“They are, but worth every second. There are a lot of homeless dogs and cats in our area. When I find a stray, instead of bringing it to an overcrowded shelter, I try to give it a home. Most animals are like children—they want to love and trust but they’re dependent on good people.”

I thought of all the abuse cases I heard about and shuddered. “How can anyone hurt an animal? Don’t you think there’s too much evil in the world?”

“There is. I just believe the good outweighs the evil. That’s my job here—to try and even the playing field one day at a time.”

The bus hit a pothole and shook. A quick glance at the window showed we seemed to be at the height of Mount Solaro, looking down on the entire world. “We’re almost in the clear. How do you use those things?”

He unclenched his fingers. “Each bead is a prayer. You start with the Our Father right here, and then say ten Hail Marys.” His thumb pressed against the break in the string. “Then you start over again until all the beads have been used.”

“What does it do?”

“It’s a meditative device for a lot of people. A way to calm and clear the mind. For me, I find it a powerful tool. I call it my weapon of prayer.”

I fingered the beads, fascinated by the explanation. “Give me an example.”

“Well, last year there was a little girl in our town who had an accident. She was in a coma and doctors said she was almost guaranteed not to wake up. If she did, there’d be extensive brain damage. She was only six years old.”

“How awful.”

“Yeah, it was a hard time for the community. A group of us from church started a prayer chain and did the rosary for her every day for two weeks. She woke up on the fifteenth day. And she had no brain damage—the doctors called it a miracle.”

“Do you think the rosary healed her?”

“Yeah, I really do.”

“What if she hadn’t woken up? Would you say then the rosary didn’t work?”

He cocked his head. “Good question. If it didn’t work, I would have accepted it was God’s plan. But I do believe that prayer is powerful and the more you talk, the more God listens. The more I believe, the more amazing things I witness.”

The passion in his words rang clean and pure. “Isn’t it hard to believe in something when there’s so much bad happening all the time?” I asked.

“We all believe in something. I lean on my faith to navigate through life.”

“Then how come you’re so scared of this road when you have your beliefs and your rosary?”