A prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving Page A

my mother-never in the sly or stealthy sense of
that word, but in the word's other catlike qualities: a clean, sleek,
self-possessed, strokable quality. In quite a different way from
        Owen Meany, my
mother looked touchable; I was always aware of how much people wanted, or
needed, to touch her. I'm not talking only about men, although-even at my age-I
was aware of how restlessly men moved their hands in her company. I mean that
everyone liked to touch her-and depending on her attitude toward her toucher,
my mother's responses to being touched were feline, too. She could be so
chillingly indifferent that the touching would instantly stop; she was well
coordinated and surprisingly quick and, like a cat, she could retreat from
being touched-she could duck under or dart away from someone's hand as
instinctively as the rest of us can shiver. And she could respond in that other
way that cats can respond, too; she could luxuriate in being touched-she could
contort her body quite shamelessly, putting more and more pressure against the
toucher's hand, until (I used to imagine) anyone near enough to her could hear
her purr. Owen Meany, who rarely wasted words and who had the
conversation-stopping habit of dropping remarks like coins into a deep pool of
water . . . remarks that sank, like truth, to the bottom of the pool where they
would remain, untouchable . . . Owen said to me once, "YOUR MOTHER IS SO
SEXY, I KEEP FORGETTING SHE'S ANYBODY'S MOTHER."
    As for my Aunt Martha's insinuations, leaked to my cousins, who
dribbled the suggestion, more than ten years late, to me-that my mother was
"a little simple''-I believe this is the result of a jealous elder
sister's misunderstanding. My Aunt Martha failed to understand the most basic
thing about my mother: that she was born into the entirely wrong body. Tabby
Wheelwright looked like a starlet-lush, whimsical, easy to talk into anything;
she looked eager to please, or "a little simple," as my Aunt Martha
observed; she looked touchable. But I firmly believe that my mother was of an
entirely different character man her appearance would suggest; as her son, I
know, she was almost perfect as a mother-her sole imperfection being that she
died before she could tell me who my father was. And in addition to being an
almost perfect mother, I also know that she was a happy woman-and a truly happy
woman drives some men and almost every other woman absolutely crazy. If her
body looked restless, she wasn't. She was content-she was feline in that
respect, too. She appeared to want nothing from life but a child and a loving
husband; it is important to note these singulars-she did not want children, she
wanted me, just me, and she got me; she did not want men in her life, she
wanted a man, the right man, and shortly before she died, she found him. I have
said that my Aunt Martha is a "lovely woman," and I mean it: she is
warm, she is attractive, she is decent and kind and honorably intentioned-and
she has always been loving to me. She loved my mother, too; she just never
understood her-and when however small a measure of jealousy is mixed with misunderstanding,
there is going to be trouble. I have said that my mother was a sweater girl,
and that is a contradiction to the general modesty with which she dressed; she
did show off her bosom-but never her flesh, except for her athletic,
almost-innocent shoulders. She did like to bare her shoulders. And her dress
was never slatternly, never wanton, never garish; she was so conservative in
her choice of colors that I remember little in her wardrobe that wasn't black
or white, except for some accessories-she had a fondness for red (in scarves,
in hats, in shoes, in mittens and gloves). She wore nothing that was tight
around her hips, but she did like her small waist and her good bosom to
show-she did have THE BEST BREASTS OF ALL THE MOTHERS, as Owen observed. I do
not think that she flirted; she did not "come