I did not admire his other hand --

I did not admire his other hand -- his lack of a hand, rather. I was afraid to look at that handless wrist, lest he think me impolite, an ogler. I had heard that, even when a hand is lost, the one who has lost the hand will still feel it as if it is there. I did not admire his lack of a hand, but I wondered about it. I wondered about whether he had a phantom hand.

I wondered if he used his phantom hand to touch people without their knowing, with a touch only he could feel. If he had a phantom hand, he could stand behind a woman in line at the grocery, and lift his arm on some pretext, and graze her hair with his missing hand, and he would feel her hair, or feel that he felt her hair, and she would not feel his ghostly hand. He could grow bolder, and rest his hand on the small of her back, as if they knew each other intimately, as if this were a commonplace affection, and she would not resist that gentle familiarity, that touch too light to be felt, too subtle to be seen. I wondered about that for a long time, long after I saw that he was missing his hand.