I am Vivian Sterling, a name that is spoken with reverence in the world of American perfumery. My whole life has been dedicated to the world of fragrance. I could break down the scent of a summer rainstorm into seven chemical components. I could determine the vintage of a jasmine harvest from a single drop of oil on a blotter. My nose was my instrument, my gift, my curse, and my fortune. But now, where there used to be a symphony of smells, there was a deaf, muffled silence. I stared at the glass of wine before me. I knew it should smell of black currant, oak, and wet earth, but I felt nothing—only a faint, barely perceptible alcoholic ghost that broke through the congestion that had been plaguing me for months.
Dizziness came in waves. The world slightly swam before my eyes, as if someone had messed with the focus settings.
“Mom, you’re looking pale again.”
The voice of Marcus, my son, was soft and enveloping. He leaned across the table. His face held the kind of concern that is customary to display in polite society.
“You need to rest. You’re exhausting yourself in the lab. Why? You’ve already proven everything to everyone.”
Next to him sat Candace, his wife. She wore an emerald green dress that hugged her figure too tightly and too much gold around her neck. She nodded, her lips pursed in a sympathetic smile.
“Vivien, Marcus is right,” she chimed in, her voice as sweet as an overripe cantaloupe.
“We can see how hard this is for you. The fainting spells, the loss of smell. It’s just age. Nature is taking its course. Why suffer? Sign the power of attorney. Hand the business over to Marcus. We’ll buy you a condo on the coast. You can breathe the ocean air.”
Breathe the ocean air. What irony if I can’t smell my own coffee in the morning. What difference does it make what the sea smells like?
I looked at my son. In his eyes, so much like his late father’s, I searched for support, but saw only impatient expectation. He was my only heir. I built this empire for him. I sacrificed evenings, weekends, and my personal life, spending countless hours over retorts and beakers to create a legacy that would secure his future and that of his children. And now I felt like an old, broken mechanism waiting to be scrapped.
Maybe they were right. Maybe my time really was up. The last fragrance I created came out flat, soulless. I was losing my edge.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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