HOW COULD MYA express that knowing she’d never smell again felt like the apocalypse? She had been given what she asked for, and now, four days later, she wasn’t dead. For that Mya was thankful. But the deep smells of garlic and celery and green peppers and onions sautéing in olive oil filled Mya with so much pleasure. She could recall it so vividly, the way the vegetables glossed in oil gave up their will and collapsed in the pan, saying, “Take me now, before I burn, succulent as I am.” Now she couldn’t remember the smells from those many nights in the kitchen. One smack to the head and countless nights of pleasure were forever lost, never to be experienced again. Just like that. It was her atonement for changing the formula. The cloud had lifted and disappeared, only to leave Mya behind with this lifelong loss.
And her days, she’d lost those too, since they had been taken up with mixing the finest oils in the world into new and unusual scents. The warm sensation that overcame her when she smelled musk, she could feel it still, but not a single trace lingered in her nose. Vanilla pleased her, she remembered, jasmine and ylang-ylang more. Soon after she’d awoken from surgery on the day of the accident, the doctor had informed her of the consequences. Willow had insisted on an extended stay at the hospital while Mya’s jaw healed. She believed it was the safest place for Mya. Mya’s body was bloated from painkillers and Jell-O. During this time, she had begun to substitute color for scent—white for chicken broth, purple for coffee, and burgundy for her family’s perfume. The colors of her memories spread before her like a collection of paint samples, and the world became a two-dimensional experience all at once.
What would hiking be without the smell of composted leaves on the forest floor? And sex too. It was Luke’s scent of fresh cut grass and rich Virginia soil blended with ocean-salt sweat that filled her body with lust. Was it possible that she’d never feel aroused again? Sex was all that had made her feel fully alive. With scent went taste, she knew. Everything that she’d lived for had been removed when the crown of her head busted through Luke’s windshield. Ninety-five stitches, plus all that Mya considered important.
She should be dead, or so said the emergency team that came to the scene.
Mya remembered only one thing before the crash: that last paranoid look into the rearview mirror to make sure the SUV was still parked at the overlook, and of course it was, of course. All it took were those few seconds, and the other car approached around the bend and Mya was in the wrong lane. She remembered little else: white sunlight, perhaps, her plea and the floating cloud, and then waking up in a gurney. She still had her body, but she had to live with no sense of smell for the rest of her life.
Lucia waited for Mya to speak for the first time in days, while their mother sat in a chair with a vacant look on her face, like a porcelain doll. Lucia sniffled for Mya, and Mya wanted to cry for Luke. Loving her was his only mistake. The other driver had to live, Luke had to walk again; she couldn’t accept any other result. They had to come out of this alive and strong. Mya loved Luke, and she hadn’t had the chance to tell him when he could hear her. She was frightened of love and commitment, and that was her excuse. She regretted very few things in her life more than this.
Lucia knelt by the side of the bed and rested her head on Mya’s arm. Each time Mya tried to talk, her throat began to burn, a result of the injury or her pride, she couldn’t quite tell. She would now depend on Lucia to mix the oils in her workshop, and she’d have to muster the humility to ask Lucia to do this for her. Lucia hadn’t committed to the study of the family trade, but now she had no other choice. Mya needed her sister. Her mother had long since lost her touch or interest or both. But still Mya couldn’t make her voice come. The idea that Mya would need someone else to smell for her—it was a grief she hadn’t yet fathomed.
“What is it?” Lucia put her cheek next to Mya’s face.
“A favor.”
“Anything,” Lucia said.
“Is it there?” Mya said, her voice raspy, her jaw aching.
Lucia stood and leaned closer to Mya’s mouth, and Mya repeated herself. At first Lucia tilted her head, but then she followed Mya’s gaze and said, “Oh—no, it’s gone. I haven’t seen it since you’ve been here.”
Mya took a deep breath. “I watched it go.”
“That’s good news, right?”
“Don’t trust it,” Mya managed to say. “Wasn’t Peter.”
Lucia grabbed Mya’s hands. “It’s fine now, it can’t get worse.” The heat in Lucia’s hands pulsated into Mya’s.
Mya squeezed Lucia’s hands. “It’ll kill me next.”
Lucia bit her lip.
“I need you,” Mya said, and Lucia’s false optimism fell from her face, her cheeks no longer high and round. “A spell.”
Lucia laughed in disbelief. “I can’t do that stuff,” she said.
“Now,” Mya said.
Willow stood from her chair and walked over to the bed. Mya was relieved to see her mother in motion. Her silence since she’d arrived unnerved Mya more than anything else. Willow said, “What’re you asking her to do?” Willow petted Mya’s head. When was the last time she’d done that?
Mya said, “Protect me.”
Lucia pushed away from the bed and put one hand on her forehead. She said, “I can be president, I think. I can try at least, but not this. This is sort of ridiculous. I was never good at it then, even in make-believe on the playground, and I just wanted away from it all. And now you’re telling me I need to do it or else you’ll die?”
Mya looked to their mother.
“Let me help you,” Willow said.
“Oh no,” Lucia said. “You agree with her? Really? With all that pain medication? You know under normal circumstances she’d never let me into her workshop. She used to tackle me to the ground to get me out.”
This was true, unfortunately. Mya had tried locking the door, but Lucia could pick it. She tried shouting, but Lucia wouldn’t budge, impervious to her anger. Mya couldn’t concentrate with Lucia in the room studying her every move, and a few times she’d tackled her to the floor in order to remove her. “Sorry,” Mya said, even though she knew it was twenty-five years too late.
“I can’t,” Lucia said, her hands on her hips. “I come home, the business is going bust, you want me in as president, and I said yes. To help the family and try to save this big mess Mya and you made.” Mya looked over at her mother, whose face was as alert as an owl’s. But Lucia continued. “And the damn flowers could die. Really die. Like not come back, ever, die.”
Willow put her hand up like a stop sign.
Lucia continued on: “And I never asked much about the flowers growing up I guess, but they’re the weirdest damn flowers in the entire world. You know that, right? They’re totally voyeuristic. Ben and I figured that out. Alone. On our own. Get what I’m saying?”
Willow said, “Not really,” but Lucia kept rolling, her gaze fixed on the floor. “And I had really amazing news for you guys and couldn’t wait to see you.”
Willow said, “What?”
“I wanted to explain the day Ben and I figured it out and I wanted to tell you both in person. But then I got the phone call and Mya was in the hospital.” She stretched her arms out to the ceiling like she was praising God and said, “Who gives a damn if I know how to save them? Who gives a damn if I’m having a baby and that it’s the only way to save the flowers? Already—go out to the field and see for yourself—the scent’s back, I swear it. That’s how I know I’m pregnant. No test required. But on top of all that, I need to go home and make a protection spell for Mya? It’s too much for one visit home.” And with that Lucia left the room and slammed the door, and Mya watched as two ICU nurses followed after her with shushing fingers held to their lips.
Willow sat back down and rested her hands in her lap. “I don’t remember hormones working that fast,” she said.
Mya’s little sister would have a baby before her. Lucia was the one the flowers had chosen; the business and everything else belonged to her.
“And how did the flowers . . . ?” Willow asked, talking to herself, “Oh,” she answered. “Oh. How strange.”
“Mom,” Mya tried to say, but her mother drowned her out with a long hum.
“A granddaughter.” Willow’s face brightened. “That Bennie, I knew it.”
Mya grabbed an empty plastic cup from her tray and tossed it at her mother. Willow gave a little shout. Tears streamed down Mya’s face, and Willow stood up and embraced her.
“Oh, honey,” she said.
Only one sister had an heir. Only one daughter could become president. After all these years of Mya’s tending to the flowers and the business, the flowers wanted Lucia—this was the final blow. Mya wanted some love to call her own. She’d concentrated on herself so long that all she had expected to come to her had passed her by, and she had nothing now. Unless Luke still loved her. And why would he? She had almost killed him, and he might never be able to work the farm again.
Mya let her mother hold her hand for a long time, both of them quiet with understanding. Lucia returned to the room ten minutes later. Mya couldn’t look at her, but she could feel her standing there.
Lucia finally said, “I shouldn’t have told you like that.”
Willow held out an arm for Lucia, inviting her in for a hug. Lucia came to her and Willow said, “We’re happy for you, make no mistake about that.”
Mya wished she could be happy for Lucia and the flowers and the family business, but she just wasn’t ready.
“I’ll try, Mya,” Lucia said. “If you want me to.”
What did Mya want now? She’d been stripped of her power, just like she’d asked for prior to blacking out, but what was she left with? Luke was on another floor, knocked out in surgery for the third time. And no one would tell her what this one was for. Mya might make it through all of this with him and he might love her still. That small possibility was all she had left.
“Should I do it?” Lucia said.
Mya turned her face away from her mother and sister and nodded. For the first time in her life she could imagine having a child, but now she’d never have the chance to smell the scent of a newborn. Mya had never tried to make anything from pure love before, and she was certain she was too broken to try. She couldn’t have made a protection spell even if she were well.