In the very back of the fridge, there’s a shiny silver object. It’s wrapped in tin foil, crinkled all over from multiple wrappings and unwrappings, catching on the fridge light like a disco ball. Although the inside is hidden, I know there’s another layer of wax paper, then a sizeable chunk of fruitcake, solid and unyielding to squeezes. If you’re brave enough to pick it up and sniff, there’s still the sweetness of candied fruit and nuts. It’s not rotten yet.

The recipe is old. There is a dark version, rum-soaked and rich, but this is the lighter version, faster to make, easier on old hands and tired muscles. Mixed in the biggest bowl in the kitchen, weighty and solid, used only for this purpose. Baked in a pan gone dark with use, then bundled into pieces and frozen, ready for holidays, guests, Christmas and joy.

It’s a December tradition. I visit my mother’s house, the same one I grew up in, with its fading familiar furniture and smell of history. We laugh and visit and eat. I sleep on a fold-out futon in a black basement. Heading out, my mother will always say, “oh, your fruitcake!” and send a random grandchild or nephew to the big boxy basement freezer to pull out a tin foil wrapped treasure. “This is for you,” she says, pressing the cold packet into my hand as we hug goodbye, a piece of the whole to take home, now that home means somewhere else.

The piece in the fridge is this year’s cake. It is the last one. There are times, I admit, I have not actually eaten the annual fruitcake piece, maybe nibbling on it a bit before tossing it into the compost bin in summer. This one though, I can neither eat nor toss. As long as it sparkles uncomfortably at the back of the fridge, nothing is final. It cannot hang on forever, I know this, but my heart cannot believe it. There will always be fruitcake, and farewell hugs at the door, and unspoken, tin-foil-wrapped love.

In my kitchen now, I have a giant, heavy, ceramic bowl. A blackened pan. A recipe card stained with vanilla, notes added in pencil. But no one else likes fruitcake, it’s too sweet and oddly textured and only for those who eat outside the lines. Perhaps someday I will take out the card and mix fruit and nuts in an enormous bowl and wrap my awkward and prickly work in wax paper and foil, and place it in the freezer, just for myself, just to know it’s there.

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