Page forty-one was the part I kept turning back to, though I already knew what it said. There was my potato salad recipe, “Sunshine Potato Salad,” with Laura’s name printed under the title. I’d been making it since the county fair gave it a blue ribbon in ’87, or ’88. My daughter keeps the ribbons, so she could tell you. I never did remember which year.

The cookbook was spiral-bound and smelled like fresh ink. A few church ladies had made it up for the fall bazaar, and we were passing copies around after service.

I turned the pages slowly, because I like seeing the recipes people bring in. Then I saw mine.

I didn’t make a scene. I could have. Clara was sitting beside me, and I felt her hand stop on the page before she said, “That’s yours.”

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

Clara has known me long enough to know when I’m making my voice extra calm. She started to get up, but I touched her sleeve. I was sixty-eight. I’d buried two husbands and sat through plenty of church meetings. I could wait longer than a thirty-four-year-old could stay nervous.

That sounds a little smug, I know. I wasn’t proud of myself for keeping quiet. I just didn’t want the church to have a fight over potato salad before lunch.

Laura had come to our church with Pastor Mark the year before. She was polite and always busy, and she watched the older women like there was a test she hadn’t studied for.

At the spring women’s retreat, she stood near me while I made the salad for the lunch table.

“I want to learn some of the recipes everyone talks about,” she’d said.

I liked that. So I told her the basics. Potatoes, eggs, dressing. I showed her how I cut the potatoes while they were still warm and let her watch me mix everything. She took notes in a small spiral pad, writing down each thing I said.

I remember the pencil tapping on the edge of her paper. I remember thinking, good, she’s paying attention. I did not tell her every little step. Some parts of cooking are hard to explain while a room full of people are asking where the coffee went.

When the cookbook came out, Clara said, “You’re going to let that sit?”

“I’m going to wait,” I told her.

“Wait for what?”

“Lunch, I guess.”

That Sunday, our annual picnic was held on the church lawn. I brought my salad in the old yellow ceramic bowl I’ve used for years.

Laura came in with a glass dish of hers, covered with foil. She smiled when she set it down beside mine.

“Looks like we brought the same thing,” she said.

“Looks that way.”

She had named hers “Sunshine Potato Salad,” too. The title on page forty-one was copied right down to the sunshine. I did not tell her that.

There were two long tables, plenty of hot dishes, and enough people to make the line move slow. I watched folks take small scoops from both bowls. Nobody said anything mean. That is one thing I appreciate about church picnics. People can be extremely honest with a serving spoon and still mind their manners.

Laura’s salad sat heavy in the dish. It looked a little wet, and the dressing had collected at the edges. I saw maybe four spoons dip into it. Each person took a small bite, nodded politely, then walked on.

Mine was gone in about twenty minutes. The yellow glaze showed through at the bottom. I’d made a full bowl, same as always, and I’d looked away to help a woman find the napkins. When I looked back, there wasn’t enough left for one serving.

Clara leaned close. “You saw that, right?”

“I did.”

“Do you want me to say something?”

“No. Let the salad say it.”

I was trying to be funny, but I had to admit I felt pleased. Not happy Laura’s dish hadn’t gone over. Pleased that the cookbook hadn’t changed the truth. There is a difference, though I’m not sure it made me less proud.

Pastor Mark was busy eating lunch at the head table. Mark is a kind man and a very hungry one. He had a paper plate in his hand when he noticed my bowl was empty. He stood up, walked the length of both tables, and lifted the bowl in two hands.

Then he carried it toward the church kitchen.

I followed. I didn’t want him to come back out and announce anything before he understood what was happening. Clara started after me, but I gave her a small shake of my head.

In the kitchen, Mark set my bowl on the prep table. He was looking into the empty bottom as if there might be one last potato hiding in the yellow glaze.

“Do we have another crock?” he asked the kitchen crew. “Anything left?”

“Not in the fridge,” one of the women told him.

Mark turned to Laura, who’d come in behind us with her glass dish. It was still nearly full.

“Laura, why does yours taste like cold mayonnaise?” he asked. “I mean, this one had something. What did you do differently?”

Mark said it plainly, without a trace of malice. He was honestly puzzled. Laura’s hands tightened around the sides of her dish.

“I followed the recipe,” she said.

I could have let him keep going. I could have stood there while he talked about the two bowls and let the church kitchen crew listen in. I did not want that. So I said, “Mark, would you check the prep table for extra rolls? We’re short out there.”

He looked at me, then at the bowl. “Sure.”

He took it with him. Laura and I were alone with the racks, the dish towels, and her mostly untouched salad.

For a moment she only looked at the glass dish.

“I didn’t think it would be this different,” she said.

“Did you put the recipe in the book under your name?”

She nodded.

I kept my voice even. “You watched me make it at the retreat.”

“I wrote down what you said.”

“You wrote down the parts you heard.”

Her cheeks were red, and she gripped the dish so hard I thought she might drop it. I felt bad for her. I also felt mad. Both things were true.

“I wanted people to think I knew what I was doing,” she said. “Everyone here has been doing this for years. I feel like I’m just standing around while you all know each other.”

I understood more than I wanted to. When I was young, I wanted people to see I could manage a house and feed a family, too. I also knew how easily a person can turn that wanting into a reason to take something that belongs to someone else.

“You put your name on my recipe,” I said. “That wasn’t right.”

“I know.”

“Page forty-one.”

“I know.”

The way she said it made me stop. She wasn’t trying to talk her way out of it. She looked ashamed, and a little scared, too.

I pointed at the bowl Mark had carried off. “The salad isn’t a secret because it’s fancy. It’s just one step you missed.”

She looked up at me. “What step?”

“I toss the steaming potatoes with warm dill pickle brine, celery seed, and a little salt before I add the dressing. The brine is warm, not straight from the jar. I let it cook down a bit. It keeps the potatoes from going sodden, and it gives them flavor all the way through.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“No. You didn’t.”

She swallowed. “Can you teach me?”

I didn’t answer right away. I could have said yes and left it there. But the book was already printed, and her name was still on page forty-one. Being kind didn’t mean pretending that part didn’t matter.

“First, there has to be a correction,” I said.

“What kind?”

“An errata slip. A little label in every copy we sell at the fall bazaar. It will say who made the recipe and won the ribbon.”

She looked down at her dish again. “That’s fair.”

“It’s not to punish you. It’s to fix the page.”

“I’ll do it,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded. I believed she was sorry. I also wanted the name corrected. Both things could be true.

When Mark came back, he’d found two rolls and no extra potato salad. He glanced from Laura’s dish to my empty bowl.

“Are we all right?” he asked.

“We’re fine,” I said. “Laura and I have a plan.”

He looked relieved, which was sweet and slightly funny. He had been trying to solve a kitchen problem with his appetite and had walked into a whole other matter without noticing.

Laura took her full dish home. Nobody called her out on the lawn, and no one had to sit through a speech about honesty. The next week she came to the church kitchen and asked Clara where the labels were kept. She helped make the errata slips herself.

There was no big apology in front of the congregation. I didn’t need one. Laura and I made the next batch together, and she listened closer this time. She asked about the potatoes, then the brine, then the celery seed. I showed her how the warm vinegar mixture should look before it goes in.

“You don’t write that part down?” she asked.

“I do now,” I said. “But I still show you.”

She laughed a little. So did I.

At the fall bazaar, the unsold cookbooks sat in a neat stack beside the baked goods. Laura had made the labels, and I watched her press each one flat over the author line on page forty-one.

Her flour-dusted thumb smoothed the last small label into place. It read: “Created by the 1987 County Fair blue-ribbon winner.”