- Rebecca Lerner
I want to say yes. But don't.
I cut myself on some unruly metal and when it wouldn't stop bleeding, I called my dad.
"Which finger did you cut yourself on?" he asked, after telling me to clean it out and waiting on the phone as I dutifully applied a band-aid.
"My thumb."
"Oh NO! Not your thumb? Which thumb?" he said in playful affect I haven't heard in years, one that says, I love you but you're being a bit dramatic and everything is going to be fine. One that he would use when I was a little kid to make me laugh after I fell.
"Right thumb."
"Not the RIGHT thumb!!"
We laughed and hung up and I was alone again. I looked at the computer screen, full of black boxes of the zoom call that I was muted for with my camera off, and cried for the cut and the minor inconveniences and how much I love my dad and the things that even I can't take away from myself.