She asked me whether Mr. Cleneay could take a look at the marriage license.

“That’s not needed,” I said. “Everything was in order.” I repeated to her what Pat had said to me. “Reverend King has seen the license, and he’ll be performing the ceremony.”

His full name is Reverend John King, if you want to write that down, Miss.

Yes, he’s a Negro reverend, Miss.

“Why not Reverend Webb?” Charlotte asked. “Aren’t you having the ceremony at your church, Alethea?”

I’d asked Pat the same questions.

Your Reverend Webb will only perform the ceremony if it is in his church, Pat had told me. I am not stepping inside another house of worship, Mattie. I have been clear about that from the start. As soon as we find a place, the Reverend King will marry us there.

Charlotte shook her head. Pat was odd in his ways, but he was steady in his thinking.

Religion, Pat had said to me and then I had repeated to Charlotte, was for people who needed to believe that death was better than life. I was afraid to tell her what else Pat had said, but I did. Heaven is a good story, Mattie, and good stories get retold. Charlotte and I were silent after the words came out of my mouth. I was uncertain as to what she was thinking, but I, for one, felt lonely. Heaven was where I would see my mother, Aunt Sweetie, and even Molly again. Heaven was a good story because it was a true story, I told myself.

Charlotte unlocked the door to the butcher shop and asked if I would watch the front while she asked Mr. Cleneay, who was already at work with his brothers in the shop’s yard, a question. I could hear their cleavers, hitting the soft flesh, the dense bones, and the hardwood of the butcher’s block. The shop’s cases were already half filled. I peered inside their glass fronts—just like Charlotte said there would be—and admired the thick pink chops, the washboard ribs, and the snowy slabs of fatback. I could see why Charlotte’s face had filled out since becoming Mrs. Cleneay. When she returned, she, sweet as a sister, offered their parlor for the wedding. I’m not one to cry, but I wept that morning, as the first customers of the day came into Cleneay Brothers. I’d wanted to marry in a church, but to marry with Charlotte by my side would also be a blessing.

Charlotte was one of our witnesses. The other was Mrs. Mary Field, Charlotte’s nearest neighbor. Pat’s witness hadn’t shown, so Mrs. Field was called upon at the last moment. Their Xs were on the marriage certificate, if you want to write that down, Miss.

Mr. Anderson says the year was 1874. I can tell you that it was summertime and I wore a cornflower-blue dress, which Charlotte borrowed for me—cotton lawn, she said—and my tan button boots. Pat wore one of his black suits, freshly laundered, ironed, and scented with lavender—that was Charlotte’s gift to us.