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But Grandmother lived on and on. When the Poggios called her and told her that the delivery boys were on their way, my grandmother thanked them politely, hung up the telephone, and promptly forgot that anyone was coming—or that she’d been forewarned. When the boys would “startle” her, she would telephone Dominic in a rage and say: “If you’re going to send total strangers to this house, you might at least have the courtesy to warn me when they’re coming!”

“Yes, Missus Wheelwright!” Dominic always said. Then he would call Dan to complain; he even called me a few times—in Toronto!

“I’m getting worried about your grandmother, John,” Dominic would say.

By this time, Grandmother had lost all her hair. She owned a chest of drawers that was full of wigs, and she abused Ethel—and several of Ethel’s replacements—by complaining that her wigs were badly treated by the chest of drawers, in addition to being inexpertly attached to her old bald head by Ethel and the others. Grandmother developed such contempt for Ethel—and for Ethel’s inept replacements—that she plotted with considerable cunning to undermine what she regarded as the already woefully inadequate abilities of her serving women. They were no match for her. Grandmother hid her wigs so that these luckless ladies could not find them; then she would abuse these fools for misplacing her vital headpieces.

“Do you actually expect me to wander the world as if I were an addlepated bald woman escaped from the circus?” she would say.

“Missus Wheelwright—where did you put your wigs?” the women would ask her.

“Are you actually accusing me of intentionally desiring to look like the lunatic victim of a nuclear disaster?” my grandmother would ask them. “I would rather be murdered by a maniac than be bald!”

More wigs were bought; most—but by no means all—of her old wigs were found. When Grandmother especially disliked a wig, she would retire it in the rose garden by submerging it in the birdbath.

And when the Poggios continued to send total strangers to her door—intent on startling her—Harriet Wheelwright responded by startling them in return. She would dart to open the door for them—sprinting ahead of Ethel or Ethel’s replacements—and she would greet the terrified delivery boys by snatching her wig off her head and shrieking at them while she was bald.

Poor Dominic Poggio’s grandchildren! How they fought among themselves not to be the boy who delivered the groceries to 80 Front Street.

It was shortly after the fourth or fifth such incident when Dan telephoned me—in Toronto—and said: “It’s about your grandmother. You know how much I love her. But I think it’s time.”

Even this August, the memory of those days made Dan Needham and me laugh. It was late at night, and we’d been drinking—as usual.

“Do you know what?” Dan said. “There are still all those damn jams and jellies and some simply awful things that she had preserved—they’re still on those shelves, in the secret passageway!”

“Not really!” I said.

“Yes, really! See for yourself,” he said. Dan tried to get out of his chair—to investigate the mysteries of the secret passageway with me—but he lost his balance in the great effort he made to rise to his feet, and he settled back into his chair apologetically. “See for yourself!” he repeated, burping.

I had some difficulty opening the concealed door; I don’t think that door had been opened for years. I knocked a few books off the shelves on the door while I was fumbling with the lock and key. I was reminded that Germaine had once been no less clumsy—when Lydia had died, and Germaine had chosen the secret passageway as the place to hide from Death itself.

Then the door swung open. The secret passageway was dark; yet I could discern the scurrying of spiders. The cobwebs were dense. I remembered when I’d trapped Owen in the secret passageway and he’d cried out that something wet was licking him—he didn’t think it was a cobweb, he thought it was SOMETHING WITH A TONGUE. I also remembered the time we’d shut him in there during his going-away party, when Mr. Fish had recited those lines from Julius Caesar—just outside the closed door. “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once”—and so forth. And I remembered how Owen and I had scared Germaine in there—and poor Lydia, before Germaine.

There were a lot of old memories lurking in the cobwebs in the secret passageway; I groped for the light switch, and couldn’t find it. I didn’t want to touch those dark objects on the shelves without seeing what they were.

Then Dan Needham shut the door on me.

“Cut it out, Dan!” I cried. I could hear him laughing. I reached out into the blackness. My hand found one of the shelves; I felt along the shelf, passing through cobwebs, in the direction of the door. I thought the light switch was near the door. That was when I put my hand on something awful. It felt springy, alive—I imagined a nest of newly born rats!—and I stepped backward and screamed.

What my hand had found was one of Grandmother’s hidden wigs; but I didn’t know that. I stepped too far back, to the edge of the top step of the long stairs; I felt myself losing my balance and starting to fall. In less than a second, I imagined how Dan would discover my body on the dirt floor at the foot of the stairs—when a small, strong hand (or something like a small, strong hand) guided my own hand to the light switch; a small, strong hand, or something like it, pulled me forward from where I teetered on the top step of the stairs. And his voice—it was unmistakably Owen’s voice—said: “DON’T BE AFRAID. NOTHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU.”

I screamed again.

When Dan Needham opened the door, it was his turn to scream. “Your hair!” he cried. When I looked in a mirror, I thought it was the cobwebs—my scalp appeared to have been dusted with flour. But when I brushed my hair, I saw that the roots had turned white. That was this August; my hair has grown in all-white since then. At my age, my hair was already turning gray; even my students think that my white hair is distinguished—an improvement.

The morning after Owen Meany “spoke” to me, Dan Needham said: “Of course, we were both drunk—you, especially.”

“Me, ‘especially’!” I said.

“That’s right,” Dan said. “Look: I have never mocked your belief—have I? I will never make fun of your religious faith—you know that. But you can’t expect me to believe that Owen Meany’s actual hand kept you from falling down those cellar stairs; you can’t expect me to be convinced that Owen Meany’s actual voice ‘spoke’ to you in the secret passageway.”

“Dan,” I said, “I understand you. I’m not a proselytizer, I’m no evangelist. Have I ever tried to make you a believer? If I wanted to preach, I’d be a minister, I’d have a congregation—wouldn’t I?”

“Look: I understand you,” Dan said; but he couldn’t stop staring at the snow-white roots of my hair.

A little later, Dan said: “You actually felt pulled—you felt an actual tug, as if from an actual hand?”

“I admit I was drunk,” I said.