Faith Is Three Parts Formaldehyde, One Part Ethyl Alcohol

May Hall Faith Is Three Parts Formaldehyde, One Part Ethyl Alcohol Mercy keeps her finger in a jar on the nightstand. In the morning, it twists to feel the lines of sunlight that slip through her blinds. She likes to watch its gentle convulsions and holds her other fingers up to share the warmth. Since she cut off her finger, she has worked in the diocese business office, filing and answering phones. Mostly, she answers questions from parents about the parish schools and fields requests for priestly appearances. While at work, she doesn't think about her finger too much. It is just her left pinkie finger, so it was never very useful anyway; she can still type seventy-five words a minute. In fact, some people don't even notice it is missing. Those who do usually look appalled and ask, almost reverently, how it happened. Then she has to lie, all the while praying for the Lord to forgive her, and tell them that she had her hand slammed in a screen door as a child and they had to amputate. This invariably provokes Oh, what a shame and you such a pretty young woman. Usually, she tries to keep her hand close to her side, hidden inside the loose cuff of her shirt because of the shame this falsehood causes her, but she comforts herself by thinking that the percentage of children carelessly leaving their appendages hanging out of car windows and wedged between hinges has probably dropped considerably since she came to work in the diocese. She used to carry the finger with her in a large shoulder bag, the jar wrapped carefully in a bath towel. For a while, she needed it with her all the time. She would take it out at work when no one else was around and in restaurant bathrooms to assure herself that it was still there, that it hadn't dissolved, that the glass of the jar hadn't cracked, leaving it withered and thirsty. She never shows it to anyone. This is partly because she doesn't want anybody to know about it. Cutting it off had been enough to make the nuns expel her from the convent, even though she was, by their account, the most promising novice they'd seen in years. If the fathers found out she had kept it, she would probably be excommunicated. The other reason she never shows anyone is because she is afraid that sharing it will take away from its potency. Her severed finger is a miracle, a divine link. Every time she unwrapped it in the darkness under her desk or in the chill of a bathroom stall, it would glow love. It is a piece of her that is always praying, a sign of the preservative power of God's grace. It was only a few months that she carried it with her before her anxiety over its safety outweighed her need for it. Now she waits until she is in the privacy of her apartment to indulge herself. During the day it drifts at the edge of her imagination, two and a half inches of waxy faith suspended in a globe of silvery liquid. At night, she removes the bath towel shroud so she can study its pale length until she falls asleep to dream of watery expanses and moons shaped like fingernails. 10 the minnesota review One Thursday in April, a man in his thirties enters the diocese office a few minutes before closing. He crosses to Mercy's desk and stands in front of her, apparently studying her nameplate. His silence makes her nervous, and she tucks her left hand under her thigh before asking how she can help him. He doesn't speak, and she wonders whether she should try to get past him to the outside door or dash into the copy room behind her where her most lethal weapon would be a five gallon bottle of toner. Just as she starts to pray to the Lord for divine intervention or at least a little timely guidance, the man pulls a small silver box from his pocket, parts the edges of his collar...