“I was going to, Mr. Cleneay.”

“I’m not a cook, Alethea.”

“I know that, Mr. Cleneay.”

“I would add it to the cooking liquids, Alethea.”

“You mean instead of stock?”

“I’m not certain, Alethea.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cleneay.”

“I’m happy to be at your service, Alethea. I’ve missed seeing you in the shop,” the butcher said. “Your face brightens the day,” he added.

“Mr. Hearn prefers beef,” I explained.

“There’s no accounting for taste,” said the butcher, with another wink.

Mr. Cleneay was right. He wasn’t a cook. Otherwise, he would have told me not to use the entire bottle.

The stew smelled like a drunk and tasted like vinegar. After one bite, Pat took his plate into the kitchen and scraped its contents into the bin. I’d even placed a sprig of parsley, wilting on the edge of that plate, and it landed on top of the heap, like a curly green bow. Pat left the house without saying a word to me.

I sat in the kitchen for a long while, after hearing the front door opened and shut. I watched the sunlight coming through the yellow-and-white gingham curtains that I’d sewn for the kitchen windows. I watched that light touch the tin kettle, the cast-iron pot and frying skillet, the wooden rolling pin and long-handled spoons, the knives, the blue-and-white dishes and bowls, their matching cups and saucers—I’d asked Pat for four of each, in case he invited someone over for supper, which he never did—and the serving platter with two pink cabbage roses at its center. I’d thought of them as belonging to me, but they all belonged to Pat now. He’d taken away my kitchen. He’d been doing it for months and months with his remarks. He completed the task that day. The slop in the bin was proof that I was no longer a cook. If I wasn’t a cook, I was no one.

Pat had figured it out on his own.

If you make the one dearest to you feel lesser than you, then the anger empties out of you, like pus and blood. You think it will make you heal, make you whole again, but it won’t. I’d seen it tried before. Molly had as well. So had Aunt Sweetie, Charlotte, Mr. Cleneay, his brothers. Bill would see it too.

I need a witness.

It startled me. It made me look around the kitchen to find the other woman, the one who must have thought it.

I need a witness.

It wouldn’t go away. It stayed in the house with me and Bill, and days later when Pat came home it shouted at me.

I need a witness.

No, I don’t know where Pat had spent those nights, Miss.

I didn’t stop hearing it until we were on the train headed to Indianapolis.

Bill and I, we were the ones who left first, Miss. But we were also the ones who came back. Pat was the one who would leave and never return.