We kneeled on the hassock, Gerry bowed his head, and I looked at her, her face two feet from mine, this wooden stranger. I don’t know why I did it but I reached out to touch her arm. And in the moment before Gerry pulled it back, in the moment before he hissed, “Don’t!” I felt her leaden, lifeless arm, felt how her body was no longer hers. Where was she? Her, I mean. Her essence? Where did it go? How does it just disappear?
