toward each other, folding the flag- triangulating it, very exactly, so that the medal ended up on top of the package, which Colonel Eiger handed completely into the care of the frightened first lieutenant. Then Colonel Eiger saluted the folded flag, and the medal. The young man about-faced so sharply that my grandmother was startled; I felt her flinch against me. Then the first lieutenant mumbled something indistinct to Mr. and Mrs. Meany, who appeared surprised that he was speaking to them. He was saying something about the medal-'For heroism that involves the voluntary risk of life.' After that, the first lieutenant cleared his throat and the congregation could hear him more distinctly. He spoke directly to Mrs. Meany; he handed her the flag, with the medal on top, and he said-too loudly: 'Missus Meany, it is my privilege to present you with our country's flag in grateful appreciation for the service rendered to this nation by your son.'
At first, she didn't want to take the flag; she didn't appear to understand that she was supposed to take it-Mr. Meany had to take it from her, or she might have let it fall. The whole time, they had sat like stones. Then the organ startled my grandmother, who flinched again, and the Rev. Lewis Merrill led us through the recessional hymn-the same hymn he had chosen for the recessional at my mother's funeral. Crown him with man-y crowns, The Lamb up-on his throne; Hark! how the heavenly an-them drowns All mu-sic but its own;
A-wake, my soul, and sing Of him who died for thee, And hail him as thy match-less king Through all e-ter-nity.
While we sang, the honor guard lifted Owen's small, gray casket and proceeded up the aisle with him; thus his body was borne from the church, about the time we were singing the third verse of the hymn-it was the verse that had meant the most to Owen Meany. CROWN HIM THE LORD OF LIFE, WHO TRI-UMPHED O'ER THE GRAVE, AND ROSE VIC-TO-RIOUS IN THE STRIFE FOR THOSE HE CAME TO SAVE; HIS GLO-RIES NOW WE SING WHO DIED AND ROSE ON HIGH, WHO DEED, E-TER-NAL LIFE TO BRING, AND LIVES THAT DEATH MAY DIE. There's not much to add about the committal. The weather was hot and sticky, and from the cemetery, at the end of Linden Street, we could once again hear the kids playing baseball on the high-school athletic fields-the sounds of their fun, and their arguing, and that good old American crack of the bat drifted to us while we stood at Owen Meany's grave and listened to the Rev. Lewis Merrill say the usual.
' 'In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother Owen . . .' ' my father said. If I listened with special care, it was because I knew I was listening to Pastor Merrill for the last time; what more could he ever have to say to me? Now that he had found his lost faith, what need did he have of a lost son? And what need did I have of him? I stood at Owen's grave, holding Dan Needham's hand, with my grandmother leaning against the two of us.
' '. . . earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' 'Pastor Merrill was saying, and I was thinking that my father was quite a fake; after all, he had met the miracle of Owen Meany, face to face, and still hadn't believed in him-and now he believed everything, not because of Owen Meany but because I had tricked him. I had fooled him with a dressmaker's dummy; Owen Meany had been the real miracle, but my father's faith was restored by an encounter with a dummy, which the poor fool had believed was my mother-reaching out to him from beyond her grave.
'GOD WORKS IN STRANGE WAYS!' Owen might have said.
' '. . . the Lord lift up his countenance upon him, and give him peace,' ' Lewis Merrill said-while clods of earth fell upon the small, gray casket. Then the stem, sawed-off soldier, whom Colonel Eiger had referred to as a master sergeant, played taps for Owen Meany. I was leaving the cemetery when she came up to me. She might have been a farmer's wife, or a woman who worked outdoors; she was my age, but she looked so much older-I didn't recognize her. She had three children with her; she carried one of them-a pouting boy who was too heavy to be carried easily, or far. She had two daughters, one of whom hung on her hip and tugged at her and continued to wipe her runny nose on the woman's faded black dress. The second daughter-the eldest child, who was possibly seven or eight- lagged behind and eyed me with a gawky shyness that was painful to endure. She was a pretty girl, with straw-colored hair, but she could not keep her hands away from a raspberry-colored birthmark on her forehead, which was about the size of a passport photo and which she tried to hide with her hair. I stared into the woman's weary, red-eyed face; she was struggling not to burst into tears.
'Do you remember how we used to lift him up?' she asked me. Then I knew her: she was Mary Bern Baird, our old Sunday school colleague and the girl Owen had selected for the role of the Virgin Mary. 'MARY BETH BAIRD HAS NEVER BEEN MARY,' Owen had said. 'THAT WAY, MARY WOULD BE MARY.'
I'd heard she'd gotten pregnant and had dropped out of high school; she'd married the boy, who was from a big family of dairy farmers-and now she lived on a dairy farm in Stratham. I hadn't seen her since her staggering performance in the Nativity of -when, in addition to her efforts as the Virgin Mother to Owen's Christ Child, she had contributed those striking cow costumes, the ones with floppy antlers that made the cows resemble damaged reindeer. I suppose that she had not been an expert on dairy cows-or on cows of any kind-back then.
'He was so easy to lift up!' Mary Beth Baird said to me. 'He was so light-he weighed nothing at all! How could he have been so light?' she asked me. That was when I discovered that I couldn't speak. I had lost my voice. It occurs to me now that it wasn't my voice that I wanted to hear. If I
couldn't hear Owen's voice, I didn't want to hear anyone's. It was only Owen's voice that I wanted to hear; and when Mary Beth Baird spoke to me, that was when I knew that Owen Meany was gone. There's
