Grandmother, who was rendered coy with false modesty, said simply that she had always had a special understanding of -and I don't doubt it: she would have been a beautiful young woman then; 'and your mother,' Grandmother told me, 'would have been younger than you.'
So why did Dan and my mother wait four years? If there were arguments, if they were sorting out some differences of opinion, I never saw or heard them. Having been so improper as to have me, and never explain me, was Mother simply being overly proper the second time around? Was Dan wary of her? He never seemed wary. Was the problem? I used to wonder. But I loved Dan-and he gave me every reason to feel that he loved me. I know he loved me; he still does.
'Is it about children, Tabitha?' my grandmother asked one evening at dinner, and Lydia and I sat at attention to hear the answer. 'I mean, does he want them-do you not want another? Or is it the other way around? I don't think you should trouble yourself about having or not having children, Tabitha- not if it costs you such a lovely, devoted man.'
'We're just waiting, to be sure,' my mother said.
'Good Heavens, you must be sure, by now,' Grandmother said impatiently. 'Even I'm sure, and Johnny's sure. Aren't you sure, Lydia?' Grandmother asked.
'Sure, I'm sure,' Lydia said.
'Children are not the issue,' my mother said. 'There is no issue.'
'People have joined the priesthood in less time than it takes you to get married,' Grandmother said to my mother. As for joining the priesthood, that was a favorite expression of Harriet Wheelwright's; it was always made in connection with some insupportable foolishness, some self-created difficulty, some action as inhuman as it was bizarre. Grandmother meant the Catholic priesthood; yet I know that one of the things that upset her about the possibility of Mother's moving herself and me to the Episcopal Church was that Episcopalians had priests and bishops-and even 'low' Episcopalians were much more like Catholics than like Congregationalists, in her opinion. A good thing: Grandmother never knew much about Anglicans. In their long courtship, Dan and my mother attended both the Congregational and the Episcopal services, as if they were conducting a four-year theological seminar, in private-and my introduction to the Episcopal Sunday school was also gradual; at my mother's prompting, I attended several classes before Dan and my mother were married, as if Mother already knew where we were headed. What was also gradual was how my mother finally stopped going to Boston for her singing lessons. I never had a hint that Dan was the slightest bothered by this ritual, although I recall my grandmother asking my mother if Dan objected to her spending one night a week in Boston.
'Why should he?' my mother asked. The answer, which was not forthcoming, was as obvious to my grandmother as it was to me: that the most likely candidate for the unclaimed position of my father, and my mother's mystery lover, was that 'famous' singing teacher. But neither my grandmother nor I dared to postulate this theory to my mother, and Dan Needham was clearly untroubled by the ongoing singing lessons, and the ongoing one night away; or else Dan possessed some reassuring piece of knowledge that remained a secret from my grandmother and me.
'YOUR FATHER IS NOT THE SINGING TEACHER,' Owen Meany told me matter-of-factiy. 'THAT WOULD BE TOO OBVIOUS.'
'This is a real-life story, Owen,' I said. 'It's not a mystery novel.' In real life, I meant, there was nothing written that the missing father couldn't be OBVIOUS-but I didn't really think it was the singing teacher, either. He was only the most likely candidate because he was the only candidate my grandmother and I could think of.
'IF IT'S HIM, WHY MAKE IT A SECRET?' Owen asked. 'IF IT'S HIM, WOULDN'T YOUR MOTHER SEE HIM MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK-OR NOT AT ALL?'
Anyway, it was farfetched to think that the singing teacher was the reason my mother and Dan didn't get married for four years. And so I concluded what Owen Meany would call TOO OBVIOUS: that Dan was holding out for more information, concerning me, and that my mother wasn't providing it. For wouldn't it be reasonable of Dan to want to know the story of who my father was? And I know that is a story my mother wouldn't have yielded to Dan. But Owen rebuked me for this idea, too. 'DON'T YOU SEE HOW MUCH DAN LOVES YOUR MOTHER?' he asked me. 'HE LOVES HER AS MUCH AS WE DO! HE WOULD NEVER FORCE HER TO TELL HIM ANYTHING'.'
I believe that now. Owen was right. It was something else: that four-year delay of the obvious. Dan came from a very high-powered family; they were doctors and lawyers, and they disapproved of Dan for not completing a more serious education. To have started out at Harvard and not gone on to law school, not gone on to medical school-this was criminal laziness; Dan came from a family very keen about going on. They disapproved of him ending up as a mere prep-school teacher, and of his indulging his hobby of amateur theatrical performances-they believed these frivolities were unworthy of a grown-up's interest! They disapproved of my mother, too-and that was the end of Dan having any more to do with them. They called her 'the divorcee'; I guess no one in the Needham family had ever been divorced, and so that was the worst thing you could say about a woman-even worse than calling my mother what she really was: an unwed mother. Perhaps an unwed mother sounded merely hapless; whereas a divorcee implied intent-a woman who was out to snare their dear underachiever, Dan. I don't remember much about meeting Dan's family: at the wedding, they chose not to mingle. My grandmother was outraged that there were people who actually dared to condescend to her-to treat her like some provincial fussbudget. I recall that Dan's mother had an acid tongue, and that, when introduced to me, she said, 'So this is the child.' And then
