Unable to bring herself to touch the glove again, she holds the tip of the nearly severed part in a pair of hot-dog tongs. The kitchen scissors serve to slit the leather. A bloody lump, two inches long, is revealed. Meat clamped in the tongs, she holds it under running water. Pink liquid pours over the pile of pots and pans she’d made as an early warning device. They will have to be thrown away. There will be no eating out of them after this, even if they are sterilized.

The lump is rinsed clean. It surprises Rose that a severed digit still looks exactly like a finger. Some part of her expected it to be more scientific, less graphic. She lays it carefully on a paper towel.

Her painting supplies are in two of the big boxes in the living room. Rose cuts the packing tape and levers the easel free. Acrylic inks, brushes, and paint are in a large box Harley built for her. When opened, it sits on end like a slender steamer trunk, tubes of paint and ink hang neatly on cup hooks.

Leaving the rest, she carries the inks and a sketch pad back into the kitchen. Quinacridone violet tempts her, but black seems the most professional. Selecting a never-to-be-used-after-this salad plate, Rose pours several drops of the ink on it. Using the tines of a dinner fork, she spreads the ink into a thin, even coat. This done, she steels herself to the necessity of touching the artifact.

Holding her breath, as if the detached finger might have already begun to decompose and stink, she gingerly picks it up with thumb and forefinger, the nailed end pointing away from her hand. The intruder bit his nails to the quick.

“Gross,” she whispers. Never has she touched anything that felt so dead: not rock, not wood, not hamburger, not chicken breast. This is one dead finger.

Holding it steady, Rose carefully rolls the finger in the ink, then onto the sketch pad. After ten or fifteen tries, she gets several excellent prints. Satisfied, she settles back on the stool she’d pulled up during her project and studies her work. She likes it. There is a visceral progression from the muddied early attempts to the cleanly defined whorls. Even the several drops of blood, quickly turning dark as they dry, add to the impact of the piece.

Rose has all but forgotten her medium. She is painting, or printing rather, with a severed human finger. Nausea nearly overcomes artistic license. Her lips in a moue of disgust, she sets the digit back on the paper towel, then folds the towel into a discreet opaque package.

The freezer? Flesh will be disfigured as the cells freeze and burst, destroying the print. Does she need both the finger and the prints to prove she isn’t delusional?

The refrigerator? Not if she ever plans on eating the other half of the turkey-and-provolone sandwich.