Of course, the boy asked his mother where her hand had gone.
The Widow made a story about bad Lord Judas:
how he ordered the Devil to fetch her husband’s soul for sins the man committed in his youth.
how good Lord Jesus looked down and knew the whole of the man’s life and whisked his soul to heaven.
“This happened,” she said, “in the time it took your father to die, between one heartbeat and the last.”
“Where is Papa?” the child persisted. “And does he have your hand?”