The Other Hand

came out more aggressive than I intended. The policemen stared at their caps on the table. I needed to look at the text message that had just arrived. As I reached out my hand to pick up my phone, I saw the two of them staring at the stump of my missing finger.
    “Oh. This? I lost it on holiday. On a beach, actually.”
    The two policemen looked at each other. They turned back to me. The older one spoke. His voice was suddenly hoarse.
    “We’re very sorry, Mrs. O’Rourke.”
    “Oh, please, don’t be. It’s fine, really. I’m fine now. It’s just a finger.”
    “That’s not what I meant, Mrs. O’Rourke. I’m afraid we’ve been instructed to tell you that—”
    “See, honestly, you get used to doing without the finger. At first you think it’s a big deal and then you learn to use the other hand.”
    I looked up and saw the two of them watching me, gray-faced and serious. Neon crackled. On the wall clock, a fresh minute snapped over the old one.
    “The really funny thing is, I still feel it, you know? My finger, I mean. This missing one. Sometimes it actually itches. And I go to scratch it and there’s nothing there, of course. And in my dreams my finger grows back, and I’m so happy to have it back, even though I’ve learned to do without it. Isn’t that silly? I miss it, do you see? It itches. ”
    The young officer took a deep breath and looked down at his notebook.
    “Your husband was found unconscious at your property shortly after nine this morning, Mrs. O’Rourke. Your neighbor heard cries and placed a 999 call to the effect that a male was apparently in distress. Police attended the address and forced entry to an upstairs room at nine-fifteen A.M. , when Andrew O’Rourke was found unconscious. Our officers did everything they could and an ambulance attended and removed the casualty, but I am very sorry to tell you, Mrs. O’Rourke, that your husband was pronounced dead at the scene at—here we are—nine thirty-three A.M. ”
    The policeman closed his pad.
    “We’re very sorry, madam.”
    I picked up my phone. The new text was indeed from Andrew. SO SORRY , it said.
    He was sorry.
    I switched the phone, and myself, onto silent mode. The silence lasted all week. It rumbled in the taxi home. It howled when I picked up Charlie from nursery. It crackled on the phone call with my parents. It roared in my ears while the undertaker explained the relative merits of oak and pine caskets. It cleared its throat apologetically when the obituaries editor of The Times telephoned to check some last details. Now the silence had followed me into the cold, echoing church.
    How to explain death to a four-year-old superhero? How to announce the precipitous arrival of grief? I hadn’t even accepted it myself. When the policemen told me that Andrew was dead, my mind refused to contain the information. I am a very ordinary woman, I think, and I am quite well equipped to deal with everyday evil. Interrupted sex, tough editorial decisions and malfunctioning coffee machines—these my mind could readily accept. But my Andrew, dead? It still seemed physically impossible. At one point he had covered more than seven tenths of the earth’s surface.
    And yet here I was, staring at Andrew’s plain oak coffin (Aclassic choice, madam), and it seemed rather small in the wide nave of the church. A silent, sickening dream.
    Mummy, where’s Daddy?
    I sat in the front pew of the church with my arms around my son, and realized I had begun to tremble. The vicar was delivering the eulogy. He was talking about my husband in the past tense. He made it sound very neat. It occurred to me that he had never had to deal with Andrew in the present tense, or proofread his columns, or feel him running down inside like a piece of broken clockwork.
    Charlie squirmed in my arms and asked his question again, the same one he’d asked ten times a day since Andrew died. Mummy, where’s mine daddy exactly now? I leaned down to his ear and whispered, He’s in a really nice bit of heaven this morning, Charlie. There’s a lovely long room where they all go after breakfast, with lots of interesting books and things to do.
    —Oh. Is there painting-and-drawing?
    —Yes, there’s painting-and-drawing.
    —Is mine daddy doing drawing?
    —No Charlie, Daddy is opening the window and looking at the sky.
    I shivered, and wondered how long I would have to go on narrating my husband’s afterlife.
    More words, then hymns. Hands took my elbows and