When I Was Four, My Mother Left Me Alone in a Church—Twenty Years Later She Returned Crying, “We Need You”

I was four years old when my mother led me into Saint Thomas Aquinas Church and placed me on a wooden pew beneath the stained-glass windows.

I remember my gray coat.

The brass buttons.

My white socks sliding down inside my shoes.

The smell of candle wax.

And my mother’s hands carefully straightening my collar.

She was unusually gentle that afternoon.

That is one of the things I remember most.

Not anger.

Not panic.

Gentleness.

She knelt until our faces were level.

“Stay here, Nora.”

I stared at her.

“Why?”

“God will watch over you.”

My father stood several feet away.

He would not look at me.