Run

Content Warning: This novel contains descriptions of drug abuse.

The chapter opens as Bernard Doyle’s sisters-in-law visit him at home, asking for an heirloom that belonged to his recently deceased wife, Bernadette. Doyle refuses; the heirloom, a statue of the Virgin Mary that resembles Bernadette, will pass down to their Black adoptive sons, Tip and Teddy.

Via flashback, Doyle reminiscences about his wife, beginning with receiving the statue as a wedding gift and Bernadette relaying family stories of its origins. Her great-grandfather (Billy Lovell) stole the statue from a church in Ireland during the early 20th century. He used it to woo the beautiful and pious Doreen Clark, whom it resembled; he fabricated a tale of getting the statue in Rome from the Pope’s wood sculptor. Doreen loved the statue and married Billy. In the first years of their marriage, Doreen enjoyed other people’s admiration and envy when they would visit their home: “[T]hey never got tired of seeing Mother Mary as Doreen. The women crossed themselves and said its beauty was exactly like hers, though the ones who were jealous added on the phrase ‘had been’” (7). Doreen prayed to it daily and the couple was happy for eight years, until a man at the pub revealed Billy’s crime.