Of course, all the success came at a price; Carmine worked long hours. Every morning before dawn he was at the market down by the wharf, buying his fresh produce, and sometimes he didn't get home until after midnight. He took regular trips to New York to check with the importers of the olive oil and other specialties he sold. That was how he managed to stay in business in spite of the big new supermarkets; he offered quality products his customers couldn't buy at the A&P. He kept costs down by doing most of the work himself. And it had paid off—even during the worst of the Depression, Mifalda's household allowance had come down only a few dollars a week. The one sacrifice she'd made was buying a cheap wool fabric for her daughter's winter coat.

Mifalda stood up, looked around her handsome kitchen, and told herself—as she did every day—how lucky she was. A good provider like Carmine could have had his pick of New Haven women. But even though he was American born, he had wanted to marry from the old country. And it had been a plus, as far as he was concerned, that his future bride had been raised by the nuns.

“You're an old-fashioned girl. I like that,” he said to Mifalda when they were alone for the first time. He spoke Italian like she did, with the Neapolitan dialect. What he meant was I want an old-fashioned wife who has been taught to know her place. I want a wife who is quiet and won't push herself forward. He didn't say it, but she knew that was why he had agreed to an arranged marriage with a girl he'd never met. A girl who was not even half his age.

And she had been grateful to get away from the dusty little town in Italy where she'd been born and the convent where she'd been raised. The area had been too poor to support an orphanage, and she had been the only child living with the nuns. She'd prayed when they did, eaten the same limited rations—she was always hungry in those days—and worn shapeless smocks made of the same scratchy black fabric they used for their habits. Two of these garments would be sewn for her at a time, and she was expected to wear them until they were so frayed they couldn't be darned, or she outgrew them. The ugly outfits marked her in a community where she already stood out as a charity child and the daughter of a shameless woman. Walking to school each day was a special agony; the pathway from the convent to the street was a favorite congregating spot for the local toughs, and if they spotted her the taunting hurt worse than knives.