| Short fingers |
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It was at a county fair, in a building full of commercial displays that I spotted the couple. Both tall and lean, they were neatly but not well dressed and apparently in their mid twenties. They appeared to be alone. The wife was sipping from a large paper cup of pop that she held in her right hand. Then I caught my breath. Her thumb was normal but her fingers were all just one joint in length.
A quick glance showed that her left hand was the same. All eight stumps ended smoothly as if they had been amputated through the joint. The pattern seemed too uniform for an accident, toxic shock or amniotic banding. Perhaps it was a syndrome I had only read about and whose name I couldn't remember. Maybe now I was seeing it too. I marveled at how casually she held the large cup in a hand that barely went half way around it. Then a fifteen year old girl, tall, thin and still somewhat awkward came from behind me and went up to them. Obviously they were older than I had thought and she was their daughter. That's when my diagnosis was confirmed. The syndrome is hereditary and the girl's hands were the same as her mother's!
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