“Just remember,” she said, “your friend Owen feels worse than you.”
“I know,” I said; but I felt no small surge of jealousy at my admission—and at the knowledge that Hester was thinking about Owen, too.
We left Front Street at the Gravesend Inn; I hesitated before crossing Pine Street, but Hester seemed to know our destination—her hand tugged me along. Once we were on Linden Street, passing the dark high school, it was clear to both of us where we were going. There was a police car in the high-school parking lot—on the lookout for vandals, I suppose, or else to prevent the high-school students from using the parking lot and the athletic fields for illicit purposes at night.
We could hear a motor running; it seemed too deep and throaty a motor to be the squad car, and after we passed the high school, the engine noise grew louder. I didn’t believe that a motor was required to run the cemetery, but that’s where the sound was coming from. I think now that I must have wanted to see her grave at night, knowing how she hated the darkness; I believe I wanted to reassure myself that some light penetrated even the cemetery at night.
The streetlights on Linden Street shone some distance into the cemetery and clearly illuminated the Meany Granite Company truck, which was parked and idling at the main gate; Hester and I could observe Mr. Meany’s solemn face behind the steering wheel, his face illuminated by the long drags he took from his cigarette. He was alone in the cab of the truck, but I knew where Owen was.
Mr. Meany seemed unsurprised to see me, although Hester made him nervous. Hester made everyone nervous: in good light, in close-up, she looked her age—like a large, overly mature twelve-year-old. But from any distance, with any assistance from the shadows, she looked eighteen—and like a lot of trouble, too.
“Owen had some more to say,” Mr. Meany confided to us. “But he’s been at it a while. I’m sure he’s about finished.”
I felt another rush of jealousy, to think that Owen’s concerns for my mother’s first night underground had preceded my own. In the humid air, the diesel exhaust was heavy and foul, but I was sure that Mr. Meany could not be prevailed upon to turn the engine off; probably he was keeping the engine running in an effort to hurry up Owen’s prayers.
“I want you to know somethin’,” Mr. Meany said. “I’m gonna listen to what your mother said. She told me not to interfere if Owen wanted to go to the academy. And I won’t,” he said. “I promised her,” he added.
It would take me years to realize that from the moment Owen hit that ball, Mr. Meany wouldn’t “interfere” with anything Owen wanted.
“She told me not to worry about the money, too,” Mr. Meany said. “I don’t know what happens about that—now,” he added.
“Owen will get a full scholarship,” I said.
“I don’t know about that,” Mr. Meany said. “I guess so, if he wants one,” he added. “Your mother was speakin’ about his clothes,” Mr. Meany said. “All them coats and ties.”
“Don’t worry,” I told him.
“Oh, I ain’t worryin’!” he said. “I’m just promisin’ you I ain’t interferin’—that’s the point.”
A light blinked from the cemetery, and Mr. Meany saw Hester and me look in its direction.
“He’s got a light with him,” Mr. Meany said. “I don’t know what’s takin’ him so long,” he said. “He’s been in there long enough.” He stepped on the accelerator then, as if a little rev would hurry Owen along. But after a while, he said, “Maybe you better go see what’s keepin’ him.”
The light in the cemetery was faint and Hester and I walked toward it cautiously, not wanting to tread on other people’s flowers or bark our shins on one of the smaller graves. The farther we walked from the Meany Granite Company truck, the more the engine noise receded—but it seemed deeper, too, as if it were the motor at the core of the earth, the one that turned the earth and changed day to night. We could hear snatches of Owen’s prayers; I thought he must have brought the flashlight so he could read The Book of Common Prayer—perhaps he was reading every prayer in it.
“‘INTO PARADISE MAY THE ANGELS LEAD YOU,’” he read.
Hester and I stopped; she stood behind me and locked her arms around my waist. I could feel her breasts against my shoulder blades, and—because she was a little taller—I could feel her throat against the back of my head; her chin pushed my head down.
“‘FATHER OF ALL,’” Owen read. “‘WE PRAY TO YOU FOR THOSE WE LOVE, BUT SEE NO LONGER.’” Hester squeezed me, she kissed my ears. Mr. Meany revved the truck, but Owen did not appear to notice; he knelt in front of the first bank of flowers, at the foot of the mound of new earth, in front of my mother’s gravestone. He had the prayer book flat upon the ground in front of him, the flashlight pinched between his knees.
“Owen?” I said, but he didn’t hear me. “Owen!” I said more loudly. He looked up, but not at me; I mean, he looked up—he’d heard his name called, but he hadn’t recognized my voice.
“I HEAR YOU!” he shouted angrily. “WHAT DO YOU WANT? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHAT DO YOU WANT OF ME?”
“Owen, it’s me,” I said; I felt Hester gasp behind me. It had suddenly occurred to her—Whom Owen thought he was speaking to.
“It’s me, and Hester,” I added, because it occurred to me that the figure of Hester standing behind me, and appearing to loom over me, might also be misunderstood by Owen Meany, who was ever-watchful for that angel he had frightened from my mother’s room.
“OH, IT’S YOU,” Owen said; he sounded disappointed. “HELLO, HESTER. I DIDN’T RECOGNIZE YOU—YOU LOOK SO GROWN UP IN A DRESS. I’M SORRY,” Owen said.
“It’s okay, Owen,” I said.
“HOW’S DAN?” he asked.
I told him that Dan was okay, but that he’d gone to his dormitory, alone, for the night; this news made Owen very businesslike.
“I SUPPOSE THE DUMMY’S STILL THERE? IN THE DINING ROOM?” he asked.