At lunch even we children were given a little red wine with our panino. Faced with an alcoholic beverage I would have a brief crisis of conscience each day, remembering that I was a fundamentalist Protestant child of the light in a dark, corrupted ocean of Roman Catholic paganism and alcohol-consuming superstition. The superstition was evident everywhere, from the little cross the grandmother wore over her black blouse to the St. Christopher medals all the boys in the clan wore around their thin olive-brown necks.

When one of the babies would tumble off an overturned rowboat and begin to squall and bellow, thirty brothers, sisters, and cousins formed a phalanx and marched en masse back to Mama, who roundly scolded them all for their neglect then casually placed the tyke on her breast as she continued an animated discussion with the friend of a friend who had stopped by to pay her respects. One could feel the darkness of just how lost these Italians were. They were obviously not saved. None of them were born again or knew Jesus. If they had had Jesus in their hearts, they would never have done things like crossing themselves before eating lunch (we worship Jesus in our hearts not through outward pagan signs), drink alcohol (every real Christian knows Jesus made grape juice not wine out of the water at the wedding at Cana), or wear such immodest clothes (our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit). Some of the girls had really “terribly small provocative bathing suits on,” as Mom said.

There was a constant sense of betrayal in my heart as I enjoyed the darkness of these sadly lost Roman Catholics. Like Judas, I was a secret betrayer of the truth; when they offered me a little wine in some water with a panino, I took a sip. Not, however, before I looked back to our side of the beach to check if anyone was watching me—I could see they weren’t. Dad was lying on his stomach reading a back issue of Christianity Today about Billy Graham’s Crusade in Wales. Mom was sitting in her deck chair reading her Bible, and Rachael and Janet were far out to sea swimming to the point and back.