To Nana, it wasn't a Christmas cake; it was just a family recipe, and she made it in wintertime because that's when the persimmons came ripe. But Mary's memory has plaited it together with her mother's holiday table-linens and the scent of pine needles: red, gold, green.
She makes it for parties, now, because it's difficult to eat more than a few bites: the sticky sweetness she loved as a child is overpowering now. But the fragrance brings her back; that fragile balance of taste and anticipation reminds her of her Nana's face, touched by a sadness she now understands.