. . . But the rain kept coming, and I had no choice. I climbed the steep marble steps of Saint Joseph Church, and just as I got to the top to duck into an alcove, a massive door opened next to me, and scared whatever wits I had left right out of me. It was, of all people, a police officer. I looked back down the street and the man in the overcoat had fled. “Get out of the rain, kid!” barked the officer as he shuffled me through the door on his way out. “And say a prayer for me while you’re in there,” he commanded. So in I went, almost against my will. The church was massive. I had received my First Communion there two years earlier, but had never been back since. In the dim lights, I walked toward the sanctuary, and at the Communion rail, I knelt. . . .