I bought some baker’s yeast that morning, and the following evening we had a fresh white loaf for supper. I’d split the top of the risen dough, the way that Molly did, and poured melted butter into the gully that opened up, before placing the pan in the oven. No bakers from Germany did that, I wanted to say to Pat.

Pat had other ideas about the supper table. I suppose I should have been grateful that he didn’t share them with me all at once.

Days before our first Christmas as man and wife, Pat asked what would be on the table.

“A ham,” I answered, “with a brown sugar glaze.”

Pat didn’t say a thing.

A baked ham was what I’d made at Mrs. Haslam’s every Christmas. It was also what I’d made for our wedding dinner. “The crab-apple jelly that Charlotte gave me back in the fall would make a nice glaze,” I added, thinking that brown sugar sounded too plain to Pat for Christmas fare.

Pat, again, didn’t say a thing.

I waited. I knew that the silence meant that Pat was picking and choosing his words. He had something to say, all right. He asked for less pork and more beef at our supper table, not only on Christmas but also on the other days of the year.

I didn’t say it out loud, but I heard Mrs. Haslam’s Cincinnati is Porkopolis, sir! ringing in my head. I did say to Pat that pork was cheaper around these parts, and he assured me that we could afford the extra expense of beef. That was how I knew that he’d received a raise at the Enquirer.

By the time Charlotte was about to give birth, she had a gal named Lucy who was helping her with the cooking and household chores. Cleneay Brothers, as Mr. Cleneay had promised her, was doing well, and the shop certainly wouldn’t miss my orders, but still I wanted Charlotte to know.

“Pat likes beef better than pork,” I said.

Charlotte rocked gently in her chair, her belly rounded and full. Now that she didn’t have to wash and iron her own or anyone else’s clothing, Charlotte only wore white, the color that had bedeviled her as a washerwoman. Shirtfronts spotted with jam or greasy gravy, sweat-yellowed underarms, blood on her husband’s aprons, these were all someone else’s troubles now. Charlotte, an angel, looked at me and said, “If he doesn’t relish what’s on your table, he’ll dine elsewhere, Alethea.”

That was all that Charlotte had to say on the matter, and it made my blood run cold. I knew what she meant. I knew that she wasn’t warning me about someone else’s cooking.

At the center of our first Christmas table was a roasted joint of beef. The crab-apple jelly I’d stirred into the pan drippings to give it sweetness and a pleasing gloss. Mashed turnips, sweet potatoes, a pickle plate—there were green peaches, watermelon rinds, and onions with mustard seeds—yeasted rolls, eggnog, apple custard, and gingerbread men for Bill.