THEY’D AGREED: no Christmas presents this year. They had each other.
On the Saturday after Christmas, Floreta had the day off from her job at the supermarket deli. The tree was shedding its needles on the hardwood floor. Silver tinsel stuck to the bottoms of Cookie’s feet, and he tracked the strands from room to room as he shuffled about. He even brought them into their bed. Lately, at night, Floreta had been checking to make sure he was still breathing. She was afraid he might die in his sleep. The doctor had said Cookie had six months, maybe a year. There were treatments — chemo, radiation — but they wouldn’t make him well, would only prolong the inevitable, so Cookie would have none of them.
