The air in the little laundry room had become unbearable. “I'm going to check the sauce,” Mifalda told Ana, and escaped into the kitchen. The laundry smells were here too, but at least she didn't feel like the walls were closing in. She sat at the kitchen table and fanned herself. It was freezing outside, and much as she would have liked to, she couldn't open a window and let out all the heat, not with coal costing what it did. Her kitchen was huge—when they'd bought the house, Carmine had had the wall separating it from the dining room knocked down to make it bigger—and all of Mifalda's appliances were up to the minute. She had a gas range, a sewing machine, a coil-top refrigerator, an electric toaster, and in the little laundry room there was an electric iron—the latest model—sitting on the shelf. Any time Carmine heard of something new for the house, he bought it. Part of the reason for this, she knew, was that he loved her and he wanted her to be happy. But the splendor of her possessions was also a mark of his success. He enjoyed talking to his cronies about the things he bought for Mifalda and mentioning—very casually—that she had a Polish girl working for her. He liked it when a friend dropped by and his pretty young wife in her starched housedress served pie she'd made according to the recipe his mother had taught her. He liked knowing that when he and his friend went outside to sit on the front porch and talk about politics and business, his wife was inside crocheting the lace that would be stitched onto the pillowcases in his daughter's hope chest.

Carmine deserved all his domestic happiness. His father had died when he was a child, and Carmine had worked to support his mother from the time he was twelve. He had lived at home and put off marriage until he had established his first grocery store. He held off some more on wedded bliss until he owned the building where his store was and he could move himself and his mother into the spacious apartment above it. Then he continued to hold off until he was the proud owner of two more stores. When Carmine finally decided to marry, he was in the position to buy a beautiful house for his new wife.