As I stepped out of the bathroom, Ben, fully clothed by now, came out of the bedroom.

“I’ll empty the dishwasher and put the breakfast stuff away while you are getting ready, then we can go to the mall. Sounds good?”

Right, we wanted to go to the mall, so I could show him the shop with the reduction machine. I had almost forgotten about that. “Yeah, perfect. Give me 15 minutes or so, then we’ll be good to go.”

“Great!” He smiled and headed to the kitchen.

I returned the smile, entered the bedroom, and closed the door behind me, before I let myself fall onto the bed. I took a few minutes to collect myself. I reached for my right arm with my left hand and felt the rounded end of where my arm ended prematurely. I gently squished it and tried to imagine what having two hands had been like. It hadn’t even been a day, but I hadn’t tried grabbing anything with my non-existent hand even once today. I couldn’t even imagine what it had been like being able to do that. While I still struggled with many tasks and had to find new ways to tackle them, it felt like my right arm had always been this way.