Free Invisible Fences by Norman Prentiss Page A

the finger off before he’d even registered what happened. 
    The finger wiggled on the work surface of the jigsaw. It rolled on its side, and the knuckles curled—either from reflex, or from the vibration of the saw’s motor. The finger seemed to beckon him closer to the saw, as if asking the boy to cut himself up some more. 
    His screams were drowned out by the hum of the jigsaw, the buzz of the drill press and the screech of the disc sander.  
    The boy was sorry for what happened; he hadn’t intended for things to turn out this way. So he turned off the machines, cleaned up the garage, scrubbed away every trace. He wrapped the severed finger in a paper towel and brought it into the house. He hid it where nobody could find it. 
    Then he forgot where he’d put it.  
    Do you see the point of the story, Nathan? We all cut parts of ourselves away, but we never lose them. Things stay with us—souvenirs with memories attached. We can’t always choose what to keep, what to throw away.  
     
    • • • 
     
    So ended my father’s only attempt at allegory. At first the boy in the story was clearly intended to represent me, a veiled criticism of my safe, sheltered life, with the finger-chopping as a clumsy Freudian jab at my decision not to have children. Then the story seemed a general meditation on regret, as Pam might regret leaving her parents’ home at 18, or as those parents might cling to bitter-sweet recollections of their other lost child, Jamie. According to the moral my father supplied, it was also the story of a man who, near the end of his days, tried to explain to his son why neither he nor his wife had been able to throw anything away, each object in the house a potential container for a hidden, forgotten, yet precious memory.  
    The story’s logic didn’t hold up under scrutiny, but it had its own grotesque persuasive power. I believed in it, exactly the way I’d believed in all my Dad’s stories as a child.  
    His story complete, my father’s head dropped slightly. He turned to walk inside, but then looked at me as if unsure where to go. “This way, Dad,” I said, and pressed my hand gently against his shoulder to guide him into the house and back to his armchair.  
     
    • • • 
     
    “Pam. It’s Nathan. I need you to come home again.” 
     
    • • • 
     
    I was the airport shuttle for Pam and Aunt Lora. My aunt went to the Stoney Mill Inn, where she’d stayed seven months earlier, and Pam got the fold-out couch at my apartment. Sondra still hadn’t come with her. “We broke up, I think,” my sister informed me.  
    Dad’s viewing drew a bigger crowd than Mom’s had. A few former students showed up; several former and current teaching colleagues; a handful of his regular woodworking customers; the expanded circle of card players. About sixty in all. 
    As the on-site relative, I’d been responsible for most of the planning. Essentially, I followed the decisions he’d made for Mom: I used the same funeral home, the same priest, the same message on the prayer cards. Same style of casket, open during the viewing. 
    Some people I’d never met or barely knew came up to me and said what a good man my father was, told me he was proud of both his children.  
    Equally? Pam and I had fought on the drive over, since I didn’t think she was doing her fair share of the necessary tasks. She refused to take any time off to help me get Dad’s house in order. “I’m not stepping foot in that house again,” Pam said. “I don’t want anything. You can have it.” As if there were some great inheritance to be found. Aunt Lora remained silent most of that drive. She clearly realized the cleaning job was too big, even for her. 
    At some point during the viewing, both of my relatives had vanished from the main room. I knew where to find them: at the side entrance of the funeral parlor, smoking. 
    Without energy for argument, I simply chose the sanctuary of familiar company.