the dummy into the Beetle. I had to detach the former Mary Magdalene's naked white arms from the wire-mesh sockets under the dummy's shoulders. The dummy didn't have any feet; she rose from a rod on a thin, flat pedestal-and this I stuck out the rolled-down window by the passenger's seat, which I tilted forward so that the dummy's boyish hips and slender waist and full bosom and small, squared shoulders could extend into the back seat. If she'd had a head, she wouldn't have fit.
'Thank you,' I said to Mr. Meany.
'Well, sure!' he said. I parked my Volkswagen on Tan Lane, well away from Hurd's Church and the blinking yellow light at the intersection with Front Street. I jammed the baseball in my pocket; I carried the dummy under one arm, and Mary Magdalene's long, pale arms under the other. I reassembled my mother in the flower beds that were dimly glowing in the dark-colored light that shone through the stained-glass windows of the chancel. The light was still on in the vestry office, but Pastor Merrill was practicing his prayers for Owen in the chancel of the old stone church; occasionally, he would dally with the organ. From his choirmaster days at the Congregational Church, Mr. Merrill had retained an amateur command of the organ. I was familiar with the hymns he was toying with-trying to get himself in the mood to pray for Owen Meany.
He played 'Crown Him with Many Crowns'; then he tried 'The Son of God Goes Forth to War.' There was a bed of portulaca where it was best to stand the dressmaker's dummy; the fleshy-leaved, low-to-the-ground plants covered the pedestal, and the small flowers-most of which were closed for the night-didn't clash with the poinsettia-red dress. The dress completely covered the wire-mesh hips of the dummy; and the thin, black stem upon which the dummy rose from its pedestal was invisible in the semidarkness-as if my mother didn't exactly have her feet on the ground, but chose instead to hover just above the flower beds. I walked back and forth between the flower beds and the door to the vestry, trying to see how the dummy appeared from that distance-angling my mother's body so that her unforgettable figure would be instantly recognizable. It was perfect how the dark-colored light from the chancel threw exactly the right amount of illumination upon her-there was just enough light to accentuate the scarlet glare of her dress, but not enough light to make her headlessness too apparent. Her head and her feet were just missing-or else consumed by the shadows of the night. From the door of the vestry, my mother's figure was both vividly alive and ghostly; 'The Lady in Red' looked ready to sing. The effect of the blinking yellow light at the corner of Tan Lane and Front Street was also enhancing; and even the headlights of an occasional passing car were far enough away to contribute to the uncertainty of the figure in the bed of portulaca. I squeezed the baseball; I had not held one in my hand since that last Little League game. I worried about my grip, because the first two joints of your index finger are important in throwing a baseball; but I didn't have far to throw it. I waited for Mr. Merrill to stop playing the organ; the second the music stopped, I threw the baseball-as hard as I could-through one of the tall, stained-glass windows of the chancel. It made a small hole in the glass, and a beam of white light-as if from a flashlight-shone upward into the leaves of a towering elm tree, behind which I concealed myself while I waited for Pastor Merrill. It took him a moment to discover what had been thrown through one of the sacred chancel windows. I suppose that the baseball must have rolled past the organ pipes, or even close to the pulpit.
'Johnny!' I heard my father calling. The door from the church into the vestry opened and closed. 'Johnny-I know you're angry, but this is very childish!' he called. I heard his footsteps in the corridor where all the clothes pegs were- outside the vestry office. He flung open the vestry door, the baseball in his right hand, and he blinked into the blinking yellow light at the corner of Tan Lane and Front Street. 'Johnny!' he called again. He stepped outside; he looked left, toward the Gravesend campus; he looked right, along Front Street-then he glanced into the flower beds that were glowing in the light from the stained-glass windows of the chancel. Then the Rev. Lewis Merrill dropped to his knees and pressed the baseball hard against his heart.
'Tabby!' he said in a whisper. He dropped the ball, which rolled out to the Front Street sidewalk. 'God-forgive me!' said Pastor Merrill. 'Tabby-/ didn't tell him! I promised you I wouldn't, and I didn't-it wasn't me!' my father cried. His head began to sway-he couldn't look at her-and he covered his eyes with both hands. He fell on his side, his head touching the grass border of the vestry path, and he drew up his knees to his chest-as if he were cold, or a baby going to sleep. He kept his eyes covered tightly, and he moaned: 'Tabby- forgive me, please!'
After that, he began to babble incoherently; his voice was just a murmur, and he made slight jerking or twitching movements where he lay on the ground. There was just enough noise and motion from him to assure me that he wasn't dead. I confess: I was slightly disappointed that the shock of my mother appearing before him hadn't killed him. I picked up the dressmaker's dummy and put her under my arm; one of Mary Magdalene's dead-white arms fell off, and I carried this under my other arm. I picked up the baseball from the sidewalk and jammed it back into my pocket. I wondered if my father could hear me moving around, because he seemed to contort himself more tightly into a fetal position and to cover his eyes even more tightly-as if he feared my mother were coming nearer to him. Perhaps those bone-white, elongated arms had especially frightened him-as if Death itself had exaggerated my mother's reach, and the Rev. Mr. Merrill was sure that she was going to touch him. I put the dummy and Mary Magdalene's arms into my Volkswagen and drove to the breakwater at Rye Harbor. It was midnight. I threw the baseball as far into the harbor as I could; it made a very small splash there-not disturbing the gulls. I
flung Mary Magdalene's long, heavy arms into the harbor, too; they made more of a splash, but the boats slapping on their moorings and the surf striking the breakwater outside the harbor had conditioned the gulls there to remain undisturbed by any noise of water. Then I climbed out along the breakwater with the dummy in the red dress; the tide was
