Later, after I’d jogged home and had showered and had written for an hour or two, I left the apartment again and walked to the subway station and rode a train over into Manhattan, getting out at 59th and Lexington so that I could make my way up to the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, to pray the Rosary. A funeral Mass was in progress when I arrived, so I entered one of the side chapels and knelt before a painting of St. Martin de Porres, who was a Dominican lay brother and who happens to be the patron saint of racial harmony; and I prayed my Rosary in there. I have prayed on the kneeler in that chapel many times, and I like the painting because if you look closely at it, toward the bottom left, you’ll notice a cat and a dog and a mouse all drinking water from the same bowl, which, in the narrative of the painting, the saint has placed on the floor for that purpose. There are also some birds, one of which is blue, which reminds me of the Blessed Virgin Mary.