When I got to the church door, I stopped and dipped my fingers in holy water and crossed myself. Just like the woman in black with the gray crocheted shawl over her head had done ahead of me. This was one of my favorite things to do on our vacations in Italy. I knew that Roman Catholics were not saved and not Christians, and I knew it was wrong to concentrate on the “mere external signs of piety,” but still I liked to pretend I was a Catholic when the rest of the family was not there to see me.

When we had communion twice a year at home in our church, which we held in our living room, all it was was Dad passing some little glass cups around. They were the same size as Mom’s thimble, only cheaper-looking and made out of glass. They had grape juice in them. We ate a piece of bread cut into little squares and Dad would read about the Last Supper and ask if we were each coming to The Table of the Lord worthily and were all saved. And since it was just us and Andy Keegan’s parents and Andy in our church, and Dad knew we had all accepted Jesus into our hearts, I never knew why he asked. We’d sing a hymn, and Dad would pray, and we’d go outside from our church, which was really our living room with all the chairs turned to face the fireplace where Dad stood to preach. Then Mom would pick up the leftover communion bread to bake in the oven and make croutons for lunch for our soup, and I’d drink up our leftover grape juice out of the leftover full little cups, then go outside to play, unless Mom let me build a tower out of the cups first.