This, I tell my husband, is too much like a pin-up poster. He disagrees. Still.

Hazy memory. We’ve just attended an evening service, him next to Ray on the men’s side of the church, me on the opposite side with Ginnie and the other wives and their numerous calm children, and me frantically stuffing our baby girl with Cheerios because otherwise she’ll make noises and embarrass me half to death. Now we’re at Ginnie and Ray’s for dessert, pumpkin roll—spicy cake spread with a cream cheese filling, coiled up like a tube, and cleaved into slices.

Though we’re friends forever I almost never see Ginnie anymore. I love her outrageously. Next to Ruth Westenberger, she’s the godliest person I know. Ginnie’s kitchen counter is bare, stripped clean, which astonishes me. And when we’re wolfing down our cake, Ginnie says a strange thing. It’s a blessing, she remarks, to have an appetite.

Astounding. Not the usual message, for sure.

Prior to our visit I’d rolled quite a ways down the slippery slope. I was hardly enthralled with “plain”—the bobby-pinned heads and flappy dresses. Mostly the small knot of chums in my girlhood had been ordinary angsty souls, maybe mule headed, maybe jolly. Just, compared to other girls, we’d been handed harsher rules. So I’m thinking these individuals lined up in mud are simply persons who love hard labor and helping. They’re not wrapped in flags of gloriousness. If the masses who stared at the photo when it showed up on Instagram and Facebook comprehended, then fine. If it made them want to grab buckets and wade in, or if it merely merely hit their funnybones, lovely. Then it’s a perfectly perfect picture.