Her talent had earned her a full scholarship to the University of Birmingham, and it was there, in the spring of her freshman year, that she met Anthony del Torre, a pianist visiting the campus for a concert. What followed should never have happened.

How could I have told Granddad that I got involved with a man I knew was married? She asked herself now. I couldn’t have kept the baby. There was no money to pay for help. I had years of schooling ahead of me. And if I had told him what had happened, it would have broken his heart.

As the cab made its way through the slow traffic, Sondra thought back to that wrenching time. She thought about how she had saved money to come to New York, she remembered checking into a cheap hotel on November 30th, buying the baby clothes and diapers, the bottles and formula and stroller. She had located the hospital closest to the hotel and had planned to go to the emergency room when she went into labor. She would, of course, have to give a false name and address. But the baby had come so quickly on December 3rd; there had been no time to get to the hospital.

Early in the pregnancy, she had decided that New York was where she would leave the baby. She loved the city. From her very first visit there with her granddad, she knew that someday she would live in Manhattan. She had instantly felt at home there. On that first visit, her grandfather had taken her to St. Clement’s, the church he had attended throughout his boyhood. “Whenever I wanted a special favor, I would kneel in the pew nearest Bishop Santori’s picture and his chalice,” he told her. “From them I always received comfort. Sondra, I went there when I realized there was no hope for the stiffening fingers. That was the nearest I ever came to despair.”

In the several days before the baby was born, Sondra had slipped in and out of St. Clement’s; each time she had knelt in that pew. She had watched the clergymen there; she’d seen the kindness in the face of Monsignor Ferris and knew that she could trust him to find a good home for her baby.