Sometimes I think the past is gone, as though a book has been closed and a new one opened. But then I watch Vera dance and see that transported but yet wise expression flit across her face. I see the same old motions and I know the past is here again in a new guise. Once again she’s thirty and struggling to stay alive and figuring out how to convey herself into her own place-world-space where no one, no man, can touch her. And when I see her persistence at making a sale, I know that it’s driven by her fear of poverty.

I know, too, that no matter what Jeannie decides, no matter how much Rosie or me or Allie help her deal with this tangled triangle, her life has been altered. Her relationship with her father is permanently changed. Someday, perhaps, it’ll be stronger and more honest. But the betrayal, the knowledge of it, exists in her present and into each and every day of her future … each and every one.

The past gets carried with us. It’s always there.

The song about teenage anxiety plays softly. We’re nineteen again with all our insecurities and hopes back in the age when decisions seemed without consequence because there was so much time to redeem them. Now everything is crucial. Or nothing is because so much of our lives are already played out.

Vera says, “These cookies are the ones you all love so much and want every year. The double-dipped peanut butter and chocolate.”

“I was hoping,” Rosie said, “Those are Kevin’s favorite.”

“But I did something different with the packaging. What I did is recycle the containers from previous years.” She reaches into one bag and pulls out a red canister with familiar Christmas balls on them.

“I brought that two years ago!” Allie says. Disney has wedged beside her on the couch, his chin on her thigh.

Vera hands it to me and I hand it to Charlene. Vera reaches into the bag again and pulls out a green tin with white holly leaves on it.

“I haven’t seen that in ages,” Rosie says. “So. You’ve been saving these all these years?”

“Yep. And this year I’m into recycling.” Vera hands over a large cup stuffed with tissue.

“Oh, I want the cup to match the other one that we got last year,” Allie says. “Jeannie brought that.”

“I remember when you used those velvet purses as containers. I used mine on New Year’s Eve,” Vera says as she passes a box decorated with red and gold squares and festooned with a gold bow and red bells.

“It’s like revisiting all our old parties.”

“All our old Christmases.”

“God. This must go back twelve years.” Charlene holds a merrily patterned box.

“Yep. Just think, we’ve gotten a hundred and forty-four different containers in the last twelve years.”

Vera hands off a green felt bag.