Morgan's Fingers

(This story was written in March of 2008.)

“It was an accident,” Morgan said. Morgan, my stubby-fingered neighbor, was standing beside me and we were both standing before a lake our backyards shared. It was a fake lake. Our fathers got together one summer and decided to build a lake. They lined it with brown tarp so the water would stay in and then threw rocks in for decoration. It was big for being so elementary. I was proud of it. I’d say at school, “I have a lake in my backyard. My dad built it,” and Morgan would say, “My dad helped.”

Morgan‘s fingers on her right hand were halved. They were like that from an accident when we were six. Now, at 14, she was self-conscious and kept her hand hidden at school. Some kids were scared of her, thought it was gross. I wasn’t scared of her fingers and so she wasn’t scared of me when I got angry. That was the deal we had; we’d never be scared of each other.

My dirt bike was in in the middle of the lake, completely submerged, and Morgan was wearing my helmet. Her jeans were drenched and she looked terrified.

Morgan had been my friend since I was a baby. I hadn’t stopped hanging out with her at school even though everyone liked me better than they liked her. I would usually just spend my evenings with Morgan because she had no one else to hang out with. Most warm evenings, like now, in the summer, we would take turns riding my dirt bike. I’d told her she could ride it any time and she wouldn’t even have to ask. I had trusted her.

“I have every right to hate you right now,” I said low, and began walking away. She stayed in the same spot. I turned to look at her. She took the helmet off and threw it into the water, then sprinted away, her legs long and gangly, like an ostrich’s. “You dumb bitch!” I yelled after her, and then grew terrified that my mother, who was fixing dinner in the kitchen, may have heard me swear. I continued on to my house and stepped inside to find my mother calm and domestic. She hadn’t heard a word.


Morgan and I didn’t talk for a week after that. My father fished the dirt bike out of the lake and scolded me. I said nothing, still deciding if I should out Morgan or not. Finally, at dinner, my father brought up replacing it.

“Listen son, I know you like your dirt bike, but if you’re going to be irresponsible, I can’t spend the money repairing it, or even getting you a new one.”

I chewed on my pot roast, face still.

My father stared at me longer, disappointed; I could tell.

Then I burst, knocking my glass over and shouting, “That stubby-fingered bitch drove it in there! She probably couldn’t press the brake because her fingers are too short.”

My mother grew stern immediately even though I had shut up, hurried to my seat, jerked me out of it and led me to my room with my arm. I was much bigger than her but she never acknowledged that. She shut me in there and I heard her step away, and then slumped against my door. I had fits. I knew I had fits. Every time I spoke without thinking, especially times I mentioned Morgan’s fingers, I was in big trouble.

I had nightmares about her right hand. I imagined her punching me but not doing any damage. I’d wake up with guilt like the day it had happened.


Two days later, I was watching TV in a quiet anger. I hadn’t talked to anyone in those two days, my mother and father furiously ignoring me. They hated me when I had my outbursts. I’d punch walls, or throw chairs. My violence was no longer directed at anyone, but I still did damage. My father even discussed sending me off once when I was much younger to a psychiatric ward. When I got angry now, they’d simply not talk to me, not feed me. They’d make dinner for two and I’d eat cereal and potato chips until they rewelcomed me, days later.

Morgan knocked. I knew her knock, the noises her hands made. I opened the door, trying to look pouty. She was standing there with her father, who was holding her shoulder.

“I’m sorry for wrecking your dirt bike. My dad says he‘ll pay for it.” She stopped there, and her father nodded, and then she added, “I‘ll have to work for him forever though to make it up,” in a scruffy voice.

“Do you want to hang out,” I asked, my voice monotone. She nodded and her father murmured a goodbye. He was a quiet man who had desired a son out of Morgan’s conception. He appreciated our friendship in spite of everything.

We went into my room where I set up a video game. The window was open and the wind was meandering in. It was early evening and cooling and my carpet was chilled as I sat on it, silently inviting Morgan to sit next to me. We started up a game, and I lost. Morgan loved playing video games with me. I hated playing with her because she beat me and also because if I ever caught sign of her hands, I had to be reminded that they barely reached the buttons they were supposed to and she often had to strain.

“I’m going to the movies tonight,” she said.

“With who?” I hurled, my voice reaching the high octaves of a surprised question.

“Bradley.”

Bradley was short and chubby with caramel-colored hair that was often spotted with dandruff.

“Your parents are letting you go on a date?”

“Maybe it’s not a date.”

“Sounds like it is to me,” I grunted.

“We’ve been hanging out for a couple weeks. I didn’t tell you ‘cause I know you think he’s ugly. But he’s nice to me. Do you want to come back to my house and help me get ready?”

“Why would I want to do that?” I said, getting steadily more angry. Morgan could tell when I was getting angry. She shrugged, not looking at me. I went with her anyway.

I lay on her bed, watching the TV while she stooped in front of a mirror and smeared make-up on her face. I’d never watched her do this before. I chose not to. Watching the images prance across the screen, I realized that the night my dirt bike was wrecked, she hadn‘t been home. I’d walked over earlier and her father said she was with a friend, at the mall. I thought it was her cousin who she hung out with sometimes. I thought about the fact that I could stop Morgan from going. I could tell her Bradley was a loser and she shouldn’t go, and she wouldn’t. I could scream at her and she wouldn’t act in defiance, but compliance. Morgan trusted me.

I looked over just when she was painting the fingernails on her left hand. She finished the second coat, and then screwed the lid back on. Her fingernail polish would last twice as long as the other girls’. She saw me staring at her in the mirror and smiled.

“Why do you look like you’re about to cry?” she asked.

“Don’t go to the movies with Bradley.”

“What? Why?”

“He’s a loser.”

She watched me, and said nothing. This frightened me beyond belief.

“You can’t go, Morgan!”

“Why?” she screamed back, her face suddenly full of terror. We sat in silence and Morgan’s eyes tinged wet and her face still trembled. She took the cap off her fingernail polish and began another layer.

“I’m sorry,” I said, so hushed that she didn’t hear me and so I said it again. I screamed it this time, so loud that I hoped my mother and father would hear next door, so that they would look up from their dinner they were eating without me because I was so terrible, and forgive me. I wanted Morgan’s father to hear and know that the dirt bike and Morgan was an accident she was just paying me back. It had taken her eight years, but she was paying me back. And then of course, I wanted Morgan to hear and to know. It was just a fit of anger. If tonight, if it were a date, if she were to hold Bradley’s hand, like people our age did, her fingers would not be able to curl up against his and even though it was only five fingers, five tiny fingers really, since she was so young, ever since I felt like I‘d amputated her whole self.

I stood up and I walked back to my house while Morgan kept painting and painting.