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you been baking fruitcakes?” Emma asked next.
    “Quite a few years. I started in—way back now. You see, I was going through a rough patch at the time.”
    “What happened?” Emma hated to pry, but she was a reporter and she had a feeling she’d hit upon the key element of her article.
    “Larry and I had just split, and I have to tell you I took it hard.”
    “And Larry is?”
    “My ex-husband.”
    Emma couldn’t help observing that Earleen seemed more of a conversationalist when she stood on the other side of the kitchen counter. The closer she got to the table, the briefer her answers were. Emma speculated that was because of Earleen’s many years behind a bar. She’d always heard that bartenders spent a lot of time listening and advising—like paid friends. Or psychiatrists.
    “The first time I ever tried Mom’s fruitcake recipe was after Larry moved out.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Me, too. Have you ever been married?” Earleen asked.
    “No…” The sorry state of her love life was not a subject Emma wanted to discuss.
    “Larry and I were high-school sweethearts. He went to fight in Vietnam and when he got back, we had a big wedding. It was the type of wedding girls dream about. Wait here a minute,” she said and bustled out of the kitchen.
    In a couple of minutes, she returned with her wedding photograph. A radiantly happy bride smiled into the camera, her white dress fashioned in layers of taffeta and lace. The young soldier at her side was more difficult to read.
    “Unfortunately, Larry had a weakness for other women,” Earleen said sadly.
    “How long have you been divorced?”
    “From Larry? Since 1984.”
    “You’ve been married more than once?”
    “Three times.”
    “Oh.”
    “All my husbands were versions of Larry.”
    “I see.”
    “I didn’t learn from my mistakes.” Earleen turned away. Then, obviously changing the subject, she said, “I imagine you’ll want to sample my fruitcake.” She slid open the bread box and took out an aluminum-foil-wrapped loaf. “Have you noticed that people either love fruitcake or hate it?” she said companionably. “There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.”
    “That…seems to be true,” Emma agreed.
    “Like I said, I started baking after Larry left,” she said, busily peeling away the cheesecloth from the loaf-size fruitcake. “I’d never suffered that kind of pain before. I figured if you’ve ever been divorced you’d know what I mean.”
    Emma was confused. “I don’t exactly think of fruitcake as comfort food.”
    Earleen shook her head. “I didn’t eat it. I baked it. Loaf after loaf for weeks on end. I was determined to bake the perfect fruitcake and I didn’t care how long it took. I must’ve changed that recipe a hundred times.”
    “Why fruitcake?”
    She paused as if she’d never put it into words. “I’m not sure. I guess I was looking for the happiness I always felt as a kid at Christmastime.”
    There it was again, Emma mused. Christmas. It did people in emotionally, and she wasn’t going to allow that to happen, not to her. She found it easy enough to ignore Christmas; other people should give it a try. She might even see if Walt would let her write an article about her feelings. Emma believed she wasn’t alone in disliking all the hype that surrounded Christmas.
    “When I was with Larry and my two other husbands, I felt there must be something lacking in me,” Earleen continued. “Now I don’t think so anymore. Time will do that, you know?” She glanced at Emma. “As young as you are, you probably don’t have that much perspective.” Earleen paused and drew in a deep breath.
    Emma stopped taking notes. She suspected this was it; she was about to get to the real core of the interview.
    “By the time Larry and I split up, both my parents were gone, so I was pretty much on my own. I realize now that I was searching for a way to deal with the pain, although God knows the marriage was dead. That’s