And she wore a French maid's costume, with a very tight skirt and
black, patterned stockings, so that every Sunday thereafter, Owen and I would search in vain for her legs-it was such a surprise to see Mrs. Walker's legs; and even more of a surprise to discover that she had pretty legs! The good guy role in Angel Street-the Joseph Cotten part, I call it-was played by our neighbor Mr. Fish. Owen and I knew that he was still in mourning over the untimely death of Sagamore; the horror of the diaper truck disaster on Front Street was still visible in the pained expression with which he followed my mother's every movement onstage. Mr. Fish was not exactly Owen's and my idea of a hero; but Dan Needham, with his talent for casting and directing the rankest amateurs, must have been inspired, in the case of Mr. Fish, to tap our neighbor's sorrow and anger over Sagamore's encounter with the diaper truck. Anyway, after the dress rehearsal of Angel Street, it was back to the closet with the red dress-except for those many occasions when Owen put it on the dummy. He must have felt especially challenged by my mother's dislike of that dress. It always looked terrific on the dummy. I tell all this only to demonstrate that Owen was as familiar with that dummy as I was; but he was not familiar with it at night. He was not accustomed to the semidarkness of my mother's room when she was sleeping, when the dummy stood over her-that unmistakable body, in profile, in perfect silhouette. That dummy stood so still, it appeared to be counting my mother's breaths. One night at Front Street, when Owen lay hi the other twin bed in my room, we were a long while falling asleep because-down the hall-Lydia had a cough. Just when we thought she was over a particular fit, or she had died, she would start up again. When Owen woke me up, I had not been asleep for very long; I was in the grips of such a deep and recent sleep that I couldn't make myself move-I felt as if I were lying in an extremely plush coffin and my pallbearers were holding me down, although I was doing my best to rise from the dead.
'I FEEL SICK,' Owen was saying.
'Are you going to throw up?' I asked him, but I couldn't move; I couldn't even open my eyes.
'I DON'T KNOW,' he said. 'I THINK I HAVE A FEVER.'
'Go tell my mother,' I said.
'IT FEELS LIKE A RARE DISEASE,' Owen said.
'Go tell my mother,' I repeated. I listened to him bump into the desk chair. I heard my door open, and close. I could hear his hands brushing against the wall of the hall. I heard him pause with his hand trembling on my mother's doorknob; he seemed to wait there for the longest time. Then I thought: He's going to be surprised by the dummy. I thought of calling out, 'Don't be startled by the dummy standing there; it looks weird in that funny light.' But I was sunk in my coffin of sleep and my mouth was clamped shut. I waited for him to scream. That's what Owen would do, I was sure; there would be a bloodcurdling wail-'AAAAAAA-HHHHHHf'-•and the entire household would be awake for hours. Or else, in a fit of bravery, Owen would tackle the dummy and wrestle it to the floor. But while I was imagining the worst of Owen's encounter with the dummy, I realized he was back in my room, beside my bed, pulling my hair.
'WAKE UP! BUT BE QUIET!' he whispered. 'YOUR MOTHER IS NOT ALONE. SOMEONE STRANGE IS IN HER ROOM. COME SEE! I THINK IT'S AN ANGEL!'
'An angel?' I said.
'SSSSSSHHHHHH!'
Now I was wide awake and eager to see him make a fool of himself, and so I said nothing about the dummy; I held his hand and went with him through the hall to my mother's room. Owen was shivering.
'How do you know it's an angel?' I whispered.
'SSSSSSHHHHHH!'
So we stealthily crept into my mother's room, crawling on our bellies like snipers in search of cover, until the whole picture of her bed-her body in an inverted question mark, and the dummy standing beside her-was visible. After a while, Owen said, 'IT'S GONE. IT MUST HAVE SEEN ME THE FIRST TIME.'
I pointed innocently at the dummy. 'What's that?' I whispered.
'THAT'S THE DUMMY, YOU IDIOT!' Owen said. 'WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BED.'
I touched his forehead; he was burning up. 'You have a fever, Owen,' I said.
'I SAW AN ANGEL,' he said.
'Is that you, boys?' my mother asked sleepily.
'Owen has a fever,' I said. 'He feels sick.'
'Come here, Owen,' my mother said, sitting up in bed. He went to her and she felt his forehead and told me to get him an aspirin and a glass of water.
'Owen saw an angel,' I said.
'Did you have a nightmare, Owen?' my mother asked him, as he crawled into bed beside her. Owen's voice was muffled in the pillows. 'NOT EXACTLY,' he said. When I returned with the water and the
