent too many quiet hours there, catching bees and wishing we were home again. We had to be good in Nana’s house. 

Grandma Whitelaw took us some days. Her house was more fun, inside and out. She had a messy, crowded basement where I found stacks of moldy-smelling magazines with romantic love stories continued from one to the other. On the main floor, Grandpa had his study. I remember bookshelves and a huge roll-top desk and the crokinole board, always waiting for us on the footstool. Dave was good; his aim was deadly. I always lost to him, but somehow I beat Grandpa most of the time.

We didn’t see much of Grandma. She didn’t talk to children; she fed us and left us to our own devices. We weren’t allowed in her kitchen, except to eat.

We didn’t go upstairs. Grandma rented out the front bedroom, at the top of the stairs. We had to be quiet in the house so as not to disturb the roomer.

It didn’t matter; there was another big back yard here, a better one than Nana’s from our point of view. Apple trees to climb and harvest. A tumble-down shed with long-unused gardening tools. Long grass and dandelions, mud to dig in.

Dave found an old push lawnmower, and we cut a few paths across the grass. It was heavy work. We gave up. Dave flipped the lawnmower upside down and examined the blades. “Watch out, they’re sharp,” I said. He ignored me and spun one of the  wheels. The knives flashed.

“Come here, turn the wheel for me,” he said. He picked a dandelion and watched as the head was lopped off. Another. A blade of grass.

“Faster!” He held a whole handful of grass up to the blades. Tiny green flakes flew up into our faces. “Faster!” I started to use two hands. Dave fed in more dandelions.

“There’s blood on your finger,” Dave said. I stopped spinning the wheel and looked. He was right. My finger tip was dangling at a strange angle, and now the blood was dripping onto my dress. It didn’t hurt, though. 

Dave jumped up and ran into the house, yelling. I followed him, holding up my hand—the nail portion flopped back, held on by a tiny scrap of skin. Dave ran through the kitchen, down the dark hall, up the stairs to where the sun shone unexpectedly from the roomer’s flung-open door. He was screaming, though I don’t remember the words, only Grandma holding him by the shoulders and asking what was wrong. The roomer, an old, old lady with white hair, stood in her doorway. Behind her, a bright afghan slipped off her still-moving rocker.  

Two steps down from the landing, I waited, repeating quietly, “My finger’s off, my finger’s off.” The blood ran down my arm. It still didn’t hurt.

Eventually Dave calmed down enough to point at me, and I was taken care of. A doctor sewed my finger-tip back on. It took 15 stitches, a fact I was inordinately proud of. 

I wore a big bandage and a sling for what seemed like months. Now it did hurt- bad, and all the way to my elbow. I hated to get dressed and undressed; I had to lower my hand to put it through the sleeves and then my finger throbbed for a long time. I didn’t dare complain; Dave wouldn’t.

Back at Nana’s, I was spoiled. I got to sleep in Aunt Connie’s bedroom, with the big cedar right up against the window, so the curtains never had to be pulled. The room had a slightly sweet smell; an odour of well-worn blankets, old wood, wicker and ancient varnish. Aunt Connie had a silver dressing-table set, two brushes, a hand mirror and a funny little tool I didn’t recognize. She didn’t clean the hair out of her brush like I had been taught to, and I made a little rope out of my gleanings and compared it to my hair colour. In the scant light from the window, it looked almost the same.

Eventually the bandages came off and I was demoted to my previous status. I wore the sling for another week until it became a nuisance.

The pain faded, but never completely vanished. For years, on rainy days my whole hand ached. The finger-tip was extremely sensitive; just picking up a book the wrong way sent stabs of fire down the bones. Today, forty-plus years later, it hurts to clip that nail.

Every time I see Dave now, he has a new story to tell of his visits to Emergency wards. He doesn’t seem to mind. I think he could still hold a candle to his hand until it cooked.

Stories of childhood

Susannah Anderson, 2000