“You can come with me this year. The first time I talked with the head of donations. I told her about Tracy and made it clear that the cookies were for the families who were visiting their loved ones during this season. She had me fill out a form and they gave me a Christmas tree ornament. Here.” I stand up and unhook a silver-colored disk with the words “Tree of remembrance, 1998” from my Christmas tree. I pass it around so everyone can see it. “It’s on my tree and here for each cookie party.” I laugh as though the ornament knows it attended years of parties and celebrations between long sleeps in its dark box.

“Now they know me. I just hand the cookies every year to the person at the desk and she thanks me.”

“I always imagine the people at the hospice eating them,” Allie says. “I think about what they’re going through. The sadness, the darkness, the weirdness of that happening at Christmas. My grandmother’s youngest sister died in childbirth on Christmas Eve.” Allie shakes her head. “Think of the joy of a new baby, the horrible tragedy of losing your favorite sister, and the craziness of everyone celebrating the holidays.” Allie shrugs. “My grandmother adopted the baby and she became my favorite aunt. I think of that when I make my cookies. That and the anonymous people at the hospice for the last ten years.”

“Ten years. I’ve been cancer free that long,” Juliet says. “It’s my tenth year since my mastectomy, chemo, and radiation.” Ten years ago, Tracy’s mom dying and Juliet’s cancer. Everyone was fighting for their lives.

“It’s been five years for me,” Vera says. “You never stop thinking about it.” Vera had rectal colon cancer.

“Almost two years for me,” Allie says. “They just keep taking little parts of me, always those precancerous moles, luckily no more melanoma.”

“How many of us have had cancer?” I ask and raise my hand for the squamous cell carcinoma that was removed eight years ago and then some more three years ago. Six of us raise our hands.

“I had a rare form of bone cancer, back in my late twenties,” Charlene says. “And Alice, she’s had that basal cell carcinoma.”

“Seven of us? Seven out of twelve? Unbelievable.”

We’re quiet. Then Charlene says, “It’s the environment.”

“And the sun,” Allie adds. “The beaches we all love so much.”

“But do you think this is representative? That this great a percentage—more than half—will get some form of cancer?” Laurie asks as if all her healthy cooking is useless.

No one answers.

“So,” Rosie says. She stands and her motions are fast and her grin broad. She’s uncomfortable with this serious turn. She leans over and fills the empty glasses with wine, and when she straightens she asks, “Tracy. What about Tracy? Where’re her cookies?”

SALT